The Written Word
for May 7, 2000

I think it’s important that we understand that the evidence now being given to the Smith Commission into the Nanaimo Commonwealth fiasco because it has considerable relevance today. It was indeed so very long ago. Many voters weren’t even born back in 1976 as the Social Credit Party under Bill Bennett went into the Legislature after defeating Dave Barrett and the NDP the previous December. In fact Barrett lost his seat and was out of the Legislature until the following June when he won a by-election in Vancouver East made available to him by Bob Williams who had been the feared Eminence Grise of the Barrett years. But I think you’ll agree that there is a thread, an important thread, between the events of yesteryear and the decisions voters will be making within the year.

In 1976 The NDP felt that they had been cheated out of government and they set out to abuse government members collectively and individually and make them out to be if not outright crooks, certainly immoral. Much was made of the fact that 5 in the Socred Caucus were car dealers – and, of course, nudge nudge, wink, wink, you know what kind of people they are. Well the kind of people they were included the Finance Minister Evan Wolfe, a fine and decent man, Don Philips who was honest as the day is long and served as a senior cabinet minister and cousins George Haddad from the Kootenays and George Mussallem of Maple Ridge both men revered in their communities for their public mindedness.

It was the clear purpose of the NDP to paint the Socreds as being in the hands of the business community and it wasn’t long before they began to ask minister after minister whether or not he had received a package, during the election, from party headquarters. Every day it was a different minister until suddenly the great scandal was unearthed - it was hard to believe! The shame of it all! Why these packages had been delivered free of charge by Pacific Western Airlines! Probably cost as much as ten bucks a package! Just for fun, as a result of this earth shaking revelation I was asked by Premier Bennett to examine the records of government aircraft during the election campaign just past … it turned out that these souls of piety had made a half dozen or more trips on government, tax paid jets to various interior ridings to make campaign speeches. That revelation, I need hardly tell you, put a quick end to the PWA "scandal".

But the scandal of all scandals was around this time – in fact just after the 1979 election. Dan Campbell, a minister in the W.A.C. Bennett cabinet and now a political aide had actually paid a campaign expense with a $1000 bill. There was no suggestion that this was stolen or acquired by wrongful means. The implication from the Barrett attack, however, was clear – this must have come from those fat cat corporations that support the Socreds and from whom the NDP would never take a thin dime because it was clearly against stated policy of the party. Now we know that as those words were being hurled across the House Dave Barrett was dividing up corporate donations in $50 bills and packing them off to his secretary, for what purpose we can only guess, and to Dave Stupich who was cheating the public at bingo.

The point is not that Mr Barrett is a bad man or that the NDP is made up of bad people. The point is the unbelievable level of hypocrisy in the party then and I say by extension now.

Why by extension now? Because this government rode to power on Mike Harcourt’s assurance that the NDP were squeaky clean. Whether you liked them or not, the one thing you could depend upon was the integrity of the New Democratic Party … why just look at their record!

The line between the days of NDP under Barrett and now is a straight and strong one because to this day the NDP has made no confession of error committed in those days … the days when slush funds were used to pay Bob Williams $80,000 to do research after he yielded his seat to Barrett, research for which there is not a shred of evidence … their condemnation of the Nanaimo Commonwealth rot has scarcely been a fulsome declaration of their own guilty complicity. And it’s only now, after all these years, that we’re finding out the truth of the Barrett days when they were snowy white and the Socreds were all crooks. We now, finally, know that same Dave Barrett who was belabouring the sinful Socreds was the same Davie Barrett who was stuffing $50 bills into a bag for his pal Dave Stupich. Indeed the same Dave Barrett who, until the recent NDP leadership contest when he didn’t have the guts to show up and support the man he had capped to win – Gordon Wilson – was a major backroom power in the NDP of Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark and Dan Miller.

To this day the NDP has done everything within its power to prevent their past shenanigans and more current matters like the ferry outrage and Hydrogate having a thorough independent audit.

How ever long ago some of the Nanaimo rip-offs were, they are still current. And the man who blindly accepted Dave Stupich’s integrity despite the many rumbles even within the NDP … the man who accepted, against the rules of the party he led donations from corporations … the man who parceled out the $50 dollar bills is the same man whose two proteges are Glen Clark and Moe Sihota and who, because of his steadfast support of the former, is stuffing $850 dollars a day in his jeans as Leaky Condo Commissioner.

No, this isn’t Rafe Mair settling old scores … although I wouldn’t lie to you … there’s some considerable satisfaction having it proved again that what goes around comes around. No, this isn’t ancient history at all … this is just the continuing NDP saga of sleaze and hypocrisy which goes all the way back to 1976. The past, as being dug up by the Smith Commission, is very much part of the present.

Bad enough that the NDP has provided the worst government in the history of this province – but to cap it off, as former Premier Dave Barrett … still, thanks to his party on the public tit … has amply demonstrated they’re a bunch of hypocrites to boot.