CKNW Editorial
for January 2, 2001

Well, we made it. The 21st Century has arrived notwithstanding a world-wide ignorant attempt to have it arrive a year early. And I suppose this is a good time to think about what this century will bring.

In the short term it will almost certainly bring us one party government in BC for a considerable period. The BC Liberals have expanded their traditional position in the middle so as to squeeze out both the moderate left and the moderate right. On the left this has come from breathtaking incompetence of the NDP and on the right because the religious right has taken over. As long as moderates from both outer reaches of the spectrum have nowhere else to go, the Liberals, like the Socreds of a past generation, will rule relatively unimpeded. One might think that the NDP would quickly revive but I think not. After the Barrett government from 1972-5, center left people were inclined to forget how bad they had been saying "after all, they were only in three years … maybe they needed a little more time to mature." There will be no such excuse for this bunch who have been in for two long terms with four premiers.

On the national scene I see Liberals as far down the road as I can see. The Alliance, every bit as much as the Bloc Quebecois, has become a regional party mainly representing Alberta and British Columbia. I might have thought that Stockwell Day could change this but he doesn’t seem to have the necessary jam for the job. Moreover, despite the fact that the Alliance has had three elections to learn something about politics it doesn’t seem to have. Just one example – with the Liberals who have been led, exclusively, by Roman Catholics going back to Mackenzie King, religion has never been an issue. The Alliance, with two leaders only, has lived with religion an issue throughout its history.

What is going to be fascinating – dangerous but fascinating – is the development of western separatism. For the second time in the last 25 years there have been separatist parties rise in Western Canada. In the 70s it had a kookie, anti Semitic, right-wing Christian ring about it and it wasn’t taken seriously because there was no need to.

Now we see groups springing up in Alberta and British Columbia and they seem to be more grass roots and, in a strange way, more a reaction to the failure of the Alliance Party to win the last election than anything else.

A separatist party, to succeed – and history is littered with the corpses of separatist movements all around the globe – to succeed it must not only have a clear goal but a clear way to get there. As long as separatists are trying to unite western provinces, in whatever number, they will simply be a noisy fringe.

The greater danger to national unity, I think, is the continued ignoring of British Columbia combined with some sort of special deal for Quebec. British Columbians are Canadians but Canadians with a difference. They have a different outlook and love a Canada which in their minds is very different from the one Canadians to the east of them love. If this notion of paternalistic tough love continues from Ottawa and if Quebec looks like it’s going to strike a separate deal, watch out! Then you might not only see a credible separatist leader but a workable game plan too.

Lastly, it’s going to be interesting to watch the NDP over the first decade in this new century and millennium. Ed Broadbent, it’s most successful leader, is now calling for a renaissance. But is it too late? Has socialism lost its raison d’etre? There are poor and disadvantaged in Canada that’s for sure. But only a few ultra-conservative lefties think that the answer is the government controlling the marketplace. The victory of capitalism is too obvious for all but the old hardliners and they are not plentiful enough to win elections. In the meantime, the federal Liberals have stolen the center-left and it will be very difficult for any new party of the left to recapture them especially since the hard-line left refuses to make any compromises that would attract them. Labour has finally got its wish – it controls the NDP. By that control, they are sinking their own political ship.

Interesting times ahead.