The Written Word
for October 24, 2001

It's surprising to me how often I'm told to lay off even minor criticism of Premier Gordon Campbell and his government. I should leave him alone. I'm told. Cut him some slack, say others. And I ask why?

Have the Victoria Liberals got some special smarts that I've somehow missed? Are they, by some divine intervention I've not heard about, received some immunity from error?

Disraeli said, and rightly in my view, "No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.

I have been in government and I'd be lying to you if I said I liked
opposition. No one likes being harangued as they work; even less does anyone like being treated as and often reported as a blithering idiot who no doubt enjoys seeing widows and orphans suffer because of your mean-spirited policies. But opposition is the yang to the government's yin. One doesn't work properly without the other. It isn't just what the opposition does and says that keeps you thinking - it's what they might do and say.

No one is perfect or anywhere close to it. The very best of us can do yeoman service to a policy, working on it night and day surrounded by the world's best advisers, and still err. And err badly.

One of the great fears of those who govern is the unintended consequence. Let me give you an example. The reason for banning smoking in restaurants was, in part, the comfort of those who do not smoke. The unintended consequence was that tables for smokers were set up outside with the result that on a nice sunny day a non smoker can't dine in the sun and fresh air without inhaling lots of smoke.

It is unintended consequences alone that make an opposition worthwhile. But there is, of course, another thing. We don't all think alike. The 1/3 that voted against the Liberals in May are entitled to have their voices heard and just as importantly, have journalists question government policy.

What is interesting is that by Year III of this government's mandate, if not before, there will be a hell of a lot of people mad at them. That's the nature of politics and human affairs generally.

No ... I'm not going to cut Mr. Campbell any more slack than I cut any of the NDP premiers or Premiers Johnston, Vander Zalm or Bennett before them.

If Gordon Campbell thinks that the media should go easy on him - and there is no evidence that he does - he and his followers will be very disappointed indeed ere this term is up.