CKNW Editorial
for November 15, 1999

Two matter for your consideration today.

First, I think my colleague Mike Smyth and I disagree a bit – though not much – on the motives of Bill Vander Zalm. Mike thinks he’ll quit if he loses the Delta by-election … I think he’ll only quit if he gets soundly thrashed. And I don’t think that’ll happen.

For one thing it is a by election and voters may have a couple of motives. They may well tell the NDP that they want to see the back of them but they might also want to send a message to Gordon Campbell that he had better not take anything for granted. I don’t know why it is but Campbell, who is a very decent chap, is not liked by a large segment of the population whose support he must get if he is to win. I had dinner the other night with an old friend of mine – a real Liberal – who could even vote NDP rather than Liberal such is his lack of enthusiasm for Campbell. He won’t vote NDP I’m sure but this is a prevailing attitude that Campbell just can’t shuck.

In a by election there is all the seriousness of a bachelor’s party. What the hell – it doesn’t matter who we elect … let’s have some fun here and toss old Bill back into the hen house and see what happens.

We’ll indeed see what happens but it just may be that before all the smoke clears, meaning after the next general election, Gordon Campbell may regret not taking old Uncle Rafe’s advice to change the name of his party and thus knock Reform out of the game.

On another matter – I must ask all of you … how can a single British Columbian vote Liberal in the next Federal election. This Nisga’a Committee is not just a farce – it is a gross insult to every British Columbian no matter how he or she feels about Nisga’a. C’mon you Nisga’a supporters – aren’t you more than just a bit ashamed at how this deal has been done. Are you really prepared to say that in a democracy you can shut out huge numbers of your fellow citizens – perhaps a majority – because you don’t agree with them? Surely you, decent people all, are not saying that you know best and when that happens all vestiges of democracy are swept away … I can’t believe that people like Paul Tennant, for example, whom we heard on the show last week – a political scientist of great note would agree to this proposition. One can understand regular establishment toadies like Brian Smith, David McLean and Jerry Lampert swinging in behind the government – that’s what they did with Charlottetown and skunks don’t change their stripes. But you, Paul, with whom I have profoundly disagreed yet always had great respect for … I cannot believe that you’d dignify this farce with your presence much less your support.

Then there is the airlines mess. David Collenette has made an absolute ass of himself, though that may be a redundancy considering what he did in defence, and has managed to let Onex make a bundle by his bungling. And at the end of the day the airlines situation is, because of Collenette and the Liberals, a catastrophe waiting to happen.

While all this is going on, your Liberal government has said that it’s quite acceptable that BC sawmills be shut down because of the Dock lockout but somehow prairie farmers are secure. Then it took a week for the government to notice that Canada’s biggest port was all but shut down and now it will take at least another week to legislate it back to work. Does anyone for a moment believe think that if it was Montreal not Vancouver that the port would still be closed?

But the main point is this – where have BC’s Liberal MPs been through all this? Have you heard so much as a peep from Chan, Dhaliwal, Fry, Leung, McWhinney, Anderson, or Sekora – especially the last named? If these people, on the government side and some in government, won’t speak out for British Columbia what’s the use of having them? The one who disappoints me most is the one I most respect, Ted McWhinney … he knows what Nisga’a means and he knows the utter farce of this Alice in Wonderland Committee we have poisoning our atmosphere. Dr McWhinney is past the point that he can have any realistic ambitions for high office – why isn’t he speaking out?

They are toadies, you know – lickspittles all. They have no right to expect any support in the next election.

Where does this leave me and my annoyance with the Reform Party?

Simple. I’m just where I was in 1993 and 1997 – with no option but to support the Reform party, holding my nose and gripping my stomach. So bad are the Liberals that not only are they unable to take political advantage of Reform’s right wing foaming, they’re not entitled to it.