CKNW Editorial
for June 23, 1999

Glen Clark and Dave Barrett, amongst other members of the NDP, complain bitterly that the government’s problems are mostly if not entirely the fault of the media. This plaintive politician’s wail goes back into the mists of time – in medieval England town criers had to mind what they said lest as messengers they get put in the stocks, or worse.

But the best way, I think, to judge the premiers’ complaints is to look at the record and see if Glen Clark is entitled to any mercy. Let’s take a number of criteria and see how the NDP, of which he has been a senior minister or first minister since the beginning, has done.

Has he managed our finances well? The NDP came to power in 1991 promising to balance the budget within the business cycle. No one knows what Mike Harcourt meant by “business cycle” but surely it means sometime. In fact, with the exception of the 1996 fudged budgets the NDP have never had a balanced budget and our provincial debt has risen nearly 30 billion dollars since the Socreds left office.

Has the NDP attracted business to B.C.?

The answer is quite the reverse. While the high tech industry has grown that’s because it’s grown exponentially throughout the western world and the fact is that British Columbia would have done much better if NDP fiscal policies had not discouraged overseas investment. Indeed small business – that upon which the economy really rests – has been leaving for more welcoming jurisdictions in alarming numbers. The notion, put out by the premier and Finance Minister Joy McPhail that the Weyerhauser purchase of Macmillan Bloedel is somehow a vote of confidence in the NDP is nonsense. Large industry looks at the long term and this merger really is a vote of confidence in the fact that the NDP will soon be out of there and some common business sense back in Victoria.

And how has the government done on social issues? This has been a disaster. In an area where, if their promises while in opposition mean anything, the NDP should have been a shining light they have been, at best, a damp squib. As a member of the Health Ministers’ Club, I have some sympathy for Ms Priddy and her predecessor because this is the most difficult ministry in government. My quarrel with the NDP here is that they have not even considered the introduction of some element of private medicine to ease the strain on the system. They have not considered it because they are brain dead on this subject. The fact that other jurisdictions, notably Britain, Germany and New Zealand have shown success in melding the public and the private funding demonstrates that any sensible government would at least look at changes … but NDP dogma forbids this so it isn’t done.

In education, another toughie, the NDP has perhaps fared a bit better but there is scarcely a teacher or school trustee that thinks the NDP has done a good job. But it’s in the area of the Ministry of Children and Families that the NDP has raised such high expectations and done such an abysmal job.

What about looking after BC’s interests on the national stage. Here – and I submit this has been fairly reported – the government has some praise due for the way it handled the so-called and now happily moribund Calgary Declaration. And, two summers ago, when Glen Clark got Ottawa’s attention on the fish wars issue, the government deserved, and in this corner got, praise. The trouble is, Glen Clark could not stop himself from badly overplaying his hand and now we have the humiliating spectacle of the federal government expropriating BC Crown land with British Columbians being forced to ask for mercy because there is no decent argument to fight with.

What of government morality, something the NDP had so much to say about when in opposition? Here the story is not only one of unkept promises but sheer hypocrisy. Surely it’s not necessary to run through the scandals and the utter lack of resignations on principle … an attorney-general swears a false affidavit … a senior minister contacts a judge on a matter mis government is involved in … as we speak, the premier clings to power even though he clearly accepted a benefit from a man seeking a gaming licence from his government. The NDP make the Socreds look like choirboys especially when it comes to jobs for the boys and money for friends.

The Nisga’a deal? In time will be seen for the disaster it is but even leaving that aside, this government has bypassed the general population and been forced to spend upwards of $10 million taxpayers dollars to put the NDP party spin on the deal.

Finally, what about big ticket items, the thing we used to judge governments for in the past?

They have only one to put on the table and that’s the Fastcat ferry undertaking and here, surely, is the biggest government financial boondoggle in recorded BC history. It has been a fiasco since the get-go and has clearly sucked out of the government money, which if it was to be spent at all, should have been spent on social programs.

Given even this quick overview, can anyone seriously suggest that this government has been unfairly maligned by the media? I think the better case is that we’ve been far too easy on it and Mr Clark should stop whining and look in the mirror when he’s seeking someone to blame for the mess he’s in.