Vancouver Province
for August 30, 2001

There now being no parliamentary opposition to the Liberal juggernaut, how the un-represented will deal with the government will become more important every day.

These are the salad days for the government. Not only are the Liberals firmly in charge of the levers of government, Gordon Campbell is firmly in charge of his party.

Campbell presents a special difficulty to the "left". He is much like Bill Bennett was with perhaps a sunnier outward disposition. He is tough, determined and confident. And both led demoralized troops from the depths of electoral gloom to smashing victories. Every day that goes by, Premier Campbell looks more and more like a leader comfortable in that leadership.

Campbell’s main problem is his abundance of riches. Trying to keep any backbench from getting into mischief is tough. After a year or so, most backbenchers realize that in spite of the fact they are much more qualified than those in cabinet, that fact is permanently lost on the premier. It also dawns on them that the Legislature is a farce where their only duty is to lob slow pitches at cabinet ministers during question period and applaud every government action like a trained seal.

Having a caucus of 76 gives any premier lots of other worries. It’s a matter of probabilities, really. Affairs will develop, past unknown embarrassments will be made public and cliques will develop. Like all Premiers before him but more so because of the numbers, Premier Campbell will be a den mother to a lot of sometimes fractious cubs with an infinite variety of personal and often complicated difficulties to sort out. Moreover, as Mr Campbell makes cabinet changes, sending former ministers to the backbench, he sows more seeds of dissension into what will rapidly become a pretty bored group. So, in looking for ways for a parliamentary opposition to develop, one must consider the possibility of a breakaway rump group of disgruntled Liberal backbenchers.

It’s possible that, as the Canadian Alliance has split, so might this huge Liberal Caucus. But it’s unlikely. There’s no place for grumpy backbenchers to go - yet. The NDP is scarcely a viable prospect, The Unity Party is dead and the Greens are a single agenda party.

What’s more likely is that the opposition will come from without the legislature. And this is more than a little scary. Regardless of what one might think of the issues themselves, Mr Campbell, in legislating the end of three strikes, has caused more than a little heartburn amongst the labour unions. Before long, the Liberals will have completed their alienation process with the teachers, and the doctors will not be far behind. Added to this, building up over the next couple of years will be a growing number of British Columbians who are increasingly pissed off at the health system.

Now, if the Campbell government could deal with this non parliamentary opposition by buying them off, that would be one thing. But that’s not an option. By the Spring of ’02 this government will be in a terrible fiscal fix and trapped by its own commitment to balance the budget in three years. There’ll be cutbacks affecting everyone and it’s not unreasonable to suppose that a significant backlash against the government will be in place. Lots of enemies and no money to placate any of them with, quite possibly a business recession thrown in, is a pretty heady brew. Couple all this with the fact that there is virtually no parliamentary opposition to let off some of the steam from this pressure cooker and you have to wonder what will happen.

How about this as a possibility, albeit a very remote one? As matters develop, the Liberals will more and more be seen as a right wing business party in the same mold as the Alberta and Ontario Tories. Might the NDP re-group as a centre party casting off its special relationship to the labour movement leaving the "hard" left to join Svend Robinson’s new group? If that were to happen, the new NDP (under a new name one would think) might fill the vacuum in the center and even become attractive to some Liberal MLAs, left out of cabinet and of the center-left persuasion.

No doubt a way-out theory. What is certain, though, is that opposition will not forever be contained in two lonely NDP MLAs and that something will happen.