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Christy Clark

Christy Clark

Christy Clark

Christy Clark - B.C. Liberal Party 

Christy Clark is the Premier of British Columbia and the leader of the BC Liberals.

The 47-year-old was sworn in as the Premier on March 14, 2011, a month after she won the BC Liberal Party leadership campaign sparked by Gordon Campbell’s resignation.  

She is the second, and longest serving, woman to serve as the Premier of British Columbia.

Born and raised in Burnaby by her mother Mavis, a family counsellor, and her father Jim, a school teacher and three-time Legislative Assembly candidate, Clark studied at Burnaby Senior Secondary.

She completed post-secondary studies at Simon Fraser University, the University of Edinburgh and at the Université de la Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1996, Clark was elected to the British Columbian legislature.  She was appointed Minister of Education and Deputy Premier in 2001.

Clark took a break from politics in 2005 to spend more time with her family, and her young son Hamish.

She became a columnist with the Vancouver Province newspaper and was an election analyst for CTV News Channel during the 2006 federal election.

In 2007, she began the “Christy Clark Show” on CKNW radio.

Clark reentered politics after winning a by-election in May 2011, in the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey, the seat left vacant by former premier Gordon Campbell.

In her role as Premier, Clark has pushed a “families first” agenda, increased B.C.’s minimum wage and created a Family Day holiday in February.

Despite a brief uprising in poll numbers following her swearing in, Clark saw support drop throughout her candidacy until she was left lagging behind the surging B.C. New Democrats. 

She tied with Newfoundland Premier Kathy Dunderdale as the least popular provincial leader in the country in an April Angus Reid Public Opinion poll.  It was conducted shortly after Clark was forced to apologize for a leaked strategy aimed at wooing ethnic voters. 

The BC Liberal Party is campaigning on a platform that stresses paying down provincial debt and holding the line on taxes.

The party promises that it will not expand the carbon tax or institute a capital tax on financial institutions.

Perks for voters included a five-year freeze on personal income taxes, a $250-per-child back-to-school tax credit for parents. 

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