CKNW Editorial
for May 6, 1999

Even during World War II – indeed especially during World War II Winston Churchill was punctilious in observing parliamentary traditions and practices. He was, as he said, a child of the House of Commons and even though he was, in effect, a dictator for the war years he always made it clear that the Commons was the master and the Prime Minister its servant.

We don’t care about these things any more. The House of Commons routinely brings in closure calling them, euphemistically, time limitations. Now we have a provincial government doing the same. It not only brought in closure, it brought in the guillotine, a technique so rare in the British Parliamentary system that it’s difficult to find a precedent.

We saw first the provincial government and now the federal government sign an agreement with Nisga’a before the legislature or Parliament had a chance to debate it. Now we have the Glen Clark government waiving a throne speech and fingering their worry beads trying to figure out how to lay a legislative plan before the people some other way.

How strange it is to see the NDP behave this way. Isn’t this the party of Stanley Knowles who was so knowledgeable and respectful of the rules and traditions of parliament that he was made a Privy Councillor and given a permanent seat at the Commons Clerk’s table for life?

Isn’t this the same New Democratic Party that would demand that the Speaker deal with the Socreds on a matter of privilege if so much as a sentence of any proposed legislation became public on the grounds that it was a contempt of parliament? Isn’t this the same party which screamed blue bluddy murder – and rightly so – when Bill Bennett brought in special warrants in 1985? The very same NDP which, when the Bill Bennett government brought in closure in 1983 set their collective hairpieces on fire? Again, rightly so.

What’s happened, you see, is that Glen Clark has become so used to being an absolute dictator that he no longer sees the need to go through even the most elementary of motions.

A Throne Speech is bound to be bad news for the government for it involves a debate. By tradition, the debate on the throne speech is given the widest latitude and Glen Clark knows that the Liberal opposition would use up some hours concentrating on the NDP’s shortcomings and on Glen Clark’s in particular.

This whole business has been a mess. Had Mr Clark given a fiddler’s fart for the democratic process he would have initialed the Nisga’a Treaty last July and immediately put it before the house for debate. He didn’t do the proper thing because it would not have given his all that time basking in his newly minted glory. He could have brought it for debate any time last Fall but he wanted to get his advertising campaign out of the way in the hopes that the people would be satisfied after a propaganda campaign tacked onto their tax bill. They weren’t so he postponed it until January. Then, on the flimsy excuse that Gordon Wilson needed time to learn his portfolio, even though he was the best informed of all Members on matters aboriginal, the Premier adjourned the house for 10 weeks using the self fulfilling prophecy technique to justify guillotining debate.

The niceties no longer concern Mr Clark. He won’t face up to and admit the fact that he received a substantial benefit from a man seeking a gaming licence from his government. He adjourns the House when he is certain to be under stiff attack from the opposition. He nixes a throne speech when he expects that the opposition will give him the verbal hiding he deserves.

Premier Glen Clark is a bully … and like all bullies, he’s an abject coward.

Any Premier who is afraid to meet the peoples’ elected representatives ought to hand in his resignation to the Lieutenant-Governor and hang his head in shame.