If Dianne Watts thought she could come to Prince George and wipe the floor of the Coast Inn of the North with her five male leadership contenders Saturday, she left town deeply disappointed.
The former Surrey mayor performed poorly at the standing-room-only debate, constantly running over time far more often than the others and needing her mic turned off. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, she fell flat on her face almost right out of the gate.
Early in the debate, Watts took the other leadership candidates to task - all five of them sitting Liberal MLAs, unlike herself - on why they didn't approve funding for a new Terrace hospital or kick in cash for engineering and physiotherapy seats at UNBC in Prince George.
"I'm wondering why that wasn't in our last platform," she said. "If it's this important and we have identified it and we know about it, it should have been in the last platform and I'm disappointed that it wasn't."
Mike de Jong wasted no time in pointing out her mistake.
The Terrace hospital was in the official B.C. Liberals platform book, while the engineering seats were promised by Prince George MLAs Shirley Bond and Mike Morris at an announcement in early May, a week before the provincial election. The former finance minister went on to explain that funding for the engineering program would have been in the Liberal budget, had Christy Clark's minority government not fallen.
Compared to Clark, Watts was a cardboard cutout, wooden in her delivery. If she was playing it safe, believing an early poll that puts her in the lead for leader, she'll find out the hard way that it's a long way to February, when the party faithful cast their ballots.
Clark surprised everyone when she won the party leadership and then beat Adrian Dix's NDP in the provincial election. Her recipe of hard-working optimism - a friendly face to fiscal conservatism - was a hit with both party members and voters.
To varying degrees, it was the five male candidates who sought to mirror their former boss, energizing the room with both upbeat rhetoric and fiery attacks against the NDP.
It was clear early on that Sam Sullivan was a fly-in, fly-out candidate who, unlike his fellow contenders, hadn't spent time in the region in the days leading up to Saturday.
The best line he had to show he knew anything about the area and its people was when he thanked Prince George in his closing remarks for being the first B.C. municipality to support Vancouver's bid for the Winter Olympics.
Michael Lee impressed with his knowledge and his straight-forward answers but he's the new kid on the block, only recently elected MLA this past spring. While he didn't make a gaffe like Watts, his lack of depth compared to de Jong, Andrew Wilkinson and Todd Stone - all cabinet ministers in the previous government - was apparent. Those three were the best performers Saturday.
Stone, a Kamloops MLA and the only Interior leadership candidate, owned the stage several times, his can-do attitude and warm demeanour engaging the audience, but too often he couldn't hold back the angry conservative. That same kind of sneering contempt for John Horgan and the NDP alienated voters and cost Clark the election.
It's clear why former Liberal MLA Pat Bell has endorsed de Jong.
He has served as an MLA even longer than Shirley Bond, like her holding key cabinet posts under both Clark and Gordon Campbell. He knows his party, what it stands for and the people who believe in those principles.
He was blunt and honest with his answers without sounding dour and his attacks against the NDP were sharp but without rage or whiny entitlement. Like Bell, de Jong is quick with a joke to lighten the mood but is clearly a fellow who knows how to take care of himself when the gloves come off.
The winner - on points by this judge - was Wilkinson. The choice of Morris for leader, Wilkinson commanded the stage for most of the time his microphone was on. When Watts challenged him to identify two elements of the last Liberal Throne Speech - mocked as the "clone speech" for its heavy borrowing of the NDP platform - Wilkinson met and exceeded her dare, rejecting all of it. He spoke with passion and determination, particularly on the NDP's plan for a proportional representation referendum, sharing the insights he had gained by talking to area residents and political leaders.
Regardless of how the race goes, the depth of the B.C. Liberals was on clear display Saturday.
Contrast that to the NDP, a party Horgan inherited because no one else wanted the job and the only other serious contender for leader dropped out.
Based on her weekend performance, Watts isn't up to the task but all five other candidates have at least some of the necessary ingredients to make fine party leaders for the Liberals and offer a strong alternative to Horgan.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
