The Written Word
for March 29, 2000

I puzzled over the popularity of Jean Chretien in a poll by the Ekos people.

He's at 55% and although the CBC Newsworld poll didn't tell us what BC thought - now there's a surprise for you - I have to assume that despite our maverick reputation he's number one here. I puzzled because the man is an autocrat who tramples over any contrary opinion in his government ... he was up to his ears in the Apec mess ... his government is in the midst of a financial scandal of huge proportions and the RCMP have three investigations of political slushing going on in his own constituency. He doesn't give a fiddler's fart for British Columbia, never comes here and when he does avoids real people like the plague. Moreover, he has the charisma of a moose in rutting season. What gives here?

Then I thought of Stockwell Day and Preston Manning ... and I thought of the nature of the average British Columbian. When I say the average British Columbian I mean that substantial group that will not support either the NDP or the far right.

How many is this?

I would guess about 2/3 of the people.

Where are they going to go?

In the past two federal elections they've voted Reform but, strangely, until the election itself they've said they would vote Liberal. In short, I ask myself, what the hell's going on here?

Then I looked at myself. Not that I pretend that I'm representative of anything but I am a middle of the roader - conservative fiscally but decidedly pinkish on social issues. Maybe if I found out what makes me tick

I could answer the question I asked, namely, what the hell's going on here?

I should vote Liberal - before the advent of Pierre Trudeau and the Liberal's discovery that they could and did win elections in Ontario and Quebec only. I changed, then, not because I abandoned the principles Ithought I saw in play with the Liberals but because they abandoned my principle that all regions should share in the national exercise of power. I began to support the Tories God knows not because I'm a natural Tory but they did, ever since John Diefenbaker, seem to speak for an inclusive Canada. But Mulroney betrayed the principles I held dear when his courting of power led him to embrace, without questions, Quebec separatists. Then came Meech and Charlottetown and I could see that the Tories were just one more centrist party, the only difference being, they did trot out the occasional western Canadian MP as token exercisers of power.

What happened to me then was that I had, perhaps without recognizing it, put my views of how the country ought to work, in order to survive as a nation, ahead of my political principles. I found myself supporting the Reform Party even though I was completely at odds with their underlying political sentiments.

I have no doubt that Reform is homophobic at its core and that it views penal reform in terms of restoring the noose and the paddle. Individual Reform MPS differ from their party on these social matters - Chuck Cadman comes quickly to mind - but the underpinnings of the party are adherence to fundamentalist Christian principles not only personally - no problem with that - but as the fundament upon which their social policy rests.

So, then, what the hell is going on here?

I guess come election day I will once more have to face the dilemma - the party which most closely reflects my social values is the same party that is run by a tin pot dictator who couldn't care less about my part of the country. But, much worse than that, a dictator has a view of the country incompatible with what I think we need for survival as a nation. And it is here that I suspect I join with many British Columbians. We may not like the Reform Party but on the main issue - and the survival of the nation is always the main issue - the Reform Party speaks for me and the Liberal Party does not.

The question will then arise once more - can I, and I suspect many of you, overlook the underlying harshness and mean-spiritedness of the Reform Party to vote for them as the party whose views of Canada accord with our own?

Which leads to the final worry - from what I've been hearing from Preston Manning and Stockwell Day I see some constitutional backsliding as they try to conquer Ontario. Stockwell Day will even endorse both the "two founding nation" theory and juridical equality of the provinces, betraying either a fundamental indifference to the national question or a raw ambition for support on any terms.

At the end of the day - the only tiresome cliché I actually like - those of us who are liberal on social values and believers that the Canadian question is not just the ancient Upper Canada/Lower Canada debate, will have to resolve again in the near future the same question with which we were faced in 1993 and 1997. In the past, it was for me hold my nose and vote Reform.

At present, for me at any rate, it's an open question