CKNW Editorial
for March 23, 2001

What a delight and pleasure it is to visit Prince George again. The last time we did a show here it was in the middle of the Kemano Completion program dust-up and I didn’t know whether I would get a flyrod thrust into my hands or a hunting knife between the ribs … I well remember the Chamber of Commerce luncheon that day where I was the guest speaker with the KCP as my subject. Alcan, complete with brass, occupied two tables right under the podium. When it came time for questions I was sure that at least their PR man, Les Holroyd – a decent nice guy, incidentally – would get up and clobber me. Questions came from all over the room but none from Alcan. None. After the speech, there was Mr Holroyd over at the TV cameras telling everyone what a turkey I was. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since, like your own Ben Meisner, I had become accustomed at their shots all being fired from long range.

I’m pleased to bring the show to Prince George for another reason. We who ply our trade in Vancouver have a lot to learn from other places in the province … what we down on the southern coast like to call "up there". I remember when I practiced law in Kamloops how galling it was when the Law Society used to refer to us as the "up country" bar. I have spent some time in a smaller BC city, have earned my living there and I think come to know something of life outside the big smoke. As I’m fond of reminding listeners, Vancouver is to Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George or Trail as Toronto is to Vancouver. We don’t know what it’s like to work in a place that depends on one or two – more often one only – resource based companies. We haven’t felt the impact of that industry shutting down … we haven’t seen how that affects everyone … the car dealerships, the markets, the electronics shops, the clothing stores and even the coffee shops. To us, those things are often in the abstract like war and famine in Africa … we know how to cluck our tongues in sympathy but we don’t really feel the pain.

Similarly, we tend to see our problems as more pressing – we need Skytrain and forget that many smaller centers have only the most rudimentary of public transit. We look at the Lions Gate Bridge and think that because other centers only have problems in the hundreds of thousands while ours are in the hundreds of millions that we must always come first.

We see things like gun control, grizzly bears, and Agricultural Land reserves through the eyes of what I call the condominium conservationists.

Now don’t get me wrong. Everybody has a viewpoint and is entitled to it. People outside Vancouver are no less prone to error than those who live in the West End. It’s just that you have to listen to us because we live where the money goes to and you don’t.

I have often pondered this problem … one that is worse now than it was when the premier used to come from outside the lower mainland.

Bill Vander Zalm had an idea of regional ministers. It didn’t work and I’m not sure why not. One suggestion has been a provincial senate – that idea is usually quickly cast aside because of the high odour in which Canada’s senate is held … probably not fair. Some think it would be too expensive and perhaps it would be but we’ve spent our money on less sensible ideas.

It is said that powerful cabinet ministers are the answer. The trouble is, under our rotten system of government, there really isn’t such a thing as a strong cabinet minister – the premier is all powerful.

That isn’t entirely true, of course but it’s true enough if, like Prince George, your cabinet ministers have not been seen as having much clout.

I don’t know what the answer is because the solution doesn’t seem to have much appeal. If we were to separate the executive from the legislative as they have done in the United States I believe regions would be much better represented. Where you have a system where party solidarity is everything, you get one person rule.

It is said by some that if we brought in proportional representation, and thus could almost be guaranteed a minority government, that would be better for less populated areas. I don’t know. Somehow I think that the major forces in the government would be hostage to big city forces.

It is becoming a bigger and bigger issue … and I think the challenge of the next government, in addition to cleaning up the mess, is going to be to find ways that all British Columbians, wherever they live, feel a stronger sense of connection to the people and forces that govern them.