Kevin Falcon

Kevin Falcon is a Canadian politician. He is a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the district of Surrey-Cloverdale and is a member of the BC Liberals. He served as both the Deputy Premier, and the province's Minister of Finance.^[1]

Personal life

Born in British Columbia, Falcon holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Simon Fraser University. He lives in Surrey, British Columbia with his wife Jessica and daughter Josephine.^[2]

Politics

Falcon's first step into the public arena was as a lead organizer of the "Total Recall" effort to recall a number of BC New Democratic Party MLA's in 1999.^[3]

He was first elected in 2001 as a BC Liberal to represent the riding of Surrey-Cloverdale, and re-elected in the 2005, and 2009 elections.^[4]

Once Falcon was promoted to Minister of Health, he proposed changes to the health regulations regarding sales of contact lenses and eyeglasses which removed the requirement of a physical inspection of a prescription allowing their sale over the internet.^[5] The proposed changes came into effect May 1, 2010 and were criticized by many optometry professional associations.^[6]

Professional health care associations objected on two grounds; that allowing opticians to perform sight tests would result in patients receiving less frequent comprehensive eye exams, and that allowing retailers to dispense eyeglasses and contact lenses without verifying a prescription may result in improperly fitted prescriptions or harmful health effects. The Canadian National Institute for the Blind released a statement in support of the first objection.^[7] The American Optometric Association released a statement supporting both objections,^[8] and the University of Waterloo released a statement expressing concern over the health regulation changes and presented academic literature indicating that these changes will significantly increase the prevalence of undetected eye diseases ultimately leading to vision loss. ^[9]

The opposition argued that Falcon changed the rules in 2010 after Clearly Contacts donated more than ten-thousand dollars to the BC Liberal Party. Also, an email from Clearly Contacts was sent out to eligible voters urging them to join the BC Liberal Party and vote for Falcon as leader. The NDP opposition noted the donation and email was a conflict of interest. Falcon said, "The decision we made was on the side of more competition and lower prices for consumers." Falcon admitted he did not run the decision past the conflict of interest commissioner.^[10]

Leadership campaign

On November 3, 2010, Premier Gordon Campbell announced that he would step down as premier of British Columbia once his successor was chosen. On November 30, 2010, Falcon launched his campaign to be the leader of the BC Liberal Party, and subsequently the Premier of British Columbia.^[11]

Falcon is regarded as one of the more conservative members of caucus and was able to secure a large number of supporters from the British Columbia business community.^[12][13] He was also supported by 19 BC Liberal caucus members, one former caucus members and Liberal Party Senator Larry Campbell.^[14][15]

On December 11, the Vancouver Sun reported that Falcon's social media traffic was the highest of declared candidates.^[16] Throughout the campaign he refused to call for a full public inquiry into the sale of BC rail and associated scandal, which involved allegations of bribes paid to Liberal insiders. However, he agreed to an investigation into why the government paid $6 million in legal fees for Liberal party aides Robert Virk and David Basi after they pleaded guilty to accepting bribes.^[17]

In 2012, a number of Falcon supporters 'fled' to the BC Conservative party, including former BC Liberal nomination candidate Rick Peterson. Falcon remarked that "a number of my supporters that may have done that and I’m not entirely surprised".^[18]

See also

• British Columbia Liberal Party

References

External links

• Kevin Falcon, MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale
• Official Biography, Legislative Assembly of British Columbia