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B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson attends a press conference following the budget speech from the legislative assembly at Legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press

Governments get bounced from power all the time in Canada. It’s just a more difficult reality for those that have owned the corridors of power through a succession of election cycles.

After being in office for 16 years, British Columbia’s Liberal Party is now discovering what the view is like from the Opposition benches. Even though it’s been more than a year and a half since the New Democratic Party took over, many Liberal MLAs are still struggling with the transition.

The party looks lost. It doesn’t help that the front row of the Opposition benches is inhabited by former cabinet ministers responsible for files and issues that have come to haunt the Liberals. Take your pick: money laundering, the dumpster fire that is the province’s public insurer, the housing crisis, the financial mess at BC Hydro.

Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson looks across at a government caucus that is far younger than his own, is far more ethnically diverse and includes more female faces. He knows that the old, white male look that largely continues to define his party needs to change. Consequently, the Liberals are in the throes of a recruitment drive they hope will result in a candidate field for the next election that better reflects the demographic and ethnic makeup of the province.

This is harder than it sounds.

First, you have to have openings for these prospective new candidates in ridings where they stand a reasonable chance of winning. That means a raft of long-time MLAs are going to have to announce they won’t be seeking re-election. It’s much better for a party leader if these MLAs take the hint and leave on their own accord. But if they don’t, well, that is something with which Mr. Wilkinson will have to deal. He may well have to refuse to sign the nomination papers of some Liberal MLAs who are now are a drag on the party’s fortunes; if they decide to seek re-election, he will have no choice.

But that is just one issue with which the Liberals are grappling. The party is also experiencing an identity crisis. It is facing a government that appears on the “right side” of several contentious issues, such as housing.

The New Democrats have brought in a raft of measures, mostly taxes, that were designed to cool an out-of-control housing market. Normally, a centre-right party such as the Liberals would rail against fees of this nature. But to do so, in this case, means backing the complaints of millionaires who don’t like the government placing a tax on their $3-million home. In a metropolitan area where the notion of home ownership is out of reach for many, a political party needs to be careful on which side of this issue it falls. The Liberals were seen as a party of the rich. It can’t continue to own that label.

But so many of the most onerous files with which the NDP government is dealing are messes left behind by the Liberals. How does an opposition attack a government on these matters knowing its benches are populated with MLAs responsible for their creation? If nothing else, these first 17 months of NDP rule have revealed some staggering examples of incompetence by the previous Liberal administration.

It is one reason that, more often than not, the Liberals have been dreadful in Question Period. They have a rising star or two, former television reporter Jas Johal being the most obvious among them, but generally the Liberals continue to be weighed down by veterans who have lost their touch.

Their performance in the first Question Period following this week’s provincial budget was an embarrassment. Finance Minister Carole James seemed to delight in batting away one lame question after another. After 30 minutes of this, one thing was clear: The Liberals have not yet come to terms with their lot in life.

Perhaps this should not be a surprise when you’re used to being in power. In fact, many Liberals believe they should still be running the show. They won 43 seats after all. (One MLA has since jumped ship.) The NDP won 41 and is only in power thanks to an alliance with the Greens. In some ways, it would have been better if the Liberals had lost in a landslide. Then taking the party down to the studs would have been easier. Yet, it still has to be done.

That all dynasties get dethroned is a cruel fact of life.

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