Rejection of ‘star’ candidates in B.C. raises questions about federal parties’ internal vetting​on March 26, 2025 at 1:00 pm

The rejection of several potential star candidates has raised questions about the internal vetting and candidate selection processes of the federal Liberal and Conservative parties.

On Tuesday, former B.C. premier Christy Clark announced she had been refused by the Liberals, joining her former finance minister Mike de Jong, a 30-year veteran of the B.C. legislature, and Anita Huberman, former CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade, who had been turned away by the Conservatives in recent weeks.

“I indicated a strong willingness to run. I wanted to take on the Conservatives and deliver a riding for our party that we don’t currently hold,” Clark said of her desire to be the Liberal candidate in South Surrey-White Rock, which is represented by Conservative incumbent Kerry-Lynne Findlay.

“The party has moved in a different direction. That’s politics.”

Clark’s candidacy had faced local opposition from party members who were concerned by her past affiliations with the Conservatives, a revelation that helped sink her potential bid to be leader of the Liberals in January.

Brittney Kerr, a founding partner of Framepoint Public Affairs and former co-chair for the Liberal’s national campaign in 2019, said she believes the other problem for Clark was that candidate Ernie Klassen, a White Rock city councillor, had already been approved by the party.

She said that even with questions about Clark’s party loyalty and the fact the Liberals had already chosen a candidate, the final decision was likely to have been a hard one.

” Christy is a former premier, a blue liberal, a hell of a communicator and would have been a formidable opponent to the current Conservative MP,” said Kerr.

“It would seem to me that they elected to go with someone who’s local and calls South Surrey-White Rock home.”

The Liberals did not respond to a request for comment on Clark in time for publication.

De Jong said the decision on Clark by the Liberals and Huberman by the Conservatives were “baffling” and he still hasn’t heard more from the Conservatives about why they rejected his own nomination, outside of a three-line statement that he says told him he wasn’t qualified, and acclaimed 24 year-old Sukhman Singh Gil as the candidate in Abbotsford-South Langley.

He said he sees a growing trend within political parties at the federal, provincial and local levels to centralize candidate selection instead of allowing local party members to choose who they want to be their representative.

“In the absence of explanations from the mysterious people who make these decisions, it’s difficult to know what is driving them. Is it a concern that people with experience may actually have some independent thought and they bring a skill set that allows them to stand up forcefully for their constituents?” asked de Jong.