CKNW Editorial
for February 14, 2000

The entire situation with the New Democratic Party is a shambles and the only one apparently willing to face that fact squarely is the so-called fourth candidate, Len Werden.

It’s not just the appalling record of the government highlighted by the fast cat ferries scandal … it’s not just the pathetic financial situation we’re in in this Province … it’s not just the Clark scandal … and it’s not even just the ever growing scandal over delegate selection for the forthcoming convention. It's’ all of these things and more. Werden is quite right when he says that the party would have trouble electing a dog catcher.

The trouble is that only Werden seems to see this general malaise for what it is – a very big long term problem that isn’t going to go away no matter who wins next Sunday and no matter what he says or pledges.

The NDP have always assumed that as the repository of the title deeds to the dreams of the left that they will always be there no matter what setbacks may occur along the way. What happened to the Tories in 1993 just can’t happen to them. Werden, with all the popularity which goes with being the messenger bringing bad tidings, is telling his party that they’re whistling past the graveyard. It can happen to the NDP and every day that passes it seems more and more likely that it will.

Politicians are remarkable for being unable to see anything past the next election. Perhaps it’s because Len Werden isn’t a professional politician that his eye-sight is much clearer.

Next weekend’s convention – if it takes place – should be the launching pad for new ideas of a fresh start. But how can it be? The three major candidates are an integral part of the mess – even Corky Evans who tries to stand off from it all … and so is Gordon Wilson who wants it accepted that he isn’t responsible for what the team did before he joined the very team he so brilliantly criticized when he was in opposition.

The membership signing scandal is the last straw for most of the public and Werden clearly sees that. Even if the Province were to suddenly find itself on easy street with billions of dollars in surplus, the public are fed up with the party of Stupich, Clark, Sihota and, dare I say it, Dosanjh. Dosanjh because no matter how you slice it, the boss is responsible for his servants and Dosanjh's servants have got him into this pickle.

It’s true that Corky Evans is above this mess and if he wins next Sunday, things will take an interesting twist. But Evans isn’t likely to win. And in the next election the NDP will be led by a man whose self proclaimed piety is wearing thinner and thinner.

He hasn’t said this but I assume that Len Werden is saying to the executive something like this . "don’t you realize how serious this is? Don’t forget it was we who in opposition made the public so aware of the need for cleanliness in government and here were are, going into the next election, as seeming like the very embodiment of scandal led by a man who is up to his eyeballs in one if not more of those scandals. Have you folks lost your minds? Don’t you see that there may not be more than one or two safe NDP seats in the next election and that we could be facing a near white-out?"

If Werden is saying things like this – and I infer from what he’s saying publicly that he is – why aren’t the brass listening?

For the only real alternatives facing the NDP – if they want a decent base on the opposition benches to which they’re headed – is to come clean. Come clean and call off the convention and declare that they will have a new convention, in early April, with everything staring all over again.

Of course this would look terrible but once you reach a certain level of disrepute more terrible doesn’t matter any more – the only way is up.

A new leadership race with Joy McPhail coming in a-fresh and perhaps others coming forward as well … and a thorough cleanup of the membership list in the interval - would at least give the NDP the option of going to the people and saying we were wrong, we admitted it, we cleaned up our act, and here we are a contrite party pledged to do much better.

I don’t give a damn personally what the NDP do. I believe it would be a very bad thing if the option they represent were removed from the political picture but that’s a bit of political philosophy, not political reality.

What I do know – and evidently Len Werden knows this too – is that the NDP are toast for the next election and the real struggle is not to win but to stay alive.

It is that which should be guiding the New Democratic Party this week as they ponder the pickle they’re in.