CKNW Editorial
for September 20, 1999

So, the Gordon Wilson forces won and the NDP leadership convention will not be held until February. Clearly Wilson, the newcomer needs the extra time so as to sign up the members he needs to make a fight of it. But that’s the secondary reason. Wilson is not likely to win on the first ballot – nor is anyone else. The object, then, is to get second ballot support and Wilson can use this time to convince members now committed to others that he is a real New Democrat and can lead the party if not to victory, at least to respectability and a reasonable launching pad for elections to come. Let me illustrate how important the second ballot support is. In 1986, Bud Smith was one of the four favourites, albeit in fourth spot. When he crossed to join Bill Vander Zalm after ballot #2 everyone, especially me, was in shock. Why would he do that when Vander Zalm was the enemy? He told me minutes after he had gone to Vander Zalm that almost to a person his delegates had Vander Zalm as their second choice and there was no point him going, say, to Brian Smith.

Of course this decision gives all candidates a chance to polish some images but it also gives them the opportunity, as Premier Miller intimated on the weekend, to destroy the party. And it seems pretty certain that the great destroyer is Moe Sihota showing extreme loyalty to his fallen comrade, Glen Clark and keen frustration that in the polls his chances turn up as chicken scratches. By the way, it’s interesting that Moe confessed last week that last Spring he injected the ski pass incident into the mix in order to draw attention from the beleaguered Clark, something I stated at the time.

There is considerable bitterness within the party, something we didn’t see in the last great convention we had in BC, namely the Socred leadership convention of 1986. For one thing, the Socreds had the temporizing influence of retiring Bill Bennett who had legitimately retired and was seen, rightly, as a hero. But with the NDP there is bitterness of the Clark people at Ujjal Dosanjh, whether fairly or not depends upon your point of view. Unhappily for the Attorney-general there is bitterness from other quarters too who say that if Dosanjh had blown the whistle on Clark in March this year instead of waiting until August, the whole mess would be behind them now and they would have had an extra 5 ½ months to get a new act together. Now if Mr Dosanjh weren’t a leading contender, this wouldn’t matter so much but he is in the thick of it meaning that this part of the general dissension won’t go away. I wouldn’t be that surprised – surprised but not shocked – if somewhere along the way Mr Dosanjh withdrew – which would be a pity.

Is there another scenario possible here?

It was once said that office is like an alchemist – it turns good people into failures and bad people into great leaders. Dan Miller is the first man to look and act like a leader since Bill Bennett. His raw and often brutal partisanship has, in office, greatly mellowed. Without meaning that Mr Miller is no longer a New Democrat, it seems that the hard edge has gone and that he might be, in office a moderate. Is it possible that, under great pressure from the party, Mr Miller might yet offer his name as permanent leader?

I don’t know the nature of Mr Miller’s undertaking to caucus but what would happen if a large majority of caucus went to Mr Miller and said – “the party is what’s important here and it’s self destructing under the weight of the battles being fought. We hereby release you from your undertaking not to run and offer you our support.” Could that happen? I don’t know because, as I say, I don’t know the nature of the undertaking except I understand it was given to caucus who could, presumably by strong majority, withdraw same - especially if one or two of the candidates, seeing their campaigns in trouble, rallied around Mr Miller.

The decision to hold the leadership in February instead of November was, I think, a bad one unless the Premier and others can get the bitterness back under the covers. And I don’t see how they can … in fact, as leadership hopefuls go from constituency to constituency, followed by the media, it can only get worse.

Whether or not Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh’s decision not to confront Glen Clark on March 3 with the fact of the criminal investigation was proper is a matter of debate. What is not debatable, however, is that if the NDP had been able to put this leadership business behind them in the Spring, those who would like to see the backs of this bunch would have a great deal more to worry about.