One week after the BC NDP’s humbling and unexpected election defeat, there are public calls for Leader Adrian Dix to fall on his sword.

On Wednesday, Dix is set to address his future with the New Democrats at his first press conference since the BC Liberals defied the polls and expanded their mandate on voting day.

But a few high-profile party members have beaten him to the punch, including former MLA David Schreck, who said someone must be held accountable for the many mistakes of the 2013 campaign.

“It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and the nature of politics is when you have the opportunity of a lifetime and you blow it you don’t have a second chance,” Schreck said.

“I’ve known Adrian Dix for over 20 years, he’s one of the hardest working, brightest guys I’ve ever worked with but he has to take responsibility.”

Shreck said when there’ll be an automatic leadership vote the next time the party holds its convention, whether its in fall or early 2014.

“If Adrian doesn’t make it clear that he’s not going to try and lead the party into 2017, I would bet anything that the convention would reject him as leader,” he said.

'Defeat is an orphan'

Long-time NDP member, and one of Dix’s friends, Bill Tieleman, said Dix’s success would’ve been shared with the entire party, but he must now shoulder the blame in defeat.

“Ultimately it’s the old phrase: a Victory has a thousand fathers, a defeat is an orphan,” he said. “Lots of people are very upset on a wide variety of reasons."

Three things ended up costing Dix the election, according to Tieleman.

The columnist said Dix’s hasty decision to voice his opposition to the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline gauged his support in the campaign leading up to the election.

“It said: when the Liberals said the NDP are anti-jobs there’s something to it, it’s not just empty rhetoric anymore,” he said. “It was validating some of the Liberal message.”

Tieleman also said the New Democrats’ internal polling system failed to show they were in trouble heading into election, thus, the party didn’t respond appropriately.

Ultimately, the leader’s refusal to run negative ads against the Liberals may have been the biggest factor that sealed his fate, Tieleman said.

“You don’t get people out to vote with a negative ad campaign… That is a theory, there’s some academic research that backs that,” he said. “We live in a political world in which, basically, the negative ad is the coin of the realm.”

Asked by CTV News two days after the election whether he planned to continue on as NDP Leader, Dix replied “I’m still the leader of the NDP. That’s right.”

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Rob Brown