CKNW Editorial
for February 25, 2000

I've had a lot of mail, e and otherwise, concerning the fact that Ujjal Dosanjh has not been elected premier so we should mute our praise. I think there's truth to that though good manners require us to congratulate success and however he got there it's noteworthy that he did so as a member of a visible minority.

This had led me to a couple of thoughts. The other night a friend expressed outrage that we spoke about Indo-Canadians and never spoke about English Canadians, Swedish Canadians and so on. In fact, she said, these sorts of people were just Canadian right from the start so why weren’t immigrants from Asia free from the hyphen? It seemed to her wrong that many minorities thought of themselves as hyphened Canadians.

Well there is a very valid reason why some Canadians have a description and a hyphen before the word Canadian. When one of my grandfathers came to this country along with his wife and inlaws, my great grandparents, from New Zealand, they were British Subjects but, more importantly were white British subjects. They immediately had the full rights given all other white people who lived in Canada. When the antecedents of the East Indian and Chinese population in this country came here they were denied the rights of citizenship and even barred from many professions. In the case of many Canadians of Japanese origin born right here in BC the war with Japan saw them sent to Concentration Camps then encouraged to go to Japan after the war ... to a country they'd never seen.

Communities have histories just as nations do. And for those who think there are not discrete communities in the white population, think again. It wasn't until 1978 that a Jew could belong to the Vancouver Club which was only a little bit behind the other top drawer clubs in the community. I personally presided over the allowing of non-whites into Quilchena Golf and Country Club in 1964! Within my lifetime and that of my family, Roman Catholics were discriminated against and indeed still are in Britain. As for native Indians, the discrimination was so bad that they are only now beginning to see full civil rights.

I also thought of something else when Premier Dosanjh was anointed last Sunday. And many of you have made this point on air and in the mail. That he has not been elected by the people. That’s true but then what premier or prime minister under our system ever is? We elect parties to government and even then accidentally. For example I might think that Mr Dosanjh would make a better Premier than Mr Campbell - I don't but that's not the point. If I also feel strongly that a Liberal candidate in my riding should get my vote - not unlikely - I will, by operation of the system, be voting against the man I want to be Premier. Unless and until we divide the legislative arm from the executive arm this will always be the case.

In the United States the system is divided of course so the people have a choice.

But the choice has become even better in the States in recent years when nearly all states have primaries or caucuses. That means that the people who belong to parties, and in many states where they do not, have the right to select the candidates as well as the presidential winners.

The NDP is light years behind most parties in that regard. Not only does the NDP member at large not have a direct vote, even those chosen as delegates share their authority with Institutional delegates from Trade Unions and other sectors of the party.

It has to be said. Ujjal Dosanjh's leadership is tainted by the fact that he has not passed the test of an election but even more tainted by the fact that he was not elected by his membership at large and that much of his support came under suspicious circumstances.

It all makes the point I've been trying to make for years - we don't have democracy in this country, just the bare trappings of one. The problem isn't that Ujjal Dosanjh doesn't have the confidence of the people of British Columbia but that all governments, from coast to coast and in Ottawa, are based upon a form of democracy that can only be describes as sham. And as long as we sit tight for this kind of phony government, we will always have it.