CKNW Editorial
for July 19, 1999

Just before the editorial, this thought. Many listening today were not alive that awful day nearly 36 years ago this coming November when, for what seemed like an eternity, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35^th president of the United States was assassinated. It is well said that all who were old enough, remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news.

It’s very easy now to judge Jack Kennedy by his sex life but that is hindsight. For many of us, Kennedy represented the new generation that finally had taken the reins of power. He was the first president born in the 20^th century and a hero of the second World War.

All of us alive at that time will remember the funeral carriage passing in front of the family and three year old John-John saluting his fallen father.

Now John-John – John Fitzgerald Kennedy II is dead at 38.

What he might have become we’ll never know. But all of us will remember – even the most hardened and cynical of us will remember the tears in our eyes as the brave little chap saluted his dad.

He may have been only a rich 38 year old who hadn’t accomplished all that much but to many of us who dreamt the dreams and hoped the hopes, he represented the final curtain falling on Camelot.

Now down to business.

There is this eerie sense of deju vu. A prominent member of cabinet, female and with red hair, suddenly departs. But no, it’s not 1988 and the lady isn’t Grace McCarthy – it’s eleven years later and it’s Joy McPhail.

The reasons Ms McPhail gave – or rather the lack of them – speak volumes. It can scarcely have anything to do with her son whom I met on the night of Ken Georgetti’s farewell – he is a very well adjusted young man who was able to take part personally in the roast. I have no doubt that Ms McPhail would like to spend more time with him but that is scarcely the reason she gave up he position of considerable power.

I think the reasons are two in number.

First off, Ms McPhail is a trained economist. She can read a balance sheet and she can see that British Columbia’s is bleeding red ink from every pore. She’s enough of a socialist with enough of a heart to put social services ahead of the embarrassment of a deficit but she knows that the reason for the red ink has little to do with them. Rather, she can see that the Premier’s ambitions for a W.A.C. Bennett type of legacy, the Fastcat ferries and other fiscal misadventures have caused the trouble. I believe that Ms McPhail knows that government is about setting priorities and she can no longer stand the Premier’s. I have nothing to back this up but I would suspect that when Clark turned down the $135,000,000 for the Nanoose lease, a profit of $134,999,999.00 that red hair produced the temper for which such hair is famous.

If most or all of that could have been negotiated up front, or as part of a package, the Convention Center could have been done and again, though this is just my suspicion, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Ms McPhail, seeing all those jobs go wanting and that economic activity down the tube just had had enough with this self aggrandizing egotist who puts his own occupation of the Premier’s office ahead of his province and his party.

Secondly, Joy McPhail is a politician. She’s a combative politician and likes winning. She is smart enough to know that there’s no sense vying for the leadership of a party that’s flushed itself down a rat hole …  so what’s the point of staying with this rudderless ship, if I may be permitted to mix a couple of metaphors. She looks around her and sees a Premier who first off tried to keep her from getting her nomination back in ’91, then put her into the Treasurer’s chair after the Premier himself as a former Finance Minister and as Premier had depleted the treasury and lied about it, then hacked her office in half to make room for the noisy nuisance Sihota … then created utter political destruction all around him. Surely she asked herself, who needs this?

I suppose there’s this too. With a bent for self-destruction only politicians can manifest, there is a leadership contest going on around her. Without any ambition to grab the wheel of the Titanic herself, and knowing that there will be another day, Joy McPhail has opted to sit this one out for the moment. Not easy to do. But why play the part of Cassius much less Brutus – why not sit back and see what happens?

By going, without throwing any hand grenades behind her, Ms McPhail has kept her options open. She can enter any leadership race with her head held high or she can work to see that the leadership passes to a safe pair of hands. At least as safe a pair as possible.

If, as I suspect, Ms McPhail would prefer Ujjal Dosanjh over Gordon Wilson – and I think that’s a pretty safe bet – she is now in a very good position to work towards that outcome.

It’s all getting very interesting, isn’t it. McPhail quits, Dosanjh boots Barrett’s butt out of his office, the premier craps out one more time with the Convention Center, we have the police report then Conflicts of  Interest Commissioner’s report yet to come on the Premier plus the side show of Dave Stupich’s sentencing – and we thought Bill Vander Zalm knew how to put on a self destruction show. This, in the former premier’s favourite word, is faaantastic!