CKNW Editorial
for August 2, 1999

Back in the 50s during the second Churchill government, the Agriculture Minister was a man named Thomas Dugdale. During the war a great deal of farmland had been expropriated as airports or additions thereto to house the RAF fighters and bombers. It was the task of Dugdale’s ministry to return this land, where possible, to farmers, and make amends for its loss and the damage thereto. The ministry officials were brutal to the farmers and quite a scandal developed. While there was no way in the world that Dugdale had any personal involvement in this, he promptly resigned saying “if good things happen in my ministry I’m given the credit … it follows that when wrong occurs I must take the blame.”

In fairness, even by the much loftier standards of that day, this was a resignation, which many, including Prime Minister Churchill and Opposition leader Attlee thought unnecessary. But Mr Dugdale had a high view of the responsibilities of ministers which has badly gone out of fashion – especially with this bunch in Victoria.

Contrast, if you will, this behaviour of Mr Dugdale’s with that of Dan Miller and David Zirnhelt.

Back in 1993, then Forests Minister Dan Miller with Mr Zirnhilt (the present minister) in tow, cancelled the timber licence of Carrier Lumber of Prince George alleging failure of the company to live up to its agreement with the government. This, it turns out after a lengthy lawsuit, was a sham. The Judge, Mr Justice Glen Parrett, found that Carrier was sacrificed in the ministry’s interest, much of which was political. The NDP government had, you see, decided to assure an Indian band that these lands would not be logged then invented a reason to cancel Carrier’s licence. In fact Zirnhelt, then premier Mike Harcourt and Dan Miller were all at the meeting in 1992 when the promise was made to native leaders, without notice to Carrier Lumber, that the lands would not be logged. The government did not, as one might have expected, offer the company compensatory lands or cash, or both – it simply used a phony reason for cancellation.

Fortunately, ramshackle and slow though it may be, we still have a court system in this country and Carrier sued – one might be indelicate at this point and say “sued the ass off the government.”

After noting that the government had suppressed key documents, the judge summed up his findings thusly – “it is difficult to conceive of a more compelling and cynical example of duplicity and bad faith.”

The result will be a huge payout of your tax dollars and mine to Carrier Lumber. They are to be compensated for 2.5 million cubic feet of lumber on the basis of the price of lumber at 1993-4 prices and there will be punitive damages awarded on top of that. And they should be substantial. We may be in for $150 million dollars damages or more. All because of these dishonest and conniving nitwits that run this province.

Opposition leaders can, at times, be a bit flatulent in their condemnations of government but it’s hard to argue with Gordon Campbell’s statement that this is a government of thugs.

Is the Honourable Dan Miller going to resign over this? Not on your tintype. What about the Honourable David Zirnhelt? As of Friday he had not been fully briefed his officials said.

Not fully briefed? Are we to suppose that the Forests Minister didn’t know about this lawsuit and the evidence submitted? Can it be that a Forests Minister is not fully briefed day by day on something as important as this? And, Mr Zirnhelt, how much briefing does it take for you to understand that your government lied and cheated a lumber company and that we’re all going to pay immense damages for your despicable behaviour?

Thomas Dugdale no doubt set the standards governing ministerial behaviour a tad too high. But Dan Miller and Dave Zirnhelt have just demonstrated beyond doubt that this government has no standards at all. I suppose that a government led by a man who apparently took favours from one seeking a gaming licence from his government would not likely be one that demanded any standards of decent behaviour from its ministers.

Moreover, the fact that other ministers will not show some respect for decent honest behaviour and resign themselves from this government of knaves and fools makes them all accessories.

We’ve become a national disgrace and, perhaps worse, a national joke.