Former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister Mike Bernier to lead CentreBC party<\/p>\n
Published 3:26 pm Monday, July 20, 2026<\/p>\n
Former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister Mike Bernier is the new leader of the CentreBC party.<\/p>\n
Bernier was a member of the B.C. legislature for 11 years, representing the Liberal party through its rebranding to B.C. United in 2023. He is also the former mayor of Dawson Creek and spent 20 years working in the oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n
Founding CentreBC leader Karin Kirkpatrick stepped down in June, triggering a search by the party\u2019s executive council.<\/p>\n
Bernier hasn\u2019t been a member of a party since B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon struck a deal with the B.C. Conservatives to withdraw United from the 2024 provincial election, leaving Bernier to run as an Independent.<\/p>\n
He lost to Conservative Larry Neufeld in the Peace River South riding.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a person who\u2019s more of a fiscal conservative and a social progressive, I felt like there was nowhere for me to go until I started watching CentreBC,\u201d Bernier told Black Press Media on Monday (July 20), two days after taking over as party leader.<\/p>\n
He now says he\u2019s fielding calls from people of all political stripes who are disenchanted with the current B.C. political landscape.<\/p>\n
Many of these people are federal Liberals who supported Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s party in the 2025 election.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost one million people in the province of British Columbia voted federal Liberal, and the majority of them are saying that there\u2019s nowhere provincially for them to vote,\u201d Bernier said.<\/p>\n
He says he\u2019s also been taking calls from many federal Liberal organizers who want to come over and help, as well as from sitting MLAs of both of B.C.\u2019s dominant parties.<\/p>\n
Bernier said his new party is a home for those in favour of \u201cmoderate\u201d governance.<\/p>\n
For him, this means listening to and engaging with all sides on Aboriginal rights, backing policies for schools that work for parents and for children who deserve to be free from being bullied because of their sexuality, and doing the hard policy work to fix the health-care system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen our healthcare in this state,\u201d he said, calling it \u201ca perfect example of, you throw money at something; it doesn\u2019t fix the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Aboriginal affairs, he points out that he was the only MLA who did not vote for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in 2019, having walked out of the chamber to abstain. He said he did not think it would solve the problems it set out to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be working with our First Nations friends and partners in our communities around the province, but we need to be really careful we\u2019re not setting up a situation where it\u2019s a veto,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bernier\u2019s take on this and the Cowichan decision, which has spurred a major public debate over Indigenous land rights, is that the NDP failed to make the necessary legal arguments due to fear-based decision-making.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NDP are worried about making it look like they\u2019ve picked sides,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, they\u2019d rather just drive down the middle of the road, and what we\u2019re seeing now is they\u2019re getting hit by cars going both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernier defended the Sexuality Orientation and Gender Identity-inclusive (SOGI) school policies that he introduced as education minister in 2016.<\/p>\n
SOGI policies seek to create an inclusive learning environment for people of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity. This is different than sexual health education, though many critics conflate the two.<\/p>\n