CKNW Editorial
for December 30, 1999

You’ll be happy to know that there won’t be a word about the year too soon millennium today – that argument has been well and truly settled by the folks at the Greenwich Observatory which you can pick up on the Internet.

I’m more interested in looking ahead into 2000, the last year of the millennium, and trying to determine what’s in store for us politically.

Never has there been a government so unpopular as the NDP in Victoria. I frankly can’t see any way out of their misery. Their record is appalling and to top that off, they are in the midst of an excruciatingly long leadership campaign which will leave all the candidates bleeding from every pore. The decision to have a four month long leadership campaign is so stupid that only the New Democratic Party could be so stupid.

It will be interesting, though only mildly considering what’s in store for the NDP next election, to see if Ujjal Dosanjh has it all sewed up as he and most others think. I don’t know the answer to that question because I’m not privy – nor ever likely to be privy – to the information needed for an educated guess. But, just for fun, let’s assume that it’s not a done deal. Where does Mr Dosanjh’s opposition come from?

Let me paint for you a scenario. Let us suppose that Ujjal Dosanjh does not have a first ballot victory in his ass pocket – who else then?

There are two possibilities – Joy McPhail or Gordon Wilson. And where are their respective strengths?

For Ms McPhail it is the Union Movement who have a bloc vote of, I’m informed, 25% and to some degree the women’s movement. For Gordon Wilson the support is not so easy to see but what about the votes Moe says he controls in the Indo-Canadian community? You can say, rightly, that no one "controls" these votes but now we have former Premier Dave Barrett endorsing Wilson. And Barrett is a close friend and some say the mentor of Mr Sihota. Sihota may not be able to swing a huge number of votes himself but Barrett and Sihota may well be able to do so.

Now to the convention. Let’s speculate. Joy McPhail has 30% of the votes because of the block union vote plus other union members who became delegates through constitutuencies. Gordon Wilson has 20% mostly from the Barrett/Sihota group, Corky Evans has 10% leaving Dosanjh with 40%. Under these circumstances, can Dosanjh get a second ballot victory?

Yes if his opponents haven’t got a collective game plan for ballot #2 but no if they have.

Gordon Wilson’s support in the party doesn’t run deep enough. If Mr Barrett is orchestrating things at this point I think he mumbles a few words about senior cabinet post and deputy premier into Wilson’s ear and gets him to swing behind McPhail who does have the party credentials. Throw in Corky’s support – he would also get a cabinet offer – and there’s your upset.

What I’m saying is that if Dosanjh doesn’t have it in the bag he will have the hardest time growing in Ballot #2.

Conventions are hard to read. They each have a life of their own. But I know enough about them to know that there is a lot of stage managing going on.

If Dave Barrett doesn’t want Ujjal Dosanjh to win – and he obviously doesn’t – he knows enough about convention management to make a Dosanjh victory very hard to achieve. We might well see him plump like hell to get Wilson’s support up on the first ballot (knowing that McPhail’s is largely a bloc institutional vote) to ensure that Dosanjh doesn’t get a first round victory. If he accomplishes that, don’t be surprised if Barrett swings every vote he can to Joy McPhail on the theory that however brilliant Wilson may be, he’s accident prone and not really one of "them".

Just a bit of speculation as is the custom this time of year.