CKNW Editorial
for April 30, 2001

The magician and the politician in trouble have something in common – they both want to divert attention from what they have really done. This is, of course, what the NDP campaign is all about. And no one should be surprised.

The hope is, of course, that voters will look at Mr Campbell critically – and so they should. But the NDP hope that whatever they see wrong in Mr Campbell will mask their own manifold blemishes.

There is an overriding factor in all this I can tell you about from personal experience. It doesn’t matter very much, after you are elected, what your philosophy is or whether or not you favour this or that segment of society. The overriding fact is that you must govern. To govern and do anything for the good of society you must govern in such a manner that, as the famous French Minister of Finance said, you pluck the goose so as to get the greatest number of feathers with the least amount of hissing. This is what the NDP have failed to do. Since November 1991 they have been a bad government and the hissing is deafening.

Mike Harcourt was a bad premier. He was unable to handle a scandal that preceded his arrival and, week by week, by stonewalling, he made it worse and worse. Under him, then Finance Minister Glen Clark imposed a surtax on houses. It wasn’t until Mr Harcourt realized that the surtax would hit his house that order was restored. He managed a surtax on so-called luxury vehicles, virtually ensuring that much of rural BC would be surtaxed on their pickups. In cahoots with Dave Zirnhelt and Dan Miller, later premier, Mr Harcourt managed to steal the timber rights of Carrier Lumber and expose the Province to perhaps a quarter of a billion dollars in damages. Under Mr Harcourt – and here it was again his weakness and inability to control his government - that the Hydrogate scandal happened with the full knowledge, however much denied, of Mr Clark whose evidence before a judge was simply not believed.

It was then Glen Clark’s turn. Masking Hydrogate with a phony budget, and taking advantage of a terrible Liberal campaign, he stole a victory in May 1996. I don’t blame him for outgunning the Liberals – that’s what politics is all about – I only remind you that he cheated on the main point of the campaign.

Let’s look back at some of the key ministries.

The NDP, to their great credit, set up the Ministry of Children and Families. Then proceeded to botch it so badly that children were worse off after the ministry was formed than before. The Children and Family Advocate, Joyce Preston, an officer of the Legislature, wrote one condemnatory judgment of the ministry after another. In the middle of the debacle, when it was clear that the ministry needed a strong hand on the tiller, Glen Clark appointed and Ujjal Dosanjh retained for far too long, the utterly incompetent Lois Boone

Let’s look at healthcare, and this the NDP urge upon you now as the priority issue alleging that they and they alone are competent to handle it. The fact is the health system is in chaos and the NDP have much to answer for its desperate condition. The defence raised is that it’s all the fault of the federal government cutting back on transfer payments. And it did, But it is the NDP who set the fiscal priorities for the past ten years … and the Island Highway, High Occupancy Vehicle lanes and, most of all, fast ferries had a higher priority than did healthcare. Politically, the NDP felt that they had to do these and other things and now they want you to believe that they have seen the light and are reformed.

Let’s look at education. The NDP boasts at every turn that they have frozen student fees. What they don’t tell you is that they are not topping up university and college revenues to make up for it. Talk to any administrator or anyone teaching in the system and they will tell you that service to the students is eroding and badly eroding as each month passes.

Let’s look at law enforcement – the Attorney-General’s ministry.

We saw an NDP Attorney-General swear a false affidavit. He sat in on a meeting where he personally helped plot strategy in an abortion case then swore an affidavit he wasn’t there. He was cleared by a crown counsel that just happened to have earned $150,000 in fees from the A/G’s ministry the year before. He didn’t even resign during the time of the investigation.

We saw an Attorney-General, knowing that the premier was under criminal investigation, sit on that fact and not demand the premier’s resignation until he could no longer stonewall. We saw the same Attorney-General, now the Premier, refrain from advising cabinet colleagues that they must resign after the judge in the Carrier case made devastating findings about their conduct … and who advised an appeal only to have to abandon it when it was discovered that the Crown had hidden several boxes more of evidence over and above that it suppressed at trial.

Finally, let’s look at the Finance Ministry. Over 9 ½ years, the provincial debt has more than doubled from 17 billion to 35. We know about the fudget budget of 1996 but the budget of 2001 will be no better and arguably worse.

But the final indictment comes from the marketplace. It doesn’t matter whether you are left or right or as most British Columbians are, from the center – if the business climate is bad the government has been doing a bad job. We’ve been through recessions before but we survived because the business community felt confident that the government wanted it to succeed. Of course governments must police business, nowhere more than on environmental matters. Often times they must make decisions that hurt business. But for all that, they must create a general atmosphere of confidence. Capital must feel, over the longer term, that BC is a welcome haven for business. We don’t want dirty business nor do we want environmental rogues. But we must have business to generate the taxes to pay for the social benefits we enjoy and covet. It is here that the NDP have truly failed their mandate.

I suppose it’s been overdone but on any balanced view of the NDP government they cannot avoid Cromwell’s words to the Rump parliament

"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing … Depart I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"