Stone contemplating another Liberal leadership run

Oct 27, 2020 | 2:23 PM

Todd Stone has a tremendous amount of respect for Andrew Wilkinson and his intelligent, thoughtful approach. However, the Kamloops-South Thompson MLA admits his leader’s lack of charisma may have hurt him in the end.

“There’s no question that Andrew had challenges connecting at a personal level, I think, with voters,” Stone told CFJC Today. “His message and the delivery of the message did not connect with as many voters as one needs in order to win a provincial election.”

Stone doesn’t think the results would have changed drastically without Wilkinson at the helm. Wilkinson will remain the B.C. Liberal leader until another is chosen.

Unlike the last leadership race in the spring of 2018 when the Liberals needed a leader quickly under a minority government, the party has more time.

“This time around, we have four years in front of us, so I do believe the party needs to take some time to breathe, to assess what exactly happened in this election,” he said.

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A big concern for the party is its drop in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, where they now hold just nine of 47 seats. They swept the B.C. Interior with all six ridings, including the two in Kamloops.

“We’re certainly going to have some work to do as a party, obviously, to make sure our policies and our ideas resonate with the Metro areas, as well as the rural areas,” noted Peter Milobar, who won Kamloops-North Thompson for a second straight election. “We have four years here. We don’t need to solve all of Saturday’s election results by Monday morning.”

Meanwhile, Stone ran in the 2018 race and lost, knocked out in the third round of voting. Will Stone take another run at the party’s leadership?

“It’s certainly something I will entertain when the time is right. I don’t believe the time is right at the moment,” he noted. “I again believe the party needs to take some time here and breathe and really assess this last election, the results. What do we need to do? Everything should be on the table.”

Stone believes the party needs to get younger and more diverse.

by Chad Klassen

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