Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris believes the BC Liberal party will get back on track under the leadership of newly-elected leader Andrew Wilkinson.
He won the leadership election on Saturday over Dianne Watts with 53% of the vote.
The local member of the province’s Legislative Assembly was behind Wilkinson every step of the way.
“He’s a man of integrity, he’s an honest guy with a broad band of experience to support him having been a medical doctor and a lawyer and as he has travelled throughout the province, he has gained a lot of knowledge about what British Columbia is all about.”
Morris believes the former advanced education minister has all the intangibles.
“I sat beside him in the house and I got to know him quite well and I think he’s got the qualities we need for a leader in British Columbia – he’s a team builder, he’s a consensus builder and he’ll work well with everybody.”
“He recognizes the fact that rural BC contributes probably 75% of the resource exports that we have in British Columbia and the value that is to the province.”
Wilkinson’s northern ties and foresight for the region could prove to be an X-factor in places like Prince George and abroad.
“Prince George is pretty much within the geographical centre of BC pretty much, we rely on the resource sector throughout the province and what he can do is work hard to get LNG up and running to look at getting a petrochemical plant up and running so that the industry is established in British Columbia so that everybody has jobs and to establish physiotherapy and increase capacity in our medical facilities here in Prince George and northern area.”
As for the BC Liberals as a whole, Morris states the party stands united despite some changes at the top following last spring’s election loss.
“We’ve got a strong caucus, everybody gets along very and you’re going get differences of opinion and differences of strategies surface during the leadership debates that we have had but now that it’s over, we had a democratic process to appoint a new leader and everyone will get behind Andrew 100% of the way.”
Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad also threw his support behind Wilkinson.
Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond will provide her thoughts on the new leader later today.