CKNW Editorial
for October 21, 1999

Finally there is a bit of a race for the NDP leadership as Joy McPhail, as expected, has tossed her bonnet in the ring. There will be others but in order to make the race complete there must be Ujjal Dosanjh's name in there too. By all accounts there is a hell of a spitting match going on in the Sikh community spawned by Moe Sihota's dislike for Dosanjh and no doubt helped on by differences in the community which Moe, as only he can do, is exploiting.

It is important that Dosanjh be seen to fight this and, frankly, I think he's being a bit coy at this point hoping that lots of people will come up to him, put their arms around his shoulder and urge him to do the right thing by battling back the forces of evil.

I believe that Dosanjh must be in the race because he represents the decency which the NDP has lost ever since it came to power. There are two main issues here - financial probity and morality. Dosanjh has the advantage of only having been Attorney-general and thus not seen as responsible for any of the horrendous financial decisions made and he does carry the image of decency.

But Ujjal Dosanjh will not get an easy ride and for very good reason. He was a member of cabinet when most of the catastrophic financial decisions were made. Others might have been the ministers responsible but Dosanjh cannot, by his silence, leave the impression that he wasn't up to his eyeballs in them as well. The aura of innocence is quickly disposed of if you think about the matter a bit.

On the morality issue - and let me say here that Mr Dosanjh is clearly a decent man - he has the problem with his handling of the Glen Clark matter. I remain convinced, as do others with much higher qualifications, that it was Mr Dosanjh's duty on March the 3rd, the day after the raid of then Premier Clark's home, to confront the premier with the fact of the criminal investigation into his conduct and advise him to resign. Failing Clark's resignation, Mr Dosanjh should have resigned. We have, I know, gone through

this at some length and I appreciate that the decision was a tough one. But I think, tough decision or not, Mr Dosanjh failed in his duty.

Ironically, Mr Dosanjh isn't going to get any heat on this but rather he will be criticized by his opponents for blowing the whistle on Mr Clark when he did - 5 ½ months later. That criticism is badly misplaced.

At this point I doubt that Gordon Wilson will enter the race and if he does, he won't win. He has shot himself in both feet and stuck a knife into his own ribcage and is too badly wounded to get anything more that a few votes from surviving Glen Clark fans.

The NDP have the job of electing a new leader and thus a new premier but their task is much greater than that. If they look simply at their superficial problems, they're going to lose big time in the next election. Their real problems - and British Columbians feel these issues in the gut - are two in number.

First, they are without question, the most morally bankrupt government in BC since the Coalition of the 40s. To compound that problem, in opposition, they were the most successfully critical of previous governments on moral issues. Some of the finest speeches in the English language on the moral obligations of governments and their ministers were provided by the NDP in opposition to the Socreds. This leaves them not only morally bankrupt but reeking of hypocrisy as well. Overcoming this image will not be easy.

Second, this government has taken the Province from about two billion in debt to nearly $35 billion. Their excuse is that they had to invest in the future. This is eyewash. The governments which preceded the NDP had the same tasks but performed them within the limitations of a balanced budget. The NDP plainly and simply have proved the truth of W.A.C. Bennett's cruelly accurate jibe that they wouldn't know how to run a peanut stall. Again, fiscal responsibility is always foremost on British Columbians minds and the NDP have a long, long way to go before they can regain voter confidence on this score.

The leadership hopefuls will, of course, be directing their speeches and commitments to NDP delegates but they should know that the general public will also be listening very carefully. If voters aren't satisfied that we will see decency and fiscal responsibility restored, the happiness of victory at the convention will be very short-lived indeed.