The Written Word
for September 22, 1999

It is interesting, I think, to look at the NDP leadership from the point of view of Gordon Campbell, the premier-in-waiting (he devoutly hopes).

Each potential NDP candidate presents special problems … let’s look at them in no special order.

Ujjal Dosanjh presents three very interesting challenges.

First, though of course he must bear his share of the blame for what went wrong with the NDP government, he has not been in charge of any ministry which really contributed to the NDP’s miseries. Of course his ministry has had controversy – abortion is one issue that springs to mind – but for the most part Mr Dosanjh has run, in the political sense, a problem free ministry.

Second, Mr Dosanjh is not only a man of rectitude he is seen as such. He took a ministry which was badly tarnished by his predecessor and restored its image.

Thirdly, he is a member of a minority group and one which Mr Campbell needs, especially in Vancouver.

On the other side of the coin, Mr Dosanjh has had very heavy going indeed over the Clark/Pilarinos matter and he is seen by many as having been derelict in his duty when it came time to confront Mr Clark. The ethnic consideration works two ways – as we have so recently seen, there is plenty of racism alive and well in British Columbia.

Let’s look next at Joy McPhail. She has the advantage of appearing to stand up to Clark when she resigned last July. Leaving aside the Finance Ministry, she has been a good minister. She is bright, attractive and very female.

On the other side, she is the Finance Minister who brought in a deficit budget for this year at $800 million only to see that figure double. From the beginning she has been seen as an insider in a very bad government. And her ties to organized labour may be most unhelpful with much of the population not, by any means, excluding union rank and file, who see as well as the rest of us what a cock-up the NDP has made of things/

Then there’s Gordon Wilson. On the plus side he hasn’t been part of any of that cock-up and in fact was a vocal and effective critic of most of the NDP actions especially the fast ferry fiasco. He has long been the most popular leader in BC according to the polls, He is very bright, informed and articulate. And he hates Gordon Campbell’s guts from another movie thus will be very motivated.

On the other hand, Mr Wilson will alienate some NDP voters who will see him as an opportunist. These people won’t vote Liberal but they might stay away from the polls.

The key event to watch for may be the TV debate. Now it must be said that unlike 1991, when Mr Wilson got off his utterly irrelevant but most effective oneliner, debates have tended to be pretty dull stuff. The politicians are so indoctrinated by their spin doctors that the entire exercise is one of avoiding being knocked out. But Mr Campbell will have his hands full with any of the three above, all for different reasons.

With Mr Dosanjh it will be hard to land a punch because he is relatively free of blame. With Ms McPhail, Campbell is up a against a skilled performer who doesn’t hesitate to use either her expertise (she’s a trained economist) or her sexuality.

With Mr Wilson, the temptation will be to get into a battle to the death something that won’t help either man but will hurt Campbell more because Wilson is better in that sort of slugfest than any I know. I do know because I’ve slugged it out with all of them.

At the end of the day Campbell should win the next election hands down … but no matter who he’s up against, he will have to be at his very best not, say, like he was in May of 1996.