Vancouver Courier
for September 20, 1998

There was quite a bun toss on Prince George a week ago Friday. Despite a hockey game and a rock show, about 3000 people met to determine ways to unite the right and provide one viable alternative to Glen Clark.

The decision, according to Mayor Steve Wallace of Quesnel, was to support one right wing candidate in ten key ridings and thus take away the vote splitting which occurred in May 1996.

Gordon Gibson, one of the wiser inquisitors of our time, asked what was so important to Gordon Campbell, Gordon Wilson, and Bill Vander Zalm that they would put the entire province at risk of the return of the NDP? What indeed?

But the question is not easily answered because human beings by nature like to split hairs and create artificial differences which are no more that faint distinctions, if that.

When I was a kid I went to private school for boys. Upon arrival you found you were in a "House" - you were either a Tupper or a MacDougall. I was a MacDougall. Soccer, Rugby and Cricket games were played House against House. When the seniors played, you cheered your House and hated the opponents. Soon you knew the affiliation of each boy in school and it was not long before a stereotype was developed. You could tell a Tupper by just looking at him.

Then we selected professional teams from places we had never visited. Either you hated the Maple Leafs and loved the Canadiens as I did, or vice versa. In baseball there were the Dodgers (me) the Giants which I loathed, or the Cards. And you loved or hated the Yankees meaning you were, for the moment, a devout fan of whoever was playing them. There was, needless to say, nothing rational about this but it was all very important. The Dodgers stood for all that was good, the Giants were inherently evil and so on.

My father brought me an autographed Maple Leaf Year Book from 1946-7 and I hid it. It was like presenting an Israeli with a glint edged morocco bound copy of the Koran autographed by Yaser Arafat.

Much of our politics is so ordered. We pick teams based upon largely irrelevant issues and take a personal view.

The NDP, having been born and bred in adversity have learned, as the 60s generation used to say, not to "sweat the small stuff." They scrap like hell but always salute the flag.

The "right", on the other hand, having been in power so long until 1991, has had the luxury of being in fringe parties.

A person supports Gordon Wilson because Gordon Campbell did him dirt. Or because there is one policy where he seems the most articulate. People support Bill Vander Zalm because they hate the Liberals.

Stated philosophical differences are inarticulate mumbo jumbo. They all hate the NDP with a passion but also hate the principal alternative.

The fault for this rests not so much with Vander Zalm and Wilson - though there's plenty for them to share - but with the Liberals. They refuse to take the one simple step which, though it wouldn't get Vander Zalm or Wilson to change parties, would vacuum up their supporters. They need only change their name.

What's in a name?

Plenty. Individual memories may quickly fade but collective memories make elephants seem absent minded. The Liberal Party has always been the Ottawa Party and British Columbians will not easily put an Ottawa party in Victoria.

Mr Campbell can tentatively add an unofficial "coalition" to the name Liberal but that's not enough and brings back bad memories of another era. They can divide from the Chretien bunch on an issue - which they have over Nisga'a - but people will still think that when it gets down, as the ranchers say, to the nut cutting they'll either knuckle under or pull punches.

All can see the strong Federal Liberal presence. If nothing else the parties are joined at the wallet. There are well known federal Liberals in the provincial caucus - occasionally they threaten to or actually leave caucus to run federally.

Whether or not these impressions are founded in fact is utterly irrelevant. They are impressions, strongly held, and in politics that's all that matters.

In the ten key ridings Mayor Wallace speaks of, people see federal Liberal hacks appointed to all the neat little jobs. They then see these same hacks mixed up in local Provincial Liberal affairs. They don't need much help making the connection.

If the issue was just the next election - likely April 2001 - that would be one thing. But if there is going to be one strong alternative to the NDP for the future - a new version of the old Social Credit Party - the base has to be laid now.

I don't think Gordon Campbell has the guts or leadership ability to do what is necessary.