The Written Word
for January 12, 2000

There is something missing in the NDP leadership race and until a couple of days ago I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then I started thinking about what characterized elections in British Columbia those many, many years ago when I was in politics. And it occurred to me. Leaders and parties used to articulate a vision. "Here’s how I see British Columbia developing".

W.A.C. Bennett was, of course, the Premier who portrayed visions best but all but the most nostalgic would have to admit that those were different times. BC had fewer than a million people, Greater Vancouver was about 400,000 and there was always another valley full of trees to cut and another river to dam. Indeed that sort of vision didn’t start with Bennett – it started with John Hart and Byron "Boss" Johnson before him. The Coalition government of 1941-52 was the government of the Big Bend Highway, the Hope-Princeton and, of course, the Kemano Project.

But Bill Bennett had a vision too, though not nearly as sexy as all those dams. His vision was a debt free province prudently run. Like all visions this one had its limitations – it’s pretty difficult not to have up and down years in a mature economy – but still, when Bill Bennett went to the people, dour and unpersonable as he may have seemed, he gave off the aura of competence and that’s what people of that day wanted. (Incidentally, those who don’t know him are always surprised to learn that in private Bill Bennett is one of the funnier people you’ll ever meet.)

Bill Vander Zalm started the present trend, I think. He ran in 1986 on very little else than the fact that he wasn’t a dour sour puss as Bill Bennett had seemed to be. He was glitz where Bennett had been gray: Lillian was out there with a head band and a big smile while Audrey Bennett had always been in the background.

Mike Harcourt ran on the ticket that he wasn’t Bill Vander Zalm and turned out to be indecisive. Glen Clark ran on the ticket that he wasn’t Mike Harcourt and that he was indeed decisive.

My point is that no one since Bill Bennett has painted any kind of a word picture of the British Columbia they see in their dreams. All we have from the current crop of NDP hopefuls is the projection that a return to CCF/NDP principles of old would be a good idea.

There’s a reason for this, of course, as there always is for political decisions. The NDP is in a survival mode. They have lost their core support and they know it. Before they can even think of appealing to that great middle British Columbia that elects governments they have to woo their old supporters back in the fold and they’re falling all over themselves to talk about Tommy Douglas and what the NDP is really all about. The trouble with this, of course, is that it abandons the majority in order to hold onto the faithful minority they need to stay relevant.

The interesting question now is what will we demand of Gordon Campbell and the Liberals? Only that they aren’t Glen Clark and the NDP?

I hope not. I have a suggestion for Mr Campbell.

He can have the vision of bringing democracy back to BC and restore the lost connection between the governed and the governors. He doesn’t have to do this, of course. He can simply ride into power over the ashes of a devastated NDP. We must hope, however, that it is more than power that Gordon Campbell and his party seek – that they in fact would like to be remembered as something other than the party that governed in between Glen Clark and the government that takes over from the Liberals when their day is done – as it will be.

And, it’s up to us to demand more of Mr Campbell and his crew than simply the promise that he isn’t and won’t be as bad as the government he replaces.