Thursday, April 12, 2001
The paradox facing the BC Liberals - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- A BC election is on the horizon. Smart money is betting on an election call in less than a week’s time. The Liberals are poised to win, yet you’ll recall that’s what they said in 1996. Ujjal Dosanjh has been Premier for over a year now. However he has failed on his principal promise of providing a change in the way British Columbians are governed. The only thing he’s proved is that he isn’t Glen Clark. That isn’t enough as the ghost of the former premier will cast its shadow. How my vote will be cast will not be as it was in the federal election, where I chose a party (as well as an MP). In the provincial, because of the structure of responsibility within the two different systems (read how government impacts the citizen) I will cast my ballot in May for the person I want to represent me in the Legislature. The exact MLA.
One must realise that when discussing this upcoming election one must note the distinct difference between the BC Liberals of Gordon Campbell and the Liberal Party of Jean Chrétien. Once upon a time they were part and parcel of the same cloth, however it was Gordon Wilson, the now-NDPer who was responsible for the break-up of that union.
With the exception of true Liberals in the Campbell caucus like Gordon Hogg or Christy Clark, the BC Liberals of now are made up of, as writ by Allan Fotheringham in next week’s Maclean’s, Socreds in bed with stockbroker Tories. Former Socred cabinet minister Claude Richmond, for one, is seeking the seat of Kamloops for the Liberals. Patrick Kinsella, the one who helped architect Bill Bennett’s governments, as well as helped do the federal Conservatives in in 1993, is on board advising Gordon Campbell.
History lesson: In the 1970s, while the NDP and Socreds were see-sawing power, there were two other parties -- the Liberals and the Conservatives. By the early ‘80s however they were overcome by the political polarisation that engulfs us today. Both the Liberals and Tories moved to the right-wing Socreds and thus the NDP was out of power until 1991. However with most of the popular support shifting to the Socreds, the structures remained. (The Conservatives were recently joined to the Unity Party.) That’s where Gordon Wilson comes in. In 1987 he took on the leadership of an embattled party, no force in BC politics.
Wilson was the recipient of great luck. The Socreds in their death throes in 1991, Wilson fought vigorously for inclusion to the leaders debate in 1991. He made his name and from no seats, they won 17 becoming the Official Opposition, while the Socreds simply disappeared. Wilson proved a formidable debater, yet his personal life became public knowledge and the opportunists moved in and moved the “Liberals” into the vacuum of opposition to the left NDP.
They succeeded. Gordon Campbell defeated Wilson and Wilson and his squeeze Judi Tyabji walked out of the party and formed their own fringe gang. Cut the story short and they then joined the NDP in 1999. The separation between the BC and federal Grits took part during the Meech Lake Accord in the late ‘80s. Wilson against it, became a bone of contention for the federal party and the links were truncated.
They were never the same party, nor are they now. One thing that will hurt Campbell is if some federal Grits voice some public support for the BC party, thus wading away some votes in rural BC, as voting Liberal makes some folks want to upchuck bile.
The BC Liberals trouble me as they attempt to be a definite alternative to the NDP, yet can’t reconcile whether they are truly liberal or the right-wing party to fill the vacuum. The BC Liberal caucus is diverse. With true Liberals like Clark and Hogg, as well as Campbell, it works well in opposition, however in government, I don’t see how the coalition will last in the face of right-wingers like Mike De Jong, Kevin Kruger and others. If what I suspect happens, that is a lack of jam to truly define themselves, the BC Liberal government of Gordon Campbell will fall at the sheer weight of trying to be something they are not.
That is the sheer problem facing the voter. If we are scrapping up an entity out of the disgust of the NDP, then we will get the people we deserve. We will get an ambiguous group in that will certainly do damage to the province as a whole in the long run. At election time there needs to be a definite reason to elect someone. Voting the bastards out is not good enough. We did that to the Socreds in 1991 and we got the NDP.
I asked Gordon Hogg when he visited my History 12 class over a year ago if his party would change its name. He said it wasn’t a concern of his leader or his party. As an election looms it should be. Unnecessary voting of the Unity Party will demean the confidence in the Liberals come the time they form government.