Vancouver Province
for May 9, 2002

Provincial politicians being hoist on their own political petard can blame Davey Barrett. The former NDP premier of ancient memory mucked it all up when, an eon ago, he brought Hansard to the provincial legislature giving him a permanent repository for all his many bon mots. What he also did is provide a gold mine of embarrassing statements by members to be later trolled for, exposed, then used to great advantage in altered circumstances. In fact, Mr Barrett's pals in the second NDP era, started by Mike Harcourt in 1991, were the first to have their own brilliant parliamentary expostulations in opposition thrown back at them once in government.

Every garrulous politician - which is to say most of them - has in his breast a speech about the pending death of democracy under the latest autocratic behaviour of a beastly government. The Vander Zalm government of happily passing memory provided the NDP opposition with manifold opportunities to excoriate them for their appalling flouting of parliamentary traditions. In fact the NDP of that day recorded some of the best stuff in Commonwealth parliamentary history on that subject as the Socreds bounced from one scandal to another. Sadly, Mr Harcourt's government proved even more adept at flouting parliamentary tradition meaning that the new opposition didn't even need to be original - all they had to do was quote verbatim from classic speeches on the subject made by the ministers whilst in opposition.

The first of the present government to suffer this fate was Attorney-General Geoff Plant. While opposing cuts in Legal Aid by then A-G Colin Gabelman, Plant, as Justice critic, made a speech about the right of all of Her Majesty's subjects, of however humble estate, to have legal protection in times of peril - a speech that brought tears to the flintiest of eyes. Unhappily, Mr Plant had to read and hear his own words thrown back at him ad nauseum as he, now in office, slashed Legal Aid to tatters.

The Liberals, in opposition, made great sport of the NDP handing out gobs of public lolly to the NOW advertising folks who specialized in pumping the public full of pink platitudes for a price. It was great stuff as, hardy-har-har, one embarrassing contract after another was bared, accompanied by pious Liberal promises that when they took office their pristine policies and programs would never need the least touch of the spin doctor's polish.

Then came Tuesday the 23rd of April when the public learned .. sort of ... what the government was going to do to health care. Health Services Minister Colin Hansen took over five hours to demonstrate that he hadn't the faintest idea of how many Acute Care beds would close, how many Long Term Care beds would open and how much money would be saved. Seasoned political observers like Mike Smyth of this paper extracted such incoherent babbling from Mr Hansen, and his junior minister, Kathryn Whittred, that this old pol could not help but be reminded of the wonderful old Abbott & Costello routine, Who's On First? Then, just as the last horse had bolted the barn, the Premier opined that perhaps the government could use a little PR help after all as he advertised, money no object, for an Ad agency.

As a former Health Minister, I could have told them. You can't leave serious announcements to bureaucrats because while they have the knowledge, they are utterly incapable of structuring a single line of explanation that the public can understand. Politicians, on the other hand, know bugger-all about the subject, but are brilliant at putting that fact across in plain, unadorned English.

Call in the flacks, Mr. Premier, the hell you'll catch for your hypocrisy ain't half as bad as what'll happen if you leave the fine art of gentle dissembling in the hands of your colleagues. Successful fibbing requires the professional touch.