CKNW Editorial
for November 1, 2000

The cabinet shuffle is entirely political. Scarcely a move has been made to improve the administration of government.

First I want to comment on the departure of Andrew Petter. While I doubt that Mr Petter would count his days in the Finance portfolio as especially happy ones he has been a good minister, a rare commodity in that government. He has been a good attorney-general but where he stood highest, in my view, was as Minister for Constitutional Affairs. In a famous Sherlock Holmes story Holmes comments to Watson about a dog on the premises of a crime barking. When Watson says that there was no dog barking Holmes says precisely – why didn’t the dog bark?

Thus it is when you look back at Mr Petter’s handling of the Constitutional portfolio – it was conducted with such deftness that nary a sound remains. I can tell you, however, that there were times when a misstep then would be very much heard today. He handled the so-called Calgary Accord such that he managed to love it to death with amendments such that the opposition couldn’t oppose it and the damned thing has never been heard of since.

The bringing in of Grand Chief Ed John as Minister for Children and Families is the rawest form of politics and is clearly aimed at the native vote. I have the greatest admiration for Ed. He is an outstanding British Columbian and a great leader for his people. The trouble is that the Children and Families Ministry has cried out for an administrator with leadership. This may come as a shock to you but the best Minister of Human Resources in the last 20 years was Grace McCarthy. You’ll hear that from the social workers that reported to her. She was good because she brought good business administration – she saw that the dollars got to where they were needed. What Children and Families has lacked from its inception is just that kind of leadership.

I have no doubt – and I’ll spit it out – that Chief John’s appointment will do a great deal to shore up people like Dave Zirnhelt whose native constituents have done very badly indeed under the NDP administration. Natives throughout the interior will see this as a great reward. And that’s what it is clearly all about. I hope that I’m wrong and that Ed John can make that ministry into what it was intended.

The most cynical of all appointments was that of Corky Evans in Health. Here is a ministry that really does require a strong minister. It is a huge business and requires not just a person with a broad philosophy as an example but strong executive skills. Everyone likes Corky but an administrator he ain’t. This is no secret and I would be surprised if Corky would claim that he was any good at all at administering anything.

Moreover, here we have a ministry deep in a lawsuit with the tobacco industry run by a two pack a day man. The optics are dreadful.

The object of this exercise is, of course, to give the government a chance to move away from the strong position taken with the doctors by Mike Farnworth. Farnworth couldn’t have moved without both him and the government losing face. The sword of surrender can be offered by Evans and that’s exactly what is going to happen.

Premier Dosanjh has, by these moves, made a public admission that he hasn’t the material within his caucus to run a government. He can say that he is retiring many ministers because they don’t choose to run again but what’s that to the public? The public expect good people in every job and couldn’t care less that the Premier wants to cut his political losses.

There is one thing every politician learns the hard way – when you try to be cute you crap all over your own shoes. Every time the government of which I was a part tried to make a neat finesse or throw a curve at the media we lived to regret it very much. Such is the case with all governments. These cynical, short term efforts and political self service will rebound on Premier Dosanjh and his party and instead of giving his party a boost he has just shoved its head under water for the last, fatal time.