CKNW Editorial
for July 13, 1999

Will he or won’t he? Or is the better question, who cares?

Bill Vander Zalm is coyly assessing his position. Should he or should he not run in the by election in Delta South. My own advice is not – therefore you can be sure that he will!

I frankly don’t see the advantages for him in running. It’s most unlikely that he’ll win – despite the 9-4 in favour on yesterday’s open line to him and if he loses, the only question will be how badly. If he doesn’t run, the media, including me will be calling into question his political courage but he has to assess it on a broader base than that.

The general election is a year to two years away. There is no real chance of an election any earlier. So why should Vander Zalm put himself in a position to be humiliated as he was in the Vancouver mayorality race of 1984? Granted the man has the hide of a rhinoceros (so it would appear at any rate – you never really know these things) but who needs the brutality of a race which, if you win, only marginally helps your party and if you lose may kill it.

Why do I say that?

Because if Vander Zalm wins there’s no guarantee that this will do anything for the party overall. Everyone knows that a by election is an excellent opportunity for electors to bash someone around, in this case the Liberal Party. If he wins, Vander Zalm will then have legislative duties to add to his other political burdens and his business obligations. Moreover, the NDP would just love to have him in the Legislature so they could fawn all over him with great deference thus embarrass the Liberals.

If Vander Zalm loses, on the other hand, for the above reasons the loss will hurt. Here he was in his own riding, amongst his own people, at a time when the people could afford to send Gordon Campbell a message and he didn’t win. It will be painted by the very media who egged him on as a disaster and a shameful one at that.

If I were advising Mr Vander Zalm I would say “sit this one out. Don’t field a candidate. It will cost you at least $50,000 to run a decent campaign and the party, if it can raise that sort of money, will need it for another day. If you blow that fifty grand, it won’t be easy to go to that well again when the general election rolls around.”

Moreover, the last thing Vander Zalm wants, so he says, is for the NDP to get back in. His win in a by election really doesn’t matter mathematically but you can bet it would set the Liberal wolves on Gordon Campbell and all of a sudden there would be two parties in the province with leadership problems.Why not then run someone else?

Because it’s a waste of time and money. When the general election rolls around no one is going to care a fiddlers fart what happened in the South Delta by-election of 1999.

There is another obvious argument against Mr Vander Zalm running if you want to see the government defeated. It will, it’s said, split the vote and let the government in. Once, we will be reminded, back in 1972 which is about three centuries ago in political terms, the NDP held that riding. Well the Socreds won Vancouver East once in the fifties too. No, the danger is not splitting the vote, for with Vander Zalm in the race the Liberals would pull out all the stops. The danger from vote splitting is not in this by election but in the general election to come.

What do I think will happen?

I think he’s run. The man loves the limelight too much not to. You’ll remember when he was charged back in 1991 Vander Zalm turned up, mile wide smile with 75 gleaming white teeth for every adjournment because he knew if he turned up (and there was no necessity for him to do so) the cameras would turn up too.

My advice is don’t run, Bill – but that’s probably all you needed to tip the balance in favour of a decision to enter the race.

One thing’s for sure – with Bill Vander Zalm around life sure as hell ain’t dull!