CKNW Editorial
for October 18, 2000

We’re going to find out on November 27^th just how much British Columbians care for democracy, honesty and politicians who serve rather than dictate. If past experience is any guide about 30% of us will vote Liberal. I have to ask how any British Columbian could vote for that bunch.

Jean Chretien obviously believes that there is no limit to the voter’s patience … that he’ll put up with arrogance and corruption in any quantity it’s dished out.

We have, of course, the HRDC scandals where Chretien has not only protected his ministers but has actually run interference for them. We had the APEC scandal where, even taking the most charitable view, the Prime Minister covered for his minister until it was no longer possible … and along with his Foreign Affairs minister, Lloyd Axworthy, placed the comfort of international gangsters ahead of the right of Canadians to express their opinions. Porkbarreling has been raised to new heights as unsavoury figures in the Prime Minister’s own riding have been favoured with oodles of government money … and we now find that taxpayers have footed the bill for what seems like half the country clubs in the country.

There was the Mount Logan affair where the prime minister backed off not because he had made a mistake and admitted it but because his handlers told him that he had made a major election issue out of a stupid bit of hubris. Now we have Brian Tobin, breaking his pledge to his own voters, being put in cabinet without that little democratic formality known as membership in the House of Commons.

But surely where British Columbians must rise against this petty tyrant is over the forced nominations of his toadies in two Surrey ridings and Vancouver Quadra. Here is a man who will brook no back talk. All opinions must be his. The Liberal party, whose shallow pretence to be democratic is now demolished, simply names candidates in three BC ridings with more, I predict to come. Now, it’s bad enough that when we elect Liberals nominated by their party they simply do what they’re told. We at least have the minor satisfaction of knowing that if they’re lickspittles at least they’re our lickspittles. Now, even that slender thread to democracy is gone as Chretien, in order to be sure there’s no back talk, names his MPs. Are you people in Surrey and Quadra going to put up with that? Are you really going to vote for hand-picked toadies? Any decent person, in my view, ought to be nauseated at the thought that any Liberals be elected anywhere but especially in British Columbia. But that they be handpicked for suitable supineness by Jean Chretien must surely be too much for even the most cynical of Liberal supporters.

But my question is, where are all the Liberal big-wigs in all this. Where’s Mae Brown? Senator Ray Perrault? Senator Jack Austin? Senator Ross Fitzpatrick? My old friend Tex Enemark? The bagman of bagmen, David MacLean? Whatever happened to the idealism that was a part of this party when I was young and a Liberal? Don’t any of these people care about principle? About honesty? About democracy? Or is it down to this – the Liberals must be elected at all costs?

I suspect it’s the latter. Liberals have this built-in notion that only they know how to govern.

Yes, I have my qualms about the Alliance, qualms I have stated here many times in the past. But I look at this in the short term in order to be sure that Canada has a long term. We simply cannot long survive a system where region is played off against region so that the Liberals can get elected. We will split apart, make no mistake about it.

I survey the scene and ask who will make the short term policies that will keep this country together and there is only one party talking about it. I would be the first to agree that the Alliance and Stockwell Day have a considerable way to go before their reforms would be any more than paper tigers … but he is still talking the talk. It’s up to us to make sure that his pledges have meaning.

Of course I’m concerned about some of the people in the Alliance and their commitment to decent social policies. But let me tell you this – there will never be any change to abortion laws because any attempt would be political suicide and Day is no fool. There will be no weakening of the social net because it’s so firmly in place … in fact, what you’ll likely see is efficiency where there is now corruption and incompetence.

For me, the only real issue in the next election is whether or not we are going to seek real reform in the system and thus give this country a chance to stay together or we opt again for the four year dictatorship where one man does whatever he damn well pleases and where British Columbia has no voice whatever. Jean Chretien is a petty tyrant who cares nothing for our institutions and is holding an election solely for the purpose of gaining himself a place in the record books and to get Brian Tobin into 24 Sussex Drive instead of Paul Martin.

As I say, after November 27 next we’ll all know a lot about ourselves – whether we believe in democracy and reform or whether the old ways of dictatorship and corruption suit us just fine.