Vancouver Courier
for April 22, 1998

There is, I suppose, a time and place for a political buffoon without a sense of judgment.

To call Dave Barrett a buffoon is perhaps a little unfair but there's enough of that in him to usually dash his believability on serious issues. And what Mr Barrett is about to do requires public credibility.

Mr Barrett is a lovely man with deep sensitivities about the little guy. He's also capable of flashes of genius. Unfortunately his innate ability to mimic, amuse and generally entertain gets the better of him so that even when he does try to be serious no one takes him that way. Mostly, as his record shows, he's highly partisan with a concomitant lack of judgment. Premier Clark's appointment of him as the "Leaky Condos Commissioner" ranks right up there with Caligula deciding to make his horse a consul.

There ought to be three principal objects of an inquiry into this tragic scandal.

1. What, if any, responsibility rests on governments with a close look at the duty of municipalities to adequately inspect.

It's all very well to put the onus for inspecting on the buyer but this is asking a great deal of the ordinary home or condo buyer who knows diddley squat about construction and gets a false sense of security by the customs prevailing in the trade. The mortgage company won't advance money except on a step by step basis depending upon certain municipal inspections taking place. The buyer assumes from this that the mortgage company is acting as his agent as indeed it might be. Come to think of it, perhaps buyers should seek legal advice on this point.

There may be some responsibility on senior governments as well.

2. Assess responsibility in the sense of finding some assets against which the victims can proceed for damages. This shouldn't be a political fishing expedition but a legal inquiry seeking practical answers.

3. Advise the government as to what it should do to prevent this happening again.

But this clearly isn't the way the matter will proceed.

Dave Barrett is getting paid $725 per day - that's right up there with talk show hosts! - as a straight payoff by the Premier. At the recent NDP Convention Barrett quelled the troops who were antsy about the Six Mile Ranch development near Kamloops, thus allowing Glen Clark to escape with his life. Now its payback time.

It's also payback time for the non union construction industry which gets a substantial amount of the business to the horror of union organizers Ken Georgetti and Glen Clark. Now you may believe that the recent rally for the leaky condo operators was taken on by the B.C. Federation of Labour as simply a public service and that it was pure coincidence that it was chaired by Ken Georgetti. If so - call me because I sell bridges cheap on the side.

If you believe that Glen Clark had nothing to do with this rally I also have some prime swamp land in Florida which might interest you.

Glen Clark is in a whole lot of trouble. On every front he's off side with voters. We're in a recession and its going to get worse. He's caught in a vicious Catch-22 position - if he lowers taxes to encourage investment he is even more short of funds for social policies and must go deeper into debt making the need for revenue all the more acute.

What the Premier is very good at is distracting attention. This is the man who in February 1996 was up to his eyeballs in the B.C. Hydro scheme to enrich insiders and the party faithful but four months later won an election with Hydogate scarcely getting a mention. If he can find a way to make us all look at his right hand while he stuffs a rabbit in his hat with the left he can win the next election even if B.C. slides down the proverbial rat hole.

But, how to do that? Why turn this leaky condo tragedy to your own advantage!

Flush out the bad developers because who's the developers' pal if it isn't Liberal leader Gordon Campbell? As Premier Clark made clear to reporters, they were looking for bad guys and the "bad guy would be a Liberal". Nice non-partisan touch to start off an "independent" inquiry!

Every suspicious developer who once had a cup of coffee with him will be connected to Campbell and the Liberals by generous doses of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, get my drift?". And remember, Dave Barrett has the power to subpoena and hold witnesses in contempt - what fun jolly he'll have rooting out those bad old Liberals!

And it all might just work.

But let's not for a moment believe that this is a noble investigation into a tragedy - it's a transparent, tawdry political witch hunt designed to win the next election for Glen Clark.