Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at THECOMMENTARY.CA.

David Schreck joins me again. The long-time political observer and pundit has appeared on this program since day 2, literally the second guest ever. There’s been much going on politically these last several weeks with more to come. John Twigg provides analysis elsewhere on this website, and David joins me now to provide his own views on the election of Christy Clark as the new leader of the BC Liberal Party, succeeding Gordon Campbell thereby soon to be British Columbia’s 35th premier. David Schreck is a former NDP MLA, as well he was a special advisor to the premier of BC in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. We’ll also look ahead to the NDP’s own leadership race, those running and more. His website is at www.strategicthoughts.com. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, David Schreck; Good morning, Mr. Schreck.

For TheCommentary.ca

There are lots of levels and grounds on which the B.C. Liberal Party’s latest leadership contest could be questioned, including that Christy Clark could have won mainly because of strategy around the regional weighting system adopted shortly before the vote.

Results of the preferential votes announced by the party gave only the total points earned by each candidate and the percentages they were but the actual individual votes were not revealed and perhaps never will be, though intriguingly the Vancouver Sun has reported that the Liberals’ website on Saturday briefly posted but quickly removed what appeared to be the actual votes.

The system gave 100 points to each of the province’s 85 constituency organizations, so that a small membership in an NDP-held riding like say North Coast was equal to the points given to large ridings like say in the Surrey area where there reportedly were massive signups by at least three of the campaigns (Falcon, Clark and de Jong) in or around Sikh temples.

Thus 60 hypothetical votes for Clark out of 100 total votes in North Coast would give her campaign 60 points, and 30 votes for Kevin Falcon would give him 30 points, etc. And meanwhile in a big Surrey riding with about 3,000 votes they would need 1,800 votes to get the same 60 points.

That math comes into play when we notice that on the final tally there were 4,420 points for Clark and 4,080 points for Falcon, which translates to 52 % for Clark and 48 % for Falcon – which is a very close result and in some situations would be enough to call for a recount. Interestingly the briefly-posted votes were 28,411 for Clark to 26,119 for Falcon – the same percentage as the points.

But what – out of curiosity – were the actual vote totals round by round? It’s possible that there were up to 60,000 votes cast in the early rounds because members were required to vote for at least two choices but on the final vote that shrunk to “only” about 54,500 votes. So did Christy win partly because her strategists coached other supporters to not give any second or third-place preferences to Falcon?

It was apparent that Falcon’s votes came mainly in large urban Liberal ridings, but Clark rolled up the points in small rural and NDP ones. Until the party confirms otherwise it’s still possible to wonder whether Clark won on points but had fewer raw votes! Note that shortly before the vote she and her team were telling the media that they had about 42% of the first-ballot votes and maybe that was about what she won with too.

That’s even more troubling when one notes that some 95,000 people apparently were entitled to vote but only 62.4 % did so. The party spin merchants pointed out that that turnout still was above the 51% in the 2009 election and 58% in 2005 but that is misleading because the Liberal memberships were recruited in a hot and hard-fought battle in which urgency was of some importance – so why did more than one-third of those ostensibly keen new members simply not participate? Were there massive disqualifications of recent fraudulent sign-ups??

That’s an even bigger question when we look at the schmozzle involving PIN numbers, with hundreds and probably multi thousands simply not arriving on time in the mail which required the party and their private-sector contractor to mount a hasty backup phone-in service – so where and why were those PIN numbers not delivered? Was there hanky-panky somewhere, or was it merely incompetence? If those missing 30,000 votes had been cast would the outcome have been different?

But it goes beyond PINs because we also heard examples of people being signed up and issued PINs without their consent, as happened to journalist Simi Sara’s father and perhaps others, the media made much of a cat being signed up (apparently a dirty trick against the Falcon campaign done by George Abbott’s camp without his knowledge), a restaurant staff signing up en masse using the restaurant’s address, and even a hockey team was briefly signed up for Falcon without the players’ knowledge.

If those kinds of dirty tricks sound familiar they should because they’re quite similar to the tactics used by Gordon Campbell’s backers when they usurped the B.C. Liberal Party leadership away from Gordon Wilson in 1993, as Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer reported well a few weeks ago, such as lawyer and real estate offices set up as en-masse phone-in banks for transferred PIN votes, plus there were hundreds of bused-in voters who couldn’t speak English. And some of the same folks did similar stunts when Ujjal Dosanjh usurped the NDP leadership away from Premier Glen Clark in the late 1990s! (In that case numerous B.C. Liberals joined the NDP just so they could support an Indo-Canadian for Premier, and some dead people were registered and voted too.)

They also echo of the dirty tricks used to narrowly elect Liberal “stallion” Kash Heed in Vancouver-Fraserview in 2009 including unreported expenditures for falsely slanderous and malicious mailings of Chinese-language leaflets impugning the NDP and its candidate Gabriel Yiu, which are now the subject of renewed police investigations and could cause Heed, a former high-profile cop, to not only lose his seat but maybe also face criminal charges.

In the Liberals’ latest contest there also were duelling tailored polls from unusual sources, allegations of money sent in from the U.S.A. by environmental activists and just generally lots of evidence to raise questions about the integrity of the process, such as the widespread use of “membership brokers” and the somewhat-railroaded adoption of the weighted voting system.

Was the Liberal leadership contest in 2011 fixed in much the same way as the 1993 contest was fixed? We can’t say for sure but the evidence is – as the arson investigations say: “suspicious”.

Some of the evidence for that is circumstantial, such as a few Indo-Canadians trying to stay close behind Clark as she entered the Liberals’ victory room in downtown Vancouver on Saturday night, notably two wearing bright red turbans in the same hue of red as the federal Liberal Party – as if they thought they deserved to be seen as the king-makers. And then sure enough during her victory speech Clark gave a special nod to them by saying a few words in one of the East Indian languages and making a sort of praying gesture – indicating she was well aware that she owed her victory at least in part to South Asian mass signups.

Will Kash Heed re-emerge in Clark’s reformist cabinet? Not likely, but you can bet she’ll include some nod to South Asian voters, possibly related to her promise to undertake a trade mission to India within six months.

John Twigg (www.johntwigg.com) is an independent journalist, former press secretary to premier Dave Barrett and former interim leader of the BC Refederation Party.

By JOHN TWIGG

Special for TheCommentary.ca

It’s apparent from examining the entrails of Premier-designate Christy Clark’s narrow win of the B.C. Liberal Party leadership contest that she won because she became seen as the one most likely to be able to defeat the New Democratic Party opponents in the next provincial election, but there is no guarantee she will be able to do so.

Though the most recent opinion poll shortly before the vote on Saturday (Feb. 26) showed the Liberals with a 41 to 38 per cent lead over the NDP, the first such lead for the Liberals in about two years, Ms. Clark, a 45-year-old single mother, faces a daunting task in the weeks and months or perhaps years ahead before the next scheduled general election in 2013.

In fact the panorama of B.C. politics and policies is now a minefield of explosive controversies for Clark, and a maze of complexities, a morasse of conflicts, a jumble of conundrums and a lot of just plain cons – so much so that it will be some kind of a miracle if she manages to hang on to power, finish the Liberals’ third full term and then win an election against an array of opposing parties who are in the process of choosing stronger new leaders and mounting more populist platforms.

Clark is a lifelong political activist who entered politics as a young Opposition MLA and then a senior cabinet minister in Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell’s first government but she left in 2005 for a combination of reasons including family matters and unhappiness in the challenging Children and Families portfolio, made a failed bid for the mayorship of Vancouver but finally found success for four years as a talk show host on CKNW and then was wooed into the leadership contest after Campbell was forced to resign late last year. He is still nominally the Premier but will be resigning soon.

Clark’s win was all the more surprising because she had the support of no cabinet ministers and only one MLA, little-known Harry Bloy, but she did it with the support of a strong organization that featured campaign manager Mike McDonald, ex TV news anchor Pamela Martin, backroom eminence Patrick Kinsella, a long list of former Liberal MLAs and a team of local activists who combined to raise more than $500,000 for her.

The key factor that put her over the top probably was the finding in at least two opinion polls that she had a much better chance than her three male rivals of beating the NDP in the next provincial election, especially one poll showing she would pull more than a few women voters away from the NDP. But she also had a strong strategic campaign that helped her win the most support in almost every riding, albeit it narrowly, but especially so widely in ridings held by the NDP.

Many urgent issues

The many urgent issues Clark is facing probably were outlined in the briefing books delivered to her at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning and include such items (among probably hundreds of hot potatoes left by Campbell) as what to do about the hated Harmonized Sales Tax, the threatened Hydro and Ferries rate hikes, rising Medical Services premiums, the PavCorp stadium completion, several pressing Transit issues (Evergreen, Pattulo, Fraser Valley), the need to rescue the crumbling St. Paul’s Hospital, the stalled B.C. Treaty Process, the carbon tax and carbon trading questions, troubling child death reviews, understaffing in the courts and overcrowding in prisons, the revised Taseko Prosperity mine proposal, the wavering Therapeutic Initiative (regarding generic drugs), the contract renewal with the RCMP, the federal takeover of securities jurisdiction and more (e.g. what to do with the white-elephant German-made fat ferries now in only limited use due to fuel-guzzling). Not to mention tweaking the budget, recalling the Legislature, calling and winning a byelection in Campbell’s soon-to-be-vacated riding of Point Grey, meetings with about 50 MLAs, structuring a new cabinet, hiring a bunch of new staffers and – oh, yes: fulfilling her many and relatively-detailed campaign promises still viewable on her campaign website [grab copies before they're gone!!].

Could Christy copy Campbell and do a dramatic first-day symbolic “change” by fulfilling her promises to implement a set of new tax credits or rebates for lower-income families? Maybe she will, perhaps starting with the likely cabinet meeting on Wednesday. And/or maybe she will instantly restore all of the gaming grants cruelly cut by Campbell in the cause of reducing the apparent size of B.C.’s embarrassing overspending and budget deficits in and around the 2010 Olympics (along with many many other small cuts, such as slashing the SPCA’s budget for investigations, which was a contributing factor in the recent mass murder of about 100 sled dogs in the Whistler area, for example, not to mention the about equal number of avoidable deaths to humans from inadequate supports for street people, inadequate staffing in social services, over-crowding in hospitals and more than a few police-involved deaths of citizens).

In other words, like it or not, those misguided budget decisions have left Campbell with blood on his hands. The mainstream media may refrain from saying that but there is ample evidence that figuratively and politically that is the truth. (For example Campbell at first commiserated with the police who killed Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver’s airport, and he was among the voices denying there was a serial killer loose on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside when he was chairman of the Vancouver Police Commission.)

And it wasn’t as if the Province couldn’t get the money needed to maintain basic and essential services – it has maintained one of the best credit ratings and lowest debt-servicing ratios on the continent even during NDP regimes, as well as owning a wealth of resources and other assets, but Campbell’s vanity and hypocrisy led him to decide it was better to lose a few people and animals and other public assets than to run up an embarrassing deficit at a bad moment in the pre-election process. So he grossly fudged the 2009 pre-election budget and right afterwards brought in the HST to try to hide his horror show – but it failed. And now it is Clark’s job to demonstrate that “change” – real change, has come, perhaps starting with the HST.

Challenge is holding the coalition together

But her even bigger challenge is over the mid-term: how to hold together her party’s anti-NDP coalition – which will be affected by whomever the New Democrats choose for leader on April 17 but probably even moreso by what the nascent B.C. First Party does following its founding annual meeting April 9 in Kamloops and then the renascent B.C. Conservative Party general meeting and leadership selection in May.

Shortly before the Liberals’ leadership vote Clark’s opponents released some opinion polls warning that Clark could endanger the anti-NDP coalition by being too much of a federal Liberal and thereby alienating the many federal Tory elements now in the “Campbell coalition” to the point that some might drift over to the Tories, and some of the Old Boys reminded voters that the only time the NDP has been able to win elections in B.C. was when the right-wing vote was fractured (as it was in 1972, 1991, 1996). It doesn’t take a lot, as little as 10 per cent, but it can make a big difference.

That was seen in fact in the 2009 election result too, when only about 3,500 votes delivered to the NDP in about 10 close ridings would have resulted in an NDP regime under Carole James, but as it was the NDP vote was fractured by an active effort by the B.C. Green Party, the NDP’s turnout was weakened by its gender-quotas policy and the Liberals’ coalition wasn’t threatened by a Conservative rump that was more of a rural regional redneck horse’s ass than a real populist movement.

But next time? Maybe the B.C. Conservatives will choose serious qualified leaders this time, perhaps also depending on what transpires in the federal election expected some time in May, but meanwhile Clark was demonstrably cheered-up on Saturday night when she told the media that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had just called her and wished her well, to which she assured the media that the B.C. government under her leadership would be working hard to maintain a close relationship with its “friendly government in Ottawa” – and rightly so, especially given that the Harper Tories have poured billions of dollars into B.C. in recent years in the form of stimulus projects and worthwhile new infrastructure to counter the global recession, and that Harper could kill off her coalition with a mere word to a handful of his B.C. operatives.

In any case the B.C. First Party probably will choose earnest Chris Delaney as leader – who was instrumental in collecting more than 700,000 signatures against the HST and so should not be under-estimated even though the main pollsters and much of the mainstream media continue to pretend he and they don’t exist. However the impact of BC First also could cut both ways because Delaney’s policy pronouncements are often decidedly populist and even progressive and sometimes he’s an even better critic of the Liberals’ record than the NDP have been, e.g. regarding ferry fiascoes.

A key factor in the next election thus will also and again be voter turnout, which has been trending downwards and now is around only 50 per cent. In fact the main reason the NDP lost the last election was not the success of Campbell’s lies about the province’s finances but the NDP’s own failure to craft a platform with broad-enough popular appeal to attract a better turnout and its even more glaring failure to pillory Campbell for his many blatant failures and scandals and so energize more people to turn out to vote against him.

Though many people, especially women, inside the NDP were and still are sold on the notion of “doing politics differently” – which is politically-correct code speak for not being critical of the opponents even when they deserve it – the history of politics in B.C. (as often elsewhere) demonstrates that many many people vote against some things moreso than for them, and if anyone wants clear proof of that just look at what happened to Gordon Campbell! The backlash was so strong that he was ousted in a manner not unlike Hosni Mubarak and other such despots, only thankfully here in B.C. we still do it with ballots, not bullets.

[I have to struggle to find kind things to say about Campbell now, given his atrocious despicable record of selling out the province, misleading the people and ruining lives, earning an approval rating that went below even Nixon's and Bush's, but I will give him this: at least he had the decency to realize the gig was up and it was best to leave as quickly and quietly as possible, which makes him a little better than say Libya's Gadhafi.]

In such a milieu why would Clark take on such a daunting challenge? Well partly it’s because partisan politics really is in her family’s blood, as in Big Red Liberal blood. And partly because it is a sweet job to have even if only for a short while, even better than being a talk-show host on powerful CKNW. But there’s also perhaps a dark side: it’s in her own interests and in the interests of some of her key supporters such as political strategist and lobbyist Patrick Kinsella and some of her own family and friends to keep a lid on a number of scandals, most notably the questionable giveaway/sale of BC Rail and the subsequent long-delayed trial and farcical guilty pleas of David Basi and Bob Virk – an inquiry into all of which has been loudly called for by numerous interests but which under Clark’s leadership is highly unlikely to happen.

As the NDP asked in the Legislature, was Kinsella really billing both sides at once? And if so, why? But under Christy Clark we’ll probably never know. However we do know from her public disclosure that his firm Progressive Strategies donated $20,000 to her campaign, and he attended some of her events and so probably coached her a bit too.

In other words, Patrick Kinsella, who has been a fixture in and behind the anti-NDP coalition since 1975, has found a new horse to ride.

Welcome to the real world, Christy, and for the sake of the Province, best wishes too. You may need them.

John Twigg (www.johntwigg.com) is an independent journalist, former press secretary to premier Dave Barrett and former interim leader of the BC Refederation Party.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at THECOMMENTARY.CA.

This past weekend, BC Liberals elected a new leader. There were some technical issues leading up to the phone-in vote Saturday, but all seemed to be well Saturday evening whereupon Christy Clark was elected the next premier of the province of British Columbia, the 35th since the province joined Confederation in 1871, and the second only female ever. Clark, who’s been on leave from radio station CKNW where she hosted the mid-day show, is a former cabinet minister, who left the government of Gordon Campbell, whom she succeeds, in 2005. Joining me now to look back at the events of the past weekend, and to look ahead to all sorts of political matters is John Twigg. He is a long-time political observer and independent journalist. He was a press secretary to Dave Barrett, and for a short time was the leader of the BC Refederation Party. In the coming days look for John’s analysis, which will be featured here at www.thecommentary.ca. His own website can be found at www.johntwigg.com. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, John Twigg; Good morning, Mr. Twigg.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at THECOMMENTARY.CA.

Once again, I’m joined by the Vancouver Courier’s Mark Hasiuk. The paper’s columnist and reporter joins me now. We’ll check in to see what’s on his radar politically and otherwise. I’m a fan of his work, and I’ll ask where he’s been. www.markhasiuk.com is his own blog, and the Courier is found twice-a-week on your doorstep here in Vancouver or online at www.vancourier.com. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Mark Hasiuk; Good morning, Mr. Hasiuk.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at THECOMMENTARY.CA.

Charles Demers joins me again. The comedian, author, and activist is on to catch up on all sort of current events. Charlie will be appearing with SFU Urban Studies professor Matt Hern on Thursday the 27th of January at SFU Harbour Centre at 6.00pm. It’s all part of SFU’s history department’s year-long lecture series on the city and its history. They’ll be discussing the question, ‘Vancouver: The Greatest Place on Earth?’ And Charlie would be an ideal person to discuss and debate that question, as he’s the author of one of the best books on the city, Vancouver Special, which was shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. He’s also the author of a novel, Prescription Errors. Charles Demers appears on CBC Radio’s The Debaters, and was co-host of CityTV’s The Citynews List. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Charlie Demers; Good morning, Mr. Demers.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at THECOMMENTARY.CA.

Once again, I’m joined by Michael Klassen. The editor of CityCaucus.com is a regular columnist at the 24 Hours paper, a wine enthusiast, and a neighbour. We’ll look at the political situation—there’s much to talk about locally here in Vancouver, and provincially with the Liberals and NDP. Mike’s own website is at www.michaelklassen.com. Incidentally, City Caucus celebrated its 2nd birthday last week. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Michael Klassen; Good morning, Mr. Klassen.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line. In Vancouver, this is THECOMMENTARY.CA.

Paul Willcocks joins me again. He’s an editorial writer for the Victoria Times-Colonist, and a long-time observer of political affairs in this province. His website is at www.willcocks.blogspot.com. We’ll discuss the news of the last week, the resignation of Gordon Campbell as premier of the province of British Columbia, as well as the leadership race to lead the BC Liberals, and the state of the NDP, and more. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Paul Willcocks; Good morning, Mr. Willcocks.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line. In Vancouver, this is THECOMMENTARY.CA.

It’s Monday afternoon, and the political commentator and analyst Alex Tsakumis joins me again. His popular website at www.alexgtsakumis.com has been discussing the resignation of Gordon Campbell. We’ll talk about that, the race now on who succeeds him, and other political matters. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Alex Tsakumis; Good afternoon, Mr. Tsakumis.