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Abbott focuses on smaller ridings in final push

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B.C. Liberal leadership candidate George Abbott speaks in Castlegar on Thursday.

George Abbott made his final stop in the West Kootenay on Thursday in advance of Saturday’s vote.

“Well, it’s a critical riding,” Abbott said of the region. “The voter population, the B.C. Liberal voter population is relatively small here, and it’s an opportunity to come in and in a meeting or two perhaps make a difference in the outcome.”

Abbott said he’s been focused on rural communities in the days leading up to the election, as he believes there is a greater chance of influencing the vote.

But he dismisses reports that Christy Clark has a large lead in polls.

“The Clark camp has been spinning the media quite extensively about how large a lead she has. All our polling, all our voter IDs suggest it’s quite a narrow lead that she has, she will be nowhere near … pulling off a first ballot victory in this, and if she does not, the second ballot will be very supportive … We believe we will survive those two rounds and we believe the cross support that we have will be quite extensive and will give us a good shot at winning this thing.”

The Shuswap MLA from Sicamous said because he’s from a rural riding, he has tended to focus on other rural ridings throughout the campaign.

“I have tended to focus on things like agriculture which no other candidate has done, resource development which we haven’t seen as much from other candidates, and we’ve spent some time in Surrey, but that’s not going to be a base of strength for me,” Abbott said. “There’s a lot of sign-ups in Surrey – thousands of them – and to attempt to go in there and influence four dozen votes, or 50 votes, or 100 votes even, it would barely move us up or down a point in the new point system.

“Here, 100 votes could mean a huge shift in terms of the number of points secured. I’ve focused on the rural part because that’s where government needs to improve a lot of our public policy. I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job on agriculture as we should have, I don’t think we’ve done as good a job on mining, or oil and gas, forestry as we should’ve and I intend to work very hard in those areas to build stronger regions and stronger communities within those regions.”

Throughout the campaign Abbott said two things have been brought up again and again in all areas of the province: reconnection with grassroots B.C. and building regional economies.

“Even [in downtown Vancouver] people were feeling that the government has stopped listening to them for a couple years and desperately needs re-engagement, so that’s been a theme up to and including today, and that’ll be our theme tomorrow,” Abbott said. “Heck, I don’t even know where we’re going to be tomorrow!”

Building regional economies will be a priority if elected, Abbott said.

“In many cases it’ll be a resource economy, but building regional economies, that has been a resonant theme with people that children who grow up in communities in regions should have an opportunity to get a good education, to get skills training, to get professional training in the community and region in which they grew up,” he said. “And that means building more educational opportunities closer to where the resources are being produced in the province, and we can do that quite readily.”

On this tour, Abbott had two ex-Liberal leadership hopefuls with him: Ed Mayne and Dr. Moira Stilwell. He believes having the endorsements of both has been a huge advantage.

“It has been very, very helpful in terms of building momentum to have the endorsement of both Ed and Moira, that was very big, that helped our campaign enormously when that happened,” he said. “We have also secured the 20th MLA on the George Abbott team and I’m optimistic that we will shortly see the 21st MLA on the George Abbott team so that has been very helpful from a momentum perspective as well.”

Less than two hours after Abbott spoke those words, Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Kevin Krueger announced his endorsement for Abbott.

The new premier will be voted in on Saturday.