CKNW Editorial
for February 22, 2001

So ... we're going on a spending spree because the government of BC has a quarter of a billion dollars it didn't bargain on having. As Vaughn Palmer points out yesterday this can be, ironically, credited to that bete noir of the socialists, WAC Bennett who famously said that the NDP couldn't run a peanut stand ... he actually pinched that from Churchill who once said that the then socialist Labour Party couldn't run a whelk stall.

But there's another way of looking at this windfall and it's a tax out of your pocket and mine from the extra gas rates we've been forced to pay because of the skyrocketing natural gas prices. The taxes on these revenues are offset by the increased costs on your heating bill. But forget that folks. Forget that the NDP's new financial genius is based upon revenues they couldn't have foreseen and didn't foresee. Just remember that all those goodies you will be promised came as a result of the NDP's brilliant financing methods.

Of course, if one were churlish, one would point out that most of the NDP's big spending is off budget and that despite the apparent surplus the provincial debt continues to soar. It's as if you could run your home without having to count your mortgage payments as part of you balance sheet.

Will all this have some effect on the coming election?

It well could. Bribing voters with their own money is a time honoured way to curry favour with voters. What we all want to believe is that we're getting a benefit but we're not paying for it ... or else somebody else is really paying the freight. I suspect, however, that the money will be spent in areas where the benefit will go to the traditional support for the NDP ... in healthcare, education, social services. And that's not a bad thing since in one of the great political ironies of our age, the very areas one would have thought the NDP would be miles ahead of the old Socreds was in the social ministries and this has been the area of great failure.

What is bad about this sort of pre-election spending spree is that the money is not spent in an orderly fashion starting where its needed the most - which more often than not is in areas the public doesn't see - but up front where there are good photo ops. And, as Glen Clark demonstrated in 1986, this sort of campaigning can be effective.

It shouldn't make a difference but hearken to a call I received, on air, from Abbotsford earlier in the week. This man, clearly no NDP supporter, pointed out that the NDP went into the 1986 campaign miles behind in the polls with the Nanaimo Bingo Scandal battling Hydrogate for the headlines. A lacklustre campaign by the Liberals, a promise a day campaign by Glen Clark and the Liberals were toast.

I don't believe history will repeat itself. I think the public is simply fed to the teeth with the NDP and, besides, there is no credible third party option to take away from the Liberals all those seats in rural BC. I do believe, however, that the NDP will rise in the polls and settle in around the 30-35% range. It will be a campaign between Mr Campbell and Mr Dosanjh - the public recognize that under our rotten system, it's only the leaders that count. Mr Dosanjh is well liked and I expect him to be a polished performer in the great debate that really isn't a debate at all. But the key for the NDP is how close they can get to about 35% because it's not until you hit that mark that, in a two horse race, you start to see the votes translated into seats and this is especially true when there are only two parties contending. In fact, they may have to get closer to 40% to start taking seats if the Liberals are over 50%.

One thing is always for sure. When a party is as low in the polls as the NDP are it's like a penny stock ... no matter how much more bad news comes along, it can't go any lower. But ... some good news and the worthless stock suddenly takes on some value. And when you have an election campaign, you just don't know what will happen.

As Damon Runyan so famously said ... "the race is not always to the swift nor the contest to the strong, but that's the way to bet". And one would be a fool to bet against the Liberals ... but in politics, BC style, you just never know, do you?