CKNW Editorial
for September 17, 1999

Just before I get to the main part of my editorial may I say that inaddition to loads of supportive mail, in my nearly 30 years in public life, I've never seen such vicious mail as I've received on the refugee issue. There are two things that truly astonish me - apart from the vitriol that is.

First I am expected to form my opinions based upon what some mythical majority thinks. I am not, apparently, permitted to think things out on my own or trust to my own standards. Because I am a friend of Diane Francis I should, evidently, agree with her, something I often did not do when she was my editor. Secondly, I cannot believe that the two simple propositions I have put forward on many occasions can cause so much trouble.

#1 I learned as a child - not in law school - respect for the Rule of Law and Due Process. I do not believe in vigilante justice or making up laws to suit, any time a difficult problem faces us.

#2 Canada is a sovereign country and can pass whatever laws it wishes. If it is the will of the people that the law with respect to refugees ought to change, denying applicants the same rights we do, then the laws should be changed. Just why those two pretty elementary precepts should cause so much trouble I'm at a loss to explain.

Yesterday I spoke about the prospects of the NDP under a Premier Gordon Wilson - today let's look at a Premier Joy McPhail. She brings to the job some plusses and some minuses. Let's deal with the last first. Ms McPhail is the Finance Minister who elected, a few months ago, to run a deficit of perhaps one billion dollars for the current year. In addition, she has been part of the NDP government from the beginning and, unlike Wilson, must accept her share of the blame for all it's many and manifold sins and wickedness.

She has defended these policies and because she is an economist, must bear special blame for not speaking out against things like the Skeena bail-out and the fast ferries fiasco. She will also be seen as the candidate of Organized Labour which plays out very well with the executives of some unions and the President of the BC Federation of Labour but perhaps not with too many more. If the rank and file union members all voted NDP we would never have had any other sort of government She has many pluses.

She is an attractive person with an outgoing personality and she is female. She is also obviously very bright and in her line ministries has been seen as an able minister. She also has a good deal of the indefinable quality called charisma and will be a bearcat in an election scrap. This is very important because for better or worse, we have institutionalized the TV debate in out election culture.

These are not really debates at all but bloodletting match-ups and while one can only speculate how Gordon Campbell will do against any opponent I would consider Ms McPhail only just behind Gordon Wilson in the ability to take it, dish it out, and think on her feet. The key factor will be how she uses her time as premier before going into the next election (barring a snap election which I doubt will happen.) The issue will be fiscal responsibility for as I said yesterday, that is always, without exception, the #1 issue with BC voters no matter how much politicians may pretend otherwise, if Ms McPhail can convince voters that she, like Mr Wilson, is one of those new brand of socialists which practice fiscal responsibility - difficult for her to do given the record of the past 8 years and her last budget, she may get the NDP in there with a chance.

I see the difference between Ms McPhail and Mr Wilson as this. I think there is an outside possibility that Mr Wilson could win the next election while I don't believe Ms McPhail could.

Joy McPhail is a political animal though and has no hesitation to go straight to the jugular. She may lose but there will be blood on the floor. And though the NDP may well put aside philosophical purity and go with Gordon Wilson as the man best suited to win, they might just see Joy McPhail as the person combining both the commitment to the socialist movement and the desire to win.