Analysis: B.C. Conservatives get Caroline Elliott after all - National Post

Former B.C. Conservative leadership candidate Caroline Elliott will run in the Oct. 24 provincial election. Photo by Stuart McNish/Conversations That MatterArticle contentThe tables have turned.

Four months ago, Caroline Elliott lost the B.C. Conservative leadership to Kerry-Lynne Findlay on a 51-49 fourth-ballot runoff. Findlay is gone. Elliott is now on the ballot in West Vancouver-Capilano, her North Shore turf, in the snap election Premier David Eby called for Oct. 24.

“If I was ready to jump in for leadership and lead the party — and ultimately, in an ideal world, the province,” she told me early Monday, “then I should be able to step up for my local riding.”

Eagle-eyed readers will note that I wrote about Elliott just last week, when she hadn’t yet confirmed she was running. She’s an important figure in this election, which is important for B.C., and I wanted to speak with her to follow up.

Political Hack gets at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill. Wednesdays and Fridays.

Lorne Doerkson, the interim leader the party board says will stay on if Conservatives win, gets her “full-hearted endorsement.” I asked, bluntly, about her own ambitions. She lost a knife-edge race to someone who did not last. There is not a whiff of woe-is-me.

“It’s funny,” she says. “I don’t know if I’m as ambitious as people think. I’m really driven on the issues, but if I can drive them in a different way, I’ve never felt that it had to be, you know, me at the top of the totem pole.”

Doerkson, she says, is the right person. “He’s such a good and decent man.” It is not only his legislative and business experience, “he brings an authenticity B.C. is ready for after years of David Eby, who does not present in the same way at all.”

“If he earns a mandate from the public of British Columbia, then I think it would be entirely reasonable for him to say that’s mandate enough to continue leading the party.”

She does not need the title; she wants the files. She is comfortable Doerkson cares about many of the same ones. “I feel pretty comfortable that I’ll be able to pursue those things under his leadership.”