CKNW Editorial
for September 14, 1999

What I am about to ask is a question. A legitimate question. I’m not implying a thing.

My question is this – when did Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh’s people start signing members up for the NDP? As we all know, the name of the game in winning anything from a political convention is signing members and having them beat the bushes for you.

Now Mr Dosanjh hasn’t announced his intentions to seek the leadership but everyone including Mr Dosanjh knows that has long been his intention. In fact at the Ken Georgetti roast and toast a couple of months ago Mr Dosanjh was working the room like the experienced politician he is. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I did it to a fare-thee-well and, if I say so myself, was pretty good at it.

But my reason for asking is this – if Mr Dosanjh, either himself or though others working for him started to do anything at all by way of campaigning for the leadership prior to August 13^th, he has taken advantage of inside information. We know from Mr Dosanjh’s lips that he knew that Premier Clark was under criminal investigation back on March 3^rd and that Clark would sooner or later have to resign. If he took advantage of that knowledge it would be unfair.

Perhaps the answer is that Mr Dosanjh did nothing until after Mr Clark’s resignation. If that’s the case I will be delighted to make the fact public.

The race that hasn’t started yet is getting interesting and it confirms what I said last week. It will be a fight between the conservatives like Svend Robinson and the modernists like Mr Dosanjh, Ms McPhail and the most modernist of them all, Gordon Wilson. And how it all turns out will not decide the next election – if the NDP can get elected with anyone as their leader British Columbians will need their heads read. No, the issue is the survival of the party. If the conservatives win they’ll be out of office for a very long time. There must be dramatic change.

We are in a global economy and we all must not just accept that though lip service but in fact. We also must make sure that those who are adversely affected by this globalization land on their feet. It’s a tricky situation and requires quite a different sort of government approach than in the past. The old slogans, shibboleths and peppy songs no longer count except as bits of nostalgia. The New Democratic Party, if it is to survive, must emulate New Labour in Britian and it must do so very quickly. The party can still get the cheers it seeks by chanting the old war songs at captive audiences but you can’t kid the working man any more than you can kid the entrepreneur. It’s a new world out there and the challenges to the working man’s wage and the entrepreneur’s profit come from the same source – what Tom Friedman calls the electronic horde. If the new leader of the BC NDP is going to emulate Alexa McDonough and propose unworkable taxes on instant, nano second financial transactions as the cure for the ills of globalization, the working person and the capitalist alike are going to recognize only one thing about the NDP – it’s utter irrelevance.

This will be Gordon Wilson’s greatest strength and his biggest weakness. Delegates will know that his modernist approach is the correct one but they may find it hard to break old chains and vote for someone whose roots in the party are so shallow.

This will be what to watch for in the Convention. Is this a new leadership or just more of the old stuff warmed over and re-packaged?

I am not saying that a modernist will win the convention – not at all. Leadership conventions are about numbers and old alliances. Political parties are famous for being behind the times because the conservative element always holds the reins of power. What I am saying is that if the NDP is not able to break out into open country and meet new challenges with new ideas not old war cries, it will be dead in the water for a very long time indeed.