B.C. Liberal party in court as members cast votes for new leader

British Columbia's Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a last-minute petition today asking it to delay the release of results for the new leader of the B.C. Liberal party.

Seven candidates are running for the job and voting started Thursday, but a Liberal party member is asking the court to delay the scheduled release of the results on Saturday for 15 days.

Vikram Bajwa wants the court to force the party to provide details of its audit of thousands of new memberships signed up during the campaign.

His petition also asks that the party be ordered to reveal its conclusions on whether any co-ordinated voter fraud took place in the leadership race.

Liberal spokesman David Wasyluk has said the party took reasonable steps to determine voter eligibility by reviewing and auditing party memberships.

The seven leadership candidates are legislature members Michael Lee, Ellis Ross and Renee Merrifield; business leaders Gavin Dew, Val Litwin and Stan Sipos; and Kevin Falcon, a former cabinet minister.

The party has about 43,000 members, who are able to vote online or by phone on a new leader to replace Andrew Wilkinson, who resigned shortly after the party's October 2020 election defeat.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2022.