CKNW Editorial
for November 17, 1999

It’s a strange sort of democracy in which we live. In 1988 then Prime Minister Mulroney and ten premiers cobbled together a huge alteration to the constitution of Canada and agreed that it needed to be ratified by ten premiers. It failed but only by a whisker. The storm of protest from British Columbians was so great that the Socred government of the day passed an act requiring future constitutional amendments to pass a referendum in BC. It didn’t say just constitutional amendments we think should go to the people but all constitutional amendments.

Then came Charlottetown in 1992. This was again a massive change in how we would be governed and the federal government, knowing that there would have to be a referendum in British Columbia and Quebec, declared a national vote which was defeated, resoundingly in British Columbia. The people spoke and somehow the country chugged along.

Now comes Nisga’a which all admit is more than just one treaty but at least 50 in British Columbia and goodness knows how many across the country once the government system is constitutionalized. Ironically, no one more supported the notion of a referendum on constitutional change than Gordon Wilson who so opposes it for Nisga’a.

Now there are many people, very much including me, who say that Nisga’a should have gone to referendum in BC as it did with Nisga’a themselves. We say that this deal amounts to a change in the constitution and must have a referendum. That point is now being litigated. But leave aside that argument for the moment. Let’s just look at the question of democracy.

The NDP say that this is something that is handled by representative democracy and since more representatives voted for it than against it, that ends the matter. But is that fair? Is it really democracy? For if Nisga’a amounts to a sea change in our social contract doesn’t it become like Meech or Charlottetown – an issue that in any true democracy would be decided by the people?

The representatives that voted for Nisga’a in Victoria did not represent 50%+1 of the people but only 39% at the last election and perhaps 20% at best when they, after guillotining debate, called the vote. That’s democracy?

Well, of course it isn’t democracy unless you live in Canada. In Canada we do what we’re bluddy well told by our betters we must do. To make it worse, we have our noses rubbed in it. A Commons Committee which doesn’t have a single BC Liberal MP on it is here to tell us what’s good for us. Not that having a BC Liberal on the committee would do a damned bit of good – I expect that Chretien knows that to further expose their toadiness would be politically unhelpful.

The Liberals have managed to dredge up all the usual suspects who can be expected to say what the phoney baloney committee wants to hear. The fix is well and truly in and thereafter we will be told that the Liberal government of Jean Chretien "listened" to the people.

They don’t want to hear from those who oppose. It was only after extreme pressure was applied that the Committee elected to hear from the Leader of the Opposition. They certainly didn’t want to hear from me, though to be fair I’ll be out of the country Friday afternoon.

There is only one thing we have left to do. We must protest. We must protest outside the committee hearing rooms at Robson Square on Friday and let them know what we think.

Then we have to do one more thing – we must express our political outrage in the only way left to us. We must do to both the NDP provincially and the Liberals federally what we did to the Tories in 1992. We must not forget … we mustn’t allow future bribes with our own money to distract us … we must throw the lot of them out. Yes I suppose that means electing more Reformers but even that is a sacrifice we must make if we want Ottawa and Victoria to know that we’ve wakened up out here.

If we don’t penalize these politicians who deny us democracy they will continue to deny us democracy. We have to bide our time then teach Jean Chretien and whoever becomes the next Premier on February 20^th next a lesson they’ll never forget.

They have told us to go to hell – now let’s return the favour.