CKNW Editorial
for November 2, 2000

I sense a little panic in Liberal ranks.

David Anderson, who ought to be the spokesman for the good folks in the Fraser Valley on the Sumas II issue, is nowhere to be found and refused to walk six feet to my microphone last Thursday because he knew I would raise this issue. It is true that the provincial government has the power to influence and as Premier Dosanjh candidly admitted they dropped the ball on this issue, but it's the federal government that speaks for all of us on international issues and it just so happens that Mr Anderson is federal Minister of Environment. I suspect that the Prince of Arrogance, his boss Jean Chretien being the king, is cringing in fear that those opposed to Sumas II will carry the fight to his political campaign by picketing his election office.

In Port Moody- Coquitlam - Port Coquitlam Lou Sekora, who is just as arrogant as Anderson and Chretien but with much less reason, is falling all over himself to take credit personally for the saving of the Upper Pitt River. No one has ever denied that Mr Sekora put pressure on the federal fisheries minister to have an environmental review and that one was ordered. But as much as Sekora hates to face it, the real decision was made in Victoria by the Premier. The fact of the matter is that Mr Dosanjh, hearing of the interference of DFO, could easily have used that as an excuse to simply avoid the issue. Most politicians, including all Liberals, would have done that. Instead, Premier Dosanjh, in face of antagonism from a senior minister, Dan Miller, courageously made the deal that removed the threat.

Politics being what they are, Sekora wants all the credit when it is really due to the activist group called the Pitt River and Area Watershed Network, called PRAWN which, representing people from all walks of life, kept up the pressure including waking Sekora up to the issue very late in the game. Our show was on the case about ten months before Sekora said a peep but I know that the credit goes not to broadcasters ... not to politicians who are dragged kicking and screaming into an issue at the last minute ... but to the ordinary citizens who keep the pressure on.

Now Jean Chretien, unable and of course unwilling to defend his corrupt government, which corruption was no better exemplified than in his own ridings with his cronies, takes Stockwell Day on as a force of darkness. Mr Day has dealt with his religion and that no longer seems to be an issue. He has dealt with other issues such as health, the budget, native land claims and other relevant matters. Whether or not you agree with his positions they're out there. Mr Chretien, the day before yesterday's man, no longer having the vigour and intellect he once did, heads for the gutter. He reminds me of that delightful aphorism of Margot Asquith who, in speaking of David Lloyd George, said he could never see a belt without hitting below it.

This is fear we're seeing. Jean Chretien's avoidance of anything that could give him a bad sound bite is a classic example. Not for him any talk show hosts who might ask difficult questions.

I don't have any idea who's winning or losing. But one sure sign that panic is setting in is when you see politicians avoiding any issues except those they quite wrongly want to take credit for. This has been a bad government.

That I could forgive - most governments are bad, some are just worse than others. What I find unforgivable about the Liberals is their shameless corruption ... nary a blush ... in fact they arrogantly assert that in passing money to pals they're helping employment ... I find it unforgivable that there is no vision, au contraire there's a plea for the status quo ... that there's a conscious effort to avoid talk of reforming our system.

This is a tired old government of old people, many of whom are not old by the calendar but just old in the head, that wants us to give them a mandate to have more HRDC boondoggles, more bribery to politically promising regions, more indifference to the structural weakness in our system. None better exemplify what I'm saying better than Lou Sekora, David Anderson and Jean Chretien.