The Written Word
for October 29, 2000

Federal elections are strange things in British Columbia mainly because so little of the real action is here. You will see some of Alexa McDonough because if she’s going to have an official party next time out she must win a handful of seats here. You won’t see Joe Clark for the same reason … his Tories show up as chicken scratches in the polls. The interesting phenomenon is Prime Minister Jean Chretien because while he can win it all with Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces his majority or lack of it could depend on British Columbia. Yet he comes out here like a phantom, goes to a Liberal fundraiser, has the obligatory photo-op with young school kids and scampers home. One thing he doesn’t do, of course, is come on my show. He worries about a bad sound bite and besides, he doesn’t like me very much. What surprised me is that he cancelled, at the last minute, an appearance on the Bill Good Show, Bill being considered much less antagonistic. You would think that any politician would slaver at the thought of a fairly easy time in front of perhaps 75,000 voters but, again, there is the chance of a bad clip. Quite apart from any questions Bill might ask, there’s always the audience. They can be brutal. I’ll never forget the 1992 Charlottetown Accord debate and the appearance of then Premier Mike Harcourt on my program. Because Mike was so damned good at running out the clock we prevailed upon him to stay for two hours. He did fine with me for the first hour but in the second hour the audience murdered him.

Stockwell Day will campaign hard in BC because he needs 30 seats here. It is said that he gets an easy time with me – perhaps he does. But that’s not the way the interviews sound to him. At any rate, Mr Day must do everything he can in BC and will not take it for granted.

What’s going to be interesting in BC is the Liberal seats. I would have to say that Quadra is safe since they’re just not really the Alliance sort out there although Kerry Ann Findlay is a formidable opponent for the hand picked Stephen Owen. I should think that Raymond Chan and Sophie Leung are safe because the large ethnic vote always seems to vote Liberal out of gratitude. But what about Hedy Fry? I don’t like her very much – in fact I don’t like her a bit. But she’s an expert at getting on the right side of local issues.

Lou Sekora’s is an interesting riding. Lou’s thick as a plank but the Alliance has, in picking an outsider, perhaps taken Lou too lightly.

When all is said and done, I think the liberals will win 6, the NDP three (Robinson, Libby Davies and Riis) and the rest will go Alliance. And, as always, the election will be decided in Ontario.