Vancouver Courier
for August 16, 1998

October 27, 1992 was huge hangover day for the NDP caucus. The day before they had all trooped into the B.C. Legislature, led by Premier Harcourt, Glen Clark, Andrew Petter et al, wearing "Yes" buttons on their lapels. They were supporting the Charlottetown Accord and, notwithstanding it was against the rules of the House, they were going to show it.

Problem was, the night before 70% of British Columbians disagreed and these were, after all, politicians.

The NDP had staked a lot on this vote. Premier Harcourt, though utterly ignorant of the issues, constantly stuck his neck out including an appearance on my show where he was slaughtered - not by me but by callers. He jousted - and always lost - with then Liberal leader Gordon Wilson. Glen Clark supported Charlottetown. So did Andrew Petter. So did the lot of them.

Central control and socialism go hand in hand so the nuances of federalism in a huge country have never much concerned New Democrats. As long as everything is properly planned by left wing apparatchiks, who cares where it's done? The party is a national one with provincial wings and campaign funding which often gets embarrassingly mingled. The notion of a national consensus of the elite being rejected was unthinkable. That it might be rejected by the public in a referendum vote was unimaginable!

And they all got into the fight. Ken Georgetti was in the thick of it. Jack Munro was doing "yes" editorials in prime time on CKNW (he later complained to the CRTC that CKNW didn't give balanced coverage). Most of the intellectual and artsy-fartsy community were vocally onside.

Now it's the day after, you're in year one of your mandate, you got publicly humiliated - where now?

Simple - dump the skipper and change course abruptly. And this is what they did. Glen Clark and Andrew Petter, like Saul on the road to Damascus, saw the light and presto! there was a new B.C. Constitutional position which could have been written by the leaders of the "No" campaign. And the NDP have hewed that line faithfully including adding a key whereas to the "Calgary (so called) Declaration" which clearly asserts that it doesn't imply any consent to future constitutional change.

The NDP is solidly behind the Vander Zalm government's law requiring a provincial referendum before the Legislature deals with a constitutional amendment.

What's now become apparent, though, that the conversion to popular democracy is confined strictly to this issue. On all other matters it's the "we know what's best for you" policy. The public are too stupid and easily led to understand Nisga'a, for example and the experience of a former union organizer who's never held a real job and the intellectual giants who form his caucus are best able to decide a matter which forever alters the social contract.

The public in the form of working people are quite able to boil down 500 page union contracts full of the complexities of pay equity, pension schemes and intricate tax implications but cannot, evidently, sift through Nisga'a, determine the principle issues, and make a judgment. Only the NDP caucus can do that!

The public can sift through the Charlottetown Accord, come up with the essential elements to be debated and make a decision but it takes deep thinkers like Dale Lovick, Kathy McGregor, Paul Ramsey and our perspicacious premier to decide Nisga'a for us.

Now - and forgive me for what might seem to be a racially demeaning remark to many non aboriginals - evidently this complex treaty is not too much for the Nisga'a people to deal with. They will have their referendum.

So on the one hand we have a "new" New Democratic Party in B.C. which believes devoutly in the principle of participatory democracy when it comes to the intricacies of constitutional law and all the emotions that subject can raise but also believes that the way you settle Indian treaties is through secret negotiations without a public mandate or participation, without meaningful public information, with the results all gussied up by professional spin doctors and fed to the public at their own expense, then crammed though a tame legislature.

It's the ancient battle of Edmund Burke, who believed that representatives do your thinking for you and Tom Paine who talked of "The Rights of Man" and democracy (a word Burke held in the highest contempt as have succeeding British elites up to and very much including Tony Blair.)

Glen Clark et al, unless forced by events like the Charlottetown Referendum into moments of unwonted democratic utterances, are Burke men. Strange since Burke's the patron saint of conservatism but perhaps not so strange when you consider that socialists have become politic's reactionaries having had no new ideas for decades and perpetually wed to notions and slogans of yesteryear.

I'm a Tom Paine man myself - so, since October 26, 1992, are most British Columbians, as events are almost certain to demonstrate.