Vancouver Province
for December 31, 1999

Here it is my natal day (I'm 40-ish – Celsius of course) and, find myself in a minority of the world's citizens who can actually count as high as 2000, awaiting with something less than bated breath the evening's festivities. What do I do at Midnight? Probably the same as every year – look glumly at a year past when I didn't throw nearly as much fly-line as I should have and ahead to the year where I resolve to make up for it. But I also look forward, finally, to the last year of the Millennium and to my next birthday where we masters of basic arithmetic will toast the new Millennium, in small groups no doubt, but secure in the knowledge that we were both patient and right. I will not, therefore, pick the man of the 90s because there's a year to go but for the Man of 1999 the choice, in our bailiwick at any rate, is a no-brainer. Glen Clark wins hands down.

But he wins not so much for what he did himself but for what he caused others to do.

Premiers sometimes have to resign – in this Province of course it's become something of a tradition. But they should be able to do so without inflicting permanent damage. Indeed Mike Harcourt's resignation was so skillful that he vaulted his successor into an election win even though that successor was in the middle of a scandal of his own at the time.

We don't know, at this moment, whether Glen Clark's problems were simply gross and unbelievable stupidity or some degree of cupidity. What we do know is that his sins set in motion some actions as well as inactions which may well have destroyed the New Democratic Party for a decade or more.

First off, if Mr Clark had resigned the day after the famous police raid, as parliamentary tradition demands, the NDP would no doubt still be in trouble but they would at least still be in the game. But despite all those marvelous analyses of parliamentary traditions when they were hectoring the Vander Zalm Socreds, Mr Clark and company were utterly unable to deal with their own situation which was a classic example of where a prompt resignation was the appropriate procedure.

This started a chain of events. First off the Attorney-General, Ujjal Dosanjh demonstrated either that he himself didn't know what his duty was, namely to advise the premier he was under police investigation and must resign, or saw personal political mileage in holding his tongue. In any event, by not acting appropriately Mr Dosanjh has blotted his copybook, an event which won't stop him from becoming premier but which will ensure he's not ever be elected by the people as such.

This delay of almost five months between the police raid and the resignation meant that one serious contender who didn't take advantage of what was certain to happen and sign up members, Joy McPhail, was all but left at the starting gate when the already half run race was officially started. More fool Joy, of course. Winning politics is all about being ready to seize the main chance. But the result was that the NDP leadership race has become mostly a contest for the hearts and souls of the Indo-Canadian Community.

When Glen Clark resigned last July the NDP was in terrible shape – a disgraced premier, an Attorney-General who looked as if he withheld proper advice for his own gain and, because of the long delay in Mr Clark's resignation, a lame duck government. It surely couldn't get worse.

But it did. The NDP brass, for reasons known only to them, decided that it would be a good idea to have a four month leadership race so that every last bit of dirty linen could be aired. Thus, far from the new leader – it will be Mr Dosanjh - emerging from the convention raring for an election, he'll be lucky indeed to hold his own seat when that election is called.

Glen Clark is the Man of 1999 in the same way Bill Vander Zalm was the Man of 1991. Both men, ignoring parliamentary practice, the obeying of which would have saved their respective parties, delayed the inevitable thus ensuring sure that not only would they personally be tostada but that their parties would be as well.