The Written Word
for August 6, 2000

The NDP are in full rejoicing regalia – David Stockell, the would-be slayer of socialist dragons, lost his case to unseat three MLAs. Much, far too much will be made of this and as we progress you may well conclude that the NDP might be better off to simply keep quiet and hope that the whole thing just goes away.

It must be remembered that this case was not about whether or not the NDP fudged their two budgets of 1996. That has clearly been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by Auditor-General George Morfitt in his report on the matter and the recommendations he made – recommendations accepted, incidentally, by this government. No, this case was a very narrow one which alleged that three NDP MLAs, none of whom had any part in the budget process, had won their respective elections by fraud … namely that they had relied upon a fraudulent budget in the election of May of 1996. This case involved the wording, rather vague, in the Elections Act and the drawing of a pretty long bow saying that three, then backbenchers, knew the budget to be false, declared it to be true, and thus influenced, improperly, voters to vote for them. The plaintiff, Mr Stockell, failed in this undertaking.

One can understand why the NDP brass would be rejoicing at their victory but if I was advising them it would be to cool it from here on in. I would advise that because people aren’t stupid. They know that the budgets were fudged so that every time the NDP raises the Stockell case they will be reminding voters of the fraud they indeed perpetrated. That makes no sense.

You have to start from the proposition that no acquittal ever completely exonerates. People will still think "where there’s smoke there’s fire". But in this case it’s much worse because reminding people of the Stockell case reminds them also of the Morfitt Report that confirmed, in spades, that fire.

It was likely, in retrospect, always a losing effort. But David Stockell did accomplish something for the Liberals whether he intended it or not. He kept the "fudge-it budgets" alive in people’s minds for four years. His action encouraged if it didn’t actually spawn the Auditor-General’s report. And, in computer-ese his name acts as a direct link to that report and the shenanigans it exposed.

No, Mr Premier, if I were you I would discourage your troops from mentioning this matter for you, of all people, know that in reality that if David Stockell lost his case, so in the overall analysis, did the NDP – and big time.