Todd Stone speaks to supporters at a B.C. Liberal Party leadership rally at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018.

(KELLY MCKAY / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS – After a tumultuous week, Kamloops MLA Todd Stone is confident of a B.C. Liberal Party leadership win.

Through claims of removing sections off an independent report intended to help ICBC save money, or accusations that he had over 1,000 voter registrations fail, Stone remains steadfast in his belief he will be the party's next leader.

“We’re going to win this thing,” Stone told supporters at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops at a campaign event last night, Feb. 1.

He believes the race will come down to himself and former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts on Saturday, Feb. 3, when the votes are counted.

“This race is going to come down to a Todd Stone, Dianne Watts final,” Stone says. “Whether it’s on the third ballot or the fourth ballot, we’ll see.”

“That’s the showdown we are going to have on the final ballot, based on the analytics of our data.”

Stone says it is up to the NDP government to fix the current financial problems with ICBC.

“They need to get on with action, it’s their job to come forward with some tangible solutions to address the financial challenges facing ICBC,” Stone says.

Responding to independent report that was commissioned in 2014, Stone says he enacted all the recommendations that made their way to him.

“The final report, as it landed on my desk in 2014, I enacted everything in it,” Stone said. “We implemented a broad range of initiatives.”

“We recognized that the financial challenges of ICBC were continuing to mount. In December 2016 we had the board of ICBC commission an independent review and our intention was to act on that report, to act on its contents should have we won that last election. Turns out the NDP assumed power in July 2017. The report was taken by David Eby and thrown in the garbage.”

The polls close in the B.C. Liberal Party leadership election at 5 p.m. Feb. 3, with the results to be announced that night.

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