VANCOUVER – The new leader of the British Columbia Liberals has won a voice in the legislature after a landslide victory in a traditionally safe seat for his party.
Kevin Falcon will represent Vancouver-Quilchena in Victoria after preliminary results show he has won 59 per cent of the vote in a byelection with 97 per cent of ballot boxes re- porting.
The former cabinet minister won the Opposition party’s leadership race in February.
He fills the seat left vacant by former Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson, who won the riding in 2020 but resigned to make way for Falcon to sit in the legislature.
Falcon’s closest competitor was the NDP’s Jeanette Ashe, who won about 24 per cent of the vote, followed by Green candidate Wendy Hayko with 10 per cent, Conservative Dallas Brodie with seven per cent and Libertarian Sandra Filosof-Schipper with one per cent.
Falcon told a crowd of supporters at the party’s headquarters in Vancouver that he has heard concerns from voters about housing and fuel prices, as well as a lack of access to family doctors.
“Tonight we got a wonderful message from voters of Vancouver-Quilchena, that said it is time for the end of empty rhetoric, it is time for a government that gets results,” Falcon says.
