CKNW Editorial
for June 20, 2001

There is, of course, a race for the leadership of the Liberal Party. People close to Jean Chretien say that if Paul Martin’s people hadn’t tried to rush things last year that Chretien might have retired making way for his finance minister. The trouble is, for British Columbians it’s meaningless. I mean, since when did it matter who was prime minister of the country? The Conservatives like to pretend that when Mulroney was in charge BC had a voice but we know and knew that’s not true. We threw the lot of them out, including our only home grown Prime Minister in 1993.

In fact the proof positive that BC doesn’t matter to the rest of this country was demonstrated in spades by Brian Mulroney with Meech Lake and later by Joe Clark and Mulroney with Charlottetown. They were both quite ready to sacrifice the interests of Canada’s third largest province to the proposition that the country must forever more be dominated by Ontario and Quebec and that Quebec would always have the second largest number of MPS even after she ceased to be the second largest province.

The people seeking the leadership of the Liberals are all enemies as far as I’m concerned. Brian Tobin is a Meechkin and a Charlottetown lover to this day and would make any promise to Quebec he thought might forward the policy of endless appeasement. Allan Rock is so Toronto he looks and talks like it. He has no experience of British Columbia and if his handling of the Clifford Olson "faint hope" matter a few years ago is anything to go on he is utterly insensitive to feelings on the west coast. Surely I need say nothing about Sheila Copps.

Paul Martin is supposed to be very popular in British Columbia – well make that read very popular with BC Liberals. He has no more understanding of how we feel than does Chretien who is likewise popular with local Grits. The fact remains that the influence of British Columbia on the Canadian establishment is zero. Zilch. It doesn’t matter a dam who the Liberals select as the next faraway Caesar to rule us.

Western Canadian influence is little enough but we’re not historically, geographically or economically part of what Ottawa sees as "The West" so we have no clout at all. Even Joe Clark, who was once a westerner, can’t for the life of him understand how we couldn’t care less about distinct societies and special deals for Quebec.

Much of this is our own fault though fault isn’t quite the right word. But we won’t go to Toronto to live. Our executives refuse transfers to Toronto and will take less money and an abandoned career rather than move to Hogtown. Moreover, British Columbians hesitate to go to Parliament – the more usual background for the local MP is the Prairies … people who are used to winter. The only real connection BC has to Ontario is the number of Ontario people who move here but that doesn’t help us – they soon have all the zeal that goes with being a convert.

But the problem goes deeper than that. Not only is the business community run by an Ontario establishment mind set, so is the public service. In both cases it is the Upper Canada College, old Ontario school tie that runs things. They don’t ignore us out of malice – it’s just never really occurred to them that we’re here … or if we are, that we’re any different than people from Winnipeg. They don’t deliberately make decisions and govern to favour central Canada – they just see Central Canada and the great Ontario/Quebec struggle as what Canada is all about. In short the establishment of Canada is based in Toronto and sees Canada as an extension of Ontario, save always Quebec whom they and they alone can deal with.

British Columbia doesn’t get its fair share of federal money, never has and never will. Why would it? We have no political clout, no bureaucratic clout and no corporate clout. We’re not just a branch office of Central Canada, we’re a faraway bitchy one at that.

What is even sadder, our ability to make our bitches known have been all but erased by the follies of the Canadian Alliance which is all the central Canadian media sees of us.

I’d like to say that there’s am answer to this but I don’t think there is. In Churchill’s words, Ottawa prefers drift to resolution. Just let things go and we’ll muddle our way through as we always do.

But that policy, however successful it may seem to be at this juncture, won’t last. BC will prosper again and it will depend less and less on Ottawa for help. In fact, as can be seen in the softwood lumber dispute, even an Ottawa saying it wants to help is more of a hindrance than a help. The timber of provinces who depend much less than does BC on forestry is more important to Ottawa because other places matter more politically.

BC does less and less business with the rest of Canada each year. Our trade lines, while continuing south will continue to expand to the Orient.

What happens when, to British Columbia the Ottawa government which matters so little to us now, matters not at all? This is the position to which we are slowly but oh so steadily drifting – and our collective indifference as to who will be the next Liberal leader is part of that inevitable drift.