CKNW Editorial
for November 4, 1999

I have been so busy dealing with the witch hunters of Surrey lately that I haven’t really focussed on the more important matters at hand, namely the government of this province.

As has been said many times over, and correctly, government is a matter of priorities. There is limited scope for what governments can do – the vast majority of a yearly budget comes from money that has long been committed to various things governments do. It is what government does outside the basic routine expenditures that is important.

Last Monday I interviewed – perhaps shouted at would, admittedly be a better term – Moe Sihota, the ink fish of the NDP. He is their broken wing trick as he tries valiantly to distract peoples’ attention form the realities of socialist rule. He’s good at what he does. His job is to trot out the good things and make it appear as if the rotten media has once again failed to devote sufficient energies to the "positive" side of the NDP.

He has a point, of course. All governments do good things which are as unreported as safe landings at the airport. Governments, especially this one, spend millions of taxpayer dollars telling us good things about them then react like hurt children when the media fails to parrot their flackery.

What Mr Sihota - whose credibility is, on the record, zero at the very best - is trying to do is make the public forget Glen Clark as fast as possible. And he may be having some success.

How strange is it that I, stated to be a right winger by so many, attack Mr Sihota and most especially his party on social issues. Because what I say is this – look at the Glen Clark record and, for the love of God, don’t forget it.

I don’t come from a right wing background at all. Any look at my government service, the legislation I passed and the things I stood for would scarcely lead one to believe that Ronald Reagan or the Fraser Institute would claim me as a disciple.

I was considered by business generally but by the liquor, stock market and retail sales sectors as a gigantic pain in the ass. I was responsible for passing the Motor Dealers Licensing Act when I had a caucus full of car dealers; I pushed through the Travel Agents Registration Act against the wishes of our great supporters the Travel industry; I forced the banks to obey British Columbia law despite their bleatings that they were only subject to federal law; I was hated by Howe Street. To the great displeasure of BC Hydro and the right wing of our caucus I negotiated the saving of the Skagit with the Mayor of Seattle, Charles Royer. To the horror of the mining industry I appointed a Royal Commission into Uranium mining. No, my criticism of the NDP is not driven by some sort of doctrinaire right wing philosophy but quite the contrary – because of their peeing money down a rat hole the people … our fellow citizens … who need help aren’t getting it. This is the whole point. Budgets should not be balanced for purposes of fiscal neatness but because fiscal responsibility is the only way we can provide the social services we have – rightly in my view – come to expect.

Today’s exercise is spawned by yesterday’s interview with Dr Derrick Smith, in charge of psychiatry at BC Children’s Hospital. He is a man of unimpeachable integrity who tells us in no uncertain terms that this government’s commitment to mental health is appalling … especially in the are of mental health services for the young. After yesterday’s interview I spoke for a moment with my colleague Philip Till who has reported on affairs of the world for over 30 years and at the highest level. He said to me that if he had been asked in the 60s what we would be dealing with and reporting on near the end of the century the very last thing he would have guessed was that we would be reporting on the inability of the state to look after the health concerns of its young. But that’s what we’re doing. And it’s an utter disgrace.

This government, always posing as the custodian of public morality and the obligation we all have to the less fortunate amongst us, has utterly failed in its duty. And despite what Mr Sihota would have you believe, this is because of the warped priorities of the Glen Clark for which Sihota is now a tiresome apologist. This government, while our teenagers are committing suicide at an appalling rate and while our mental health programs starve for money, has as his priorities the bailing out of politically sensitive industries, fast ferries which, even if they were cost effective and worked would only save a few people a few minutes travelling and Skytrain at a billion dollars plus into NDP constituencies.

Because of NDP fiscal mismanagement on a broad scale, those who need society’s help cannot get it. It doesn’t anger me that this government’s high spending has hit my pocketbook so hard – what angers me is the way this money has been spent. What makes me even angrier is that because the NDP have cheated those who need society’s help the most, we will pay dearly in added costs in the future.

Moe Sihota may be able to make us forget that Glen Clark presided over the most corrupt government in our history … but if this electorate forgets that the victims of this corruption were those amongst us who most need society’s help then it must hang its head in collective abject shame.