{"id":135778,"date":"2017-12-03T00:19:44","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T05:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=135778"},"modified":"2017-12-03T00:19:44","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T05:19:44","slug":"bc-liberal-leadership-hopefuls-on-the-defence-debating-plans-for-partys-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/03\/bc-liberal-leadership-hopefuls-on-the-defence-debating-plans-for-partys-future\/","title":{"rendered":"BC Liberal leadership hopefuls on the defence debating plans for party’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Dianne Watts (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

KELOWNA, B.C. \u2014 Several of the BC Liberals leadership hopefuls were on the defence as their fellow candidates picked apart their platforms during a heated debate in Kelowna, B.C., on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Todd Stone and Andrew Wilkinson called out former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts for not having released a platform in the campaign that is set to wrap up in two months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are over half way through this campaign. We have yet to hear a single plan on a single topic including what your vision is,\u201d Stone said to Watts.<\/p>\n

Watts said she’s spent the last two months travelling around the province listening to voters \u2014 a move she adds the party failed to do ahead of the spring election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost the election because you guys stopped listening,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we’ve ever got a hope to get back into government, we need to make sure we are re-enaging and rebuilding the trust that was lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Wilkinson said the party’s elected members are already reaching out to constituents and what is needed is a leader offers action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re all fully capable of listening but thinking about things, planning the future, being exciting is what this race is going to have to be about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Watts wasn’t the only one of the six candidates that came under fire during the debate.<\/p>\n

She questioned Stone’s record as the province’s former transportation minister, arguing the party lost seats in Lower Mainland in last spring’s election over a lack of transit improvements.<\/p>\n

Stone said the Liberals invested billions in transit and the party’s proposed infrastructure projects, namely replacing the bottlenecked George Massey Tunnel with a bridge, are being quashed by the current NDP government.<\/p>\n

He also defended his plans to cut taxes and increase childcare spaces in the province, while calling Wilkinson’s proposals \u201ctimid and tired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former finance minister Mike de Jong, who introduced a tax on foreign homebuyers last year, was quizzed on his plans to address housing affordability in the province \u2014 a key issue in the last election that has resurfaced in the leadership debate.<\/p>\n

De Jong said a solution to housing affordability in the province would be to increase the supply by legislating that municipalities speed up approvals on new developments.<\/p>\n

There will be two more events where the six candidates will go head-to-head before party members selects a new leader in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KELOWNA, B.C. \u2014 Several of the BC Liberals leadership hopefuls were on the defence as their fellow candidates picked apart …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":119271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[27935,36752,36753,27039],"class_list":["post-135778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-andrew-wilkinson","tag-bc-liberals-leadership","tag-former-surrey-mayor-dianne-watts","tag-todd-stone","mauthors-linda-givetash","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}