Vancouver Courier
for June 3, 1998

Usually I love good old fashioned conspiracy theories even though they often turn out to be nothing more than plain old government arrogance laced with stonewalling. But my latest one may bear watching.

It isn't really my theory but Gordon Gibson's but rather than call it plagiarism, let's call it intensive "research". Actually Gordon and I are good pals and have fought many battles side by side, including the Charlottetown Referendum. Sometimes as between the two of us and other like minded troublemakers, it's pretty difficult to decide where the latest theory of government cupidity begins.

The NDP attitude towards Indian Land Claims has hitherto been predictable - as warm hearted and full of poetry as it was lacking in practicality. From the outset they've thought they had the people behind them, They probably did when the question was in the abstract. Now after Delgamuukw it's anything but abstract.

Politicians operate on one basic principle - do what gets me in the least possible trouble during my watch - after that it's someone else's problem. The NDP thought they had loads of time because despite their noble efforts to lose Delgamuukw by changing lawyers and position, they never for a moment dreamt that the Supreme Court of Canada would allow the appeal and find there was native title in land. When the natives lost again, why the natives would come to the table the NDP had set with begging bowls in hand. Well, a funny thing happened - the Supreme Court did the unthinkable.

Suddenly the wooliness of Mike Harcourt and former Indian Affairs Minister John Cashore didn't look so hot. The politics of NDP native policy had dramatically worsened. Oh, it still had the full support of the "higher purpose persons" who never permit reality to get in the way of sentimentality but the public was no longer with the government on this one - if it ever was.

Overlaid on all this is the increasing unpopularity of the NDP on almost all fronts (the Constitution and fishing being, perhaps, the sole exceptions.) No longer can they rely upon Glen Clark playing Captain B.C. beating up Ottawa on the one hand and Santa Claus with extravagant promises of government expenditures, on the other. For one thing, we're broke. For another, Delgamuukw has suddenly become very scary.

Lurking in the background - are you ready for this? - is the Reform Party which is already strong enough to be a middle sized spoiler but, with Vander Zalm leading the fight against land claims, about to be a spoiler of major proportions. Reform - and the Liberals - have been talking about a provincial referendum on native claims for years. The public, after Charlottetown, disenchanted with government diktats have noted that Ireland has just had a referendum on its version of the Land Claim issue. Moreover, if the Indians can have a referendum, why not the people? What are the government afraid of anyway?

If you're a very unpopular government, what the hell do you do now?

For Glen Clark, who even more than most politicians, puts all considerations secondary to being re-elected, there's but one answer - reverse your field with such breathtaking speed that there's no time to holler nasty words like "hypocrisy" and "betrayal". And that's just what he's doing.

Out with John Cashore and in with the ultra partisan Dale Lovick who'll do anything the Premier suggests might get the party re-elected. First Mr Lovick agrees to re-hire Alex Robertson as Treaty Commissioner but when he gets to Cabinet is outvoted by the Premier whose vote is the only one which counts. Mo problem. Robertson is dumped.

What's interesting are the reasons Mr Lovick gave. The process isn't working. It'll go on for 100 years, and will bankrupt the province. No mention of whose idea the process was in the first place and who pushed it so hard. No concern about things said and promises made. No real indication of what will happen next.

It's all unraveling before our very eyes and all that's left for the NDP to complete the 180 volte face is for the Premier to announce, with a straight face, that there will be a province-wide referendum on Native land claims! Indeed the Gibson theory is that he'll call an election on the question.

A referendum, until now, has been emphatically rejected by the government - but things have changed. Charlottetown taught Mr Clark that the public will emphatically reject a settlement forced upon it by an NDP dominated Legislature.

A political survivor like Glen Clark has no viable option but to accept that the NDP spawned Indian land claims process is stone cold dead in the marketplace. The native leaders will scream like hell when the full impact of the government betrayal hits - and who can blame them? Their leaders agreed in good faith to the process, often reluctantly, and relied upon the NDP keeping its word.

But being honest men, they reckoned without the desperation of a premier with only one straw left to grasp.