CKNW Editorial
for May 18, 1999

Is it just possible that the Federal government is being a bit duplicitous on the Nanoose Bay Lease issue? In saying that, I will have some words to say about how Premier Clark and the government have handled the matter but it just may be that it's not only the provincial government that's been playing politics with this issue.

The matter of a re-lease of this area to the feds has been ongoing for some time. I have spoken to Andrew Petter, the principal BC negotiator, and he tells me that the federal government negotiator, a civil servant, and the federal minister, David Anderson had indeed discussed this matter and had linked it with a number of other issues including a commitment by Ottawa to provide financial assistance to coastal communities hit by fisheries moratoriums and to work with the province and others on conservation of BC salmon stocks in the context of the Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations.

Included in these negotiations was a commitment, says Mr Petter, that no ships bearing nuclear warheads would be permitted in within the lease area. These negotiations were committed to writing between officials of both governments on May 5, 1999. I have that agreement and while the fisheries issues are not mentioned here is what Clause 7 says, ... "An environment schedule ... to these principles will be included in the licence and will include - and here I emphasize - a provision confirming that no nuclear warheads will be present at any time within the license area.

On May 5, the BC Minister, Mr Petter, released a press statement paraphrasing section 7 which I just read and added these words "Mr Anderson (David Anderson, federal Fisheries Minister) also indicated this morning his willingness to address other issues of importance to coastal communities and fish harvesters that have been advanced by the provincial government." He goes on to say "We have been seeking a commitment that the federal government would provide resources directly to coastal communities based on their priorities and the federal government would work with the province, communities and fish harvesters on conservation of BC's salmon stocks in the context of the Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations."

Now let us pause there. Clearly Mr Petter's assertions in this press release are given considerable evidentiary backing by section 7 of the agreement between officials.

In between the 5^th of May and the 14^th, and after they had consulted Washington, the federal government told the province that it could not live up to the terms of May 5^th.

On the 14th of May, Art Eggleton issued a news release to the effect that since the government of B.C. would not agree to the terms of the agreement of which section 7 formed a part that it, the federal government, would be forced to expropriate the sea bed under lease. In this release Eggleton tries to lay the blame on the province for insisting "on the resolution of another unrelated issue with respect to the fishery."

Mr Petter hotly denies this and says that the province was prepared to sign a lease based upon the May 5 agreement and that the feds nixed the deal because the United States would not agree to the no nuclear provision. He also points to a near unanimous resolution of the Legislature opposing nuclear warheads in BC waters.

I think the Legislature and the NDP are fuzzy headed fools to think that the United States Navy would disclose whether or not they were carrying nuclear warheads and they knew this could not be enforced by a provincial government anyway. This all goes back to those goofy days when left wing city councils piously declared their boundaries to be nuclear free zones.

But leave that aside for the moment. It seems clear to me that this entire exercise is tendentious at best, downright dishonest at worst on the part of Ottawa. What clearly happened here was that the feds made an offer which the province accepted in the May 5 agreement. Then the feds realized that they had to clear the "no nuclear" bit with Uncle Sam and, the United States always being able to tell Canada what to do, as in Kosovo, said no way, Jose. The Federal government, unwilling to have it appear that they were kow-towing to the United States, and thus losing face, decided to blame it all on the British Columbia Government.

Rather than ‘fess up and tell the truth – difficult at any time for any government but utterly impossible for Ottawa – why not make it look like the Clark government was at fault … after all, one more kick at a corpse can’t matter.

You see this delay – largely of their own making - put the feds in a pickle. If they went back to the negotiating table they feared that negotiations might be prolonged to the point they would not have time to expropriate before lease expires on September 4 next.

I suspect that some people, perhaps the provincial Liberals about which more in a moment, didn't want to let Premier Clark off the hooks and pay him money to boot. The feds being about as duplicitous a group as this planet has ever known (they always has been) saw an opportunity to hit a premier and a government who were down and did so with relish.

The interesting question is how much Gordon Campbell and company knew of all this for Mr Campbell was indecently fast off the mark to take shots at Premier Clark and his government when the feds claimed that the province had broken the agreement they themselves had clearly indicated they themselves would breach.

The Provincial government are naive as hell and I've told them this publicly and privately. The federal government is never ever to be trusted in matters of this sort. The NDP are evidently very slow learners. They should never have allowed themselves to be maneuvered into this position.

Having said that, though, here is Ottawa almost certainly going back on its Word, privately informing B.C. it was not prepared to honour its word then publicly turning on Victoria with the disingenuous statement that it was Victoria that was welching.

The provincial government is guilty of naivete in the extreme. But I'll take naivete over dishonesty any day. Based on what I've seen and heard, the provincial government were set up and now Ottawa will do to British Columbia what it would never dare do to Quebec or Ontario - especially the former - expropriate provincial property.

And I was naive - I concluded that in a test of honesty, the Provincial NDP government was bound to lose. I forgot that the only government less reliable than the NDP was bound to be an Ottawa government, especially an Ottawa government run by the bloody Liberals