Vancouver Province
for March 28, 1999

Yabadabadoo! There’s going to be a leadership contest! What larks!

At least I think there’s going to be one. Maybe.

There, now that I’ve taken my usual strong, unequivocal stand, to the business at hand.

Glen Clark has been premier for over three years and he hasn’t a single, solitary accomplishment to his credit. This is the man who idolizes W.A.C. Bennett yet the only thing that will be named after him is the ferry system and it will be called Clark’s cockup. This is a pretty sorry record for one who was seen even by many of his enemies as a bright guy who would leave his mark. He’s made his mark all right and it looks a lot like the mark my wife scoops up when walking Clancy, our chocolate Lab.

Everyone who has not been ballooning around the world this past month knows that Premier Clark has got his party in a hell of a fix. His government looks so bad that even the traditional short memory of voters likely won’t help the NDP at election time. What can the NDP do?

Well, of course Glen Clark should resign. And he will as soon as he can do so with the least loss of face. Like after the Nisga’a Treaty is crammed through by his thin but disciplined caucus – which will be early next month as long as the recent court win by one of Nisga’a’s neighbours doesn’t postpone things. He could claim this as an accomplishment even though not all would agree. It’s at least a face saver.

So he resigns - who succeeds him? Let’s look at the options.

I don’t believe that the NDP will simply appoint an interim leader from caucus who promises not to seek the title. The time is wrong for that. The NDP needs a new leader who can immediately start wooing the public. The caucus will select a leader and a June convention will lustily endorse him – or her.

Right. Then who is there, first of all, outside caucus. The answer is no one. Svend Robinson? You must be joking. The only people who detest Svend more than the right are the NDP brass. Nelson Riis? Nice guy but without provincial experience, aging, and coming off a long stretch of ineffectiveness. And that about does it.

Well, then, who in caucus? There are three possibilities only. Dan Miller is scarcely the man to make the business community feel better about things and besides, he’s blotted his copybook too often. And speaking of blotting, forget Mike Farnworth. That leaves Ujjal Dosanjh, Joy McPhail and Gordon Wilson. Yes, believe it, Gordon Wilson who I believe is the strongest possibility.

Mr Dosanjh is highly thought of and a thoroughly decent man. The question is whether or not he wants it and if so, has he the necessary toughness to do what’s necessary? Joy McPhail? She will be associated with what may well be a billion dollar deficit. This leaves "Flip" Wilson.

In ordinary times I wouldn’t give Wilson a prayer but these are scarcely ordinary times. And while he brings with him lots of baggage, none of it has anything to do with government policy over the past 8 years.

Whether or not the NDP turns to Gordon Wilson for salvation depends upon one factor – will a leadership convention, with it’s heavy union involvement, put winning ahead of philosophy as the Socreds did with Bill Vander Zalm in 1986? Or will it split along a fault line with the philosophically pure on one side, the practical on the other, meaning a compromise winner comes up the middle - as happened in 1983 when the underwhelming Bob Skelly was selected?

It’s hard to say. But if the NDP wants to avoid a wipeout (and sometimes political parties act like Milosovic or Saddam Hussein and revel in being smacked around) they must go with someone who can make the bottom line look better in a hurry. The party may well think, after swallowing hard, that this person is Gordon Wilson – not necessarily to win but to avoid a wipeout.

For what if a Premier Wilson, after generously confessing all the errors of his predecessors, starts to run a businesslike government and does so for a year and a half? He could bring the NDP to where all they need do to make a decent showing is for there to a royal screwup by Gordon Campbell.

And as we all know, that could happen.