Financial Post
for September 18, 1998

It never rains but it pours - not true for Vancouver this summer but certainly right on for news stories in Lotusland. There are the terrible fires .. there's the ongoing Nisga'a settlement saga ... the spectacle of disgraced ex-Premier Bill Vander Zalm trying to have a political impact ... the disgraceful behaviour of Jean Chretien and Lloyd Axworthy with respect to the visit of that noted democrat President Suharto to Vancouver last Fall .. and on it goes.

I've long contended that B.C. politics, while goofy, are no goofier than anywhere else but this argument became a little crumbly around the edges when Premier Glen Clark appointed former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford to look into what's gone wrong with federal fishing policy.

This was a raw political appointment and makes Caligula's appointment of his horse as consul look like an act of enlightened statesmanship. Of course Ottawa is to blame for the parlous state of our fishery yet, though he's arrogance personified, federal Fisheries Minister David Anderson's solutions are attracting favourable response from B.C. voters. And playing Captain B.C. is Mr Clark's schtick - something had to be done.

Brian Peckford presided over the destruction of the Newfoundland cod fishery though he says it was all Ottawa's fault. He in fact played the double game of blaming Ottawa policies on the one hand while at the same time encouraging fishermen, his constituents, to catch more fish. That's a political strategy we know something about on the Pacific Coast.

Ah, you're catching on, I see - Mr Clark's appointment had nothing whatever to do with fish and everything to do with his own re-election. In British Columbia, from the moment Confederation was forced upon the masses by the Victoria establishment, fed bashing has been what provincial elections have been all about. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell lost the 1996 election because of the name "Liberal" even though five years earlier there was a formal divorce between the federal and B.C. wings. British Columbians don't want even a suspicion of Ottawa influence in Victoria. It happens that Brian Peckford is even a bigger "fed basher" than I, hard as that may be to believe.

But why does Glen Clark need help in this department?

Because Gordon Campbell has had bit of good luck and good management in his desperate search for an issue which puts lots of clear blue water between himself and the despised Chretien bunch. His good management came when the so-called Calgary Declaration came before the Legislature earlier this year. Glen Clark was sure he had Campbell snookered with his three B.C. additions and a significant "whereas". Campbell would surely pillory the NDP for this unpatriotic attack on what Jean Chretien had adopted as the cornerstone of Constitutional policy. Except he didn't. Not at all.

Then the luck. Glen Clark badly miscalculated on the Nisga'a Treaty thinking it was a no brainer and that a grateful public would sweep him back into power on this issue alone. Having learned nothing from the Charlottetown Accord, Clark thought voters would be thrilled by the agreement he had made without their knowledge and consent. They weren't and Gordon Campbell jumped in with both feet and, since the feds and Clark are in bed together on this one, was able to put a lot of distance between himself and the Chretien crew.

The Nisga'a deal, you see, is a classic case of "them against us." Ottawa only has to pay money (and 13% of that is ours) while B.C. must live with the consequences of this treaty which, in the premier's own words, is the template for 50-60 more to come. There is deep resentment in British Columbia that we've not been consulted in any meaningful way and that there won't be a referendum.

The salmon is very important to British Columbians. Though it's worth about a billion a year, the loss of the salmon industry, commercial and sports, would not destroy the economy ( that task has been successfully undertaken by the Clark government). The importance is societal, symbolic, thus highly political because salmon, and the rivers they use, represents the signature indeed the soul of British Columbia.

That's what makes the salmon dispute so important a political vehicle for Glen Clark. The word "salmon" catches voter attention. Thus a mediocre at best Tory premier from the other end of the country becomes an important political ally for Glen Clark and his unpopular NDP government..

We're talking politics here folks, not fish.