Sechelt was the location for a BC Liberal Party leadership campaign stop recently, with George Abbott pledging to reach out to all sectors of the province and to restore faith and trust in government.
Abbott, one of six candidates seeking the party leadership (other candidates include Christy Clark, Mike de Jong, Kevin Falcon, Ed Mayne and Moira Stillwell), was invited by BC Liberal Riding Association for Powell River-Sunshine Coast for a luncheon.
Abbott talked about his history as a politician, his personal life, his candidacy, why he should be the next Liberal leader and premier of the province and answered a few other questions from about 40 association members.
“We have fundamentally lost the trust and confidence of many British Columbians, including many members of our own BC Liberal Party,” Abbott said. “We have an enormous amount of work over the next two years to rebuild that trust and confidence. I am not one that will go to a snap election. We will take the next two and a half years to show British Columbians that we will lead by not only our words, but by our actions that we do government differently than we’ve done in the last two years.
“We need to re-establish the fact that we will listen to people, that we will honour the voices of British Columbians again, that we will respect the diverse arrays of opinion that exist in this province and that we will include the public in public policy again.”
Abbott said the biggest barrier to re-electing a Liberal government in 2013 is in fact the Liberal government itself.
“If we do business as we should for the next two and a half years, I believe we will completely kick the butts of the NDP [New Democratic Party] in 2013,” he said. “If we behave like we have for the past year and a half over the next two and a half years, we will not win, I can tell you that. No matter how smooth, or sharp or bubbly or flashy we will be, and I suspect I’m none of those things, no matter what we say, it will not matter if we don’t do the business of government differently. We won’t be re-elected and rightly so, because we won’t deserve the confidence and respect of British Columbians.”
Abbott said the party needs to have a different type of demeanor, approach and style to government to rebuild the province and he thinks that he can do that.
“We’re not competing against New Democrats, we are competing against friends and colleagues so that makes this campaign unique,” he said during an interview with Coast Reporter prior to his address. “One of the things I did early in the race was to call all the competitors and congratulate them on entering the race and to say that I would be proud to serve in a government in which they led. That’s the tone we’ve been trying to bring to this campaign. It’s important that we be united as a party when we emerge from this on February 27. The long game here is May 2013. The long game is to ensure that we form a free-enterprise government again.”
The party will hold a province-wide leadership vote on February 26. Voting will be online and via telephone.
