The most annoying problem has been a week long bout with stomach flu which I got in Victoria, one week from last Sunday. It’s pretty much gone now, the saints be praised!

The other problem was simply over-work. Damien and I have been hard pressed in our quest to get The Common Sense Canadian (www.thecanadian.org) up to where we want it and I think it’s there. I invite you all to visit us and let us know what you think.

On the “business” side, we’ve been spending a lot of time reading and discussing the work of economist Erik Andersen who has established what we long suspected – the Campbell government is deliberately bankrupting BC Hydro, something Damien Gillis and I have been speculating for 3 years. It just seems such a preposterous notion it’s hard to get one’s mind around it.

The evidence is very strong that Campbell has a death wish for our grand public corporation starting with his turning over the operation of Hydro to Accenture, the ugly grandchild of Enron and by privatizing the transmission lines – which have now been brought back. But the compelling evidence comes form the privatizing if the creation of power. What thus has done is force BC Hydro into buying private power whether they need it or not and since virtually all private power is made during the run-off, BC Hydro doesn’t need it. This leaves Hydro with two basic options – it can export the power at ½ what they paid for it or use it at about 12 times what it costs Hydro to make their own. Either way, clearly BC Hydro has to go broke.

Why would the government do this? As Mr Andersen points out, there is no way Hydro can avoid it being forced to make deals with Private Power Producers (IPPs)

There is only one possible reason – ideology.

It must always be remembered that Gordon Campbell is an ideologue who subscribes to the Fraser Institute dedication to all governments works being privatized. They even had one “Fellow”, Dr Walter Bloch, who believed in “consensual slavery” giving as an example a mother who couldn’t who couldn’t support her children voluntarily being a slave in exchange for not having to worry about paying normal family bills! They also devoutly believe in private ownership of all water.

One would have to infer from his actions that Campbell has the same attitude they do and wants BC Hydro to be privatized. The fact that this will quadruple, at least, electricity rates doesn’t faze him.

Why, then, doesn’t Campbell simply sell it, or give someone a 990 year lease as he gave CN for BC Rail?

The answer is political; Campbell knows that if he did that the Liberals would face a wipe-out as the NDP did in 2001. Besides that, and this is likely the main point, Hydro isn’t all that saleable. Of course it brings in big bucks but it also has big time debts – the IPP contracts are now over $50 billion. The answer then is to let it go broke, they with tears down the face, saying “alas, BC Hydro just can’t handle its own affairs and lamentably (sob, sob) it’s gone broke.” Campbell’s ideological commitment is met as BC Hydro slips quietly into private hands.

Seems mad?

It is mad but so was getting rid of BC Rail.

By all means give me another, plausible reason but until one comes along, I’ll stick with this logical extension of Campbell’s record.

I’m an environmental activist trying to save our salmon, our rivers, and our farm land, Why should I get warm and mushy all over because Campbell has been pushed out of his office?

Under Campbell’s government the moratorium on Atlantic Salmon fish farms was lifted resulting in the loss of 100s of thousands of our wild salmon being lost to sea lice from the fish farms. Far from doing anything about it, Campbell has encouraged more of them.

Citizens of Tsawwassen are fighting encroachment on farmland with nary a word of justification from Campbell whose job it is to support the principles of the ALR and stop encroachment.

Campbell has actively supported the destruction of our rivers and the ecologies dependent upon them approving of large companies receiving permits to provide power that BC Hydro must buy, need it or not. Hydro must pay at least twice what it’s worth on the open market and since they don’t need the private power, have two options: sell it at a 50% loss or, use it themselves at a cost of 12 times what Hydro can make it for themselves. Is it any wonder that folks who hate this desecration of our rivers, farmland and wild salmon bad mouth the premier and the minister responsible?

I raise this last question because Gordon Campbell is whining about how his family was upset by the things he was called, Pinocchio, I presume being one of them.

Families of politicians, great and small, always bear the brunt of abuse and if that cannot be borne, one shouldn’t get involved in the first place. I do feel for the Campbell family – my wife and four kids suffered this as well for while I was not premier, I was a Councilor for and MLA of a smaller centre (Kamloops) and scarcely a day when one or more of them didn’t hear their father/husband abused. Prospective politicians should consult carefully to their entire family before taking the plunge. However, Campbell must take the majority of the blame himself.

The premier I worked for, a gillion years ago, unlike Campbell, let ministers do their job unhindered by hassling and “hands on” habits. This way we ministers quite rightly took responsibility for our portfolios.

Forgive me if I retell a story.

After a speech I made in Tsawwassen on the overhead power lines issue, I was approached a lady, clearly a Liberal, who chastised me for constantly asking where then MLA Val Roddick was and said “I bet you that you never went to these sorts of rallies.”

I told her of a rally in Quesnel where ranchers angry at my stopping the killing of wolves were rallying for only one reason, to dare the minister to attend, and, if he did, hassle the hell out of them. I did and it was a hall full of 500 very angry men and women.

I said to her “I suppose you think I was a brave man.”

She nodded her head.

I said “bravery had nothing to do with it; had I not gone I would have had my ass kicked out of cabinet.”

Bill Bennett expected his ministers to deal with their portfolios, especially the dodgy bits, and I daresay most of my colleagues could tell of the shit they had to stare down.

In the premier’s case the normal nastiness is much aggravated because he, on several occasions, and there is no other word for it, lied through his teeth. Voters expect and tolerate “spin” but will not accept lies as opposed to polished political prose.

Let’s go back to the facing the public bit.

I’m involved on the movement to save our environment, especially though not exclusively fish and energy matters. I and my colleague Damien Gillis have spoken at public meetings all over the province and never, not once, did a Liberal MLA or candidate show up. In the May 2009 election we specifically asked the Cabinet Minister to attend meetings but nary a one did. I have challenged the premier, and/or the energy minister to attend our meetings or simply have a debate with them but no takers.

Is it any wonder then that the public call the premier and his shy ministers “cowards” or worse?

I say this to Gordon Campbell,  – sir,  it’s not the media or environmentalists that have caused anguish for your family.

What I was nonplussed about in Baron’s column was that it was accurate in the many low points of the Premier’s tour of duty but made me almost scream at the breakfast home, WHY THE HELL WEREN’T THESE MATTERS DEALT WITH BY COLUMNISTS AT THE TIME? In fact, it’s been amusing and annoying to see the Vaughn Palmers and Mike Smyths turn on their former hero during the last couple of months almost as if their editors had taken their leashes off.

A great part of Campbell’s political longevity can be attributed to the relative paucity of contradiction or critical analysis by columnists.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when columnists wrote about the government from a backdrop of contrariness based upon a mandate to “hold the government’s feet to the fire.” As one who was in the legislature and before that Kamloops City Council I didn’t much like what they did to me but I recognize now, if not then, that it was the critical journalist who kept my head from spinning and made me ever more cautious about what I was doing.

Whether it’s a city council, a legislature or a parliament, the public interest is harmed when the media pulls its punches.

We can look at fairly recent years to grasp this point. During the 90s, then Premier Clark launched his Fastcat ferries program. Vaughn Palmer was immediately on the case with column after column such that he can take most of the credit for exposing the issue as a major screw-up. I’m not picking on Palmer but simply am focusing on one major item which makes my point. Moreover, it’s not the writer’s fault but that of the ownership who, however subtly, steer opinion away from being critical of the status quo politics of the “establishment”.  It’s not that government policies are not covered but that they are relatively unchallenged.

This hasn’t simply been a BC phenomenon but throughout the world owners like Rupert Murdoch have been choking off freedom to speak out unless, of course, the government tends to the “left”, when anything goes when the whistle blows.

I find that with our papers, I have a hard time reading editorials past a paragraph or two. The fact that a Fellow of the Fraser Institute controls the editorial page of the Vancouver Sun tells me that I needn’t read the editorial page unless I’m going to the loo and the bathroom literature is badly out of date. In fact, the two Vancouver papers must be the fastest reads in the country.

Hopes that the Internet would change this have not been met. There are good online “papers” but they are so many and often so hard to find that their impact to date has not met expectations.

In conclusion I believe that the fact that Gordon Campbell ruled this province with almost non existent media challenge has kept him in office past his time and resulted in 10 years of right wing philosophy trumping all contrary viewpoints. It’s not drawing too long a bow to say it’s meant government by ideology of the ultra right wing Fraser Institute.



Bye, bye, Pinnochio. It's been swell!

I can only say this about Gordon Campbell’s resignation: if Damien and I did anything to assist this happening I’m only sorry that we didn’t do more and quicker. He was not only a bad leader – he disgraced himself and us. As an environmentalist I must also say that no matter who takes over as Liberal leader, they will need to do a massive 180 degree turn to even begin the recapturing of our province from the forces of greed and, yes, evil not just encouraged but paid off out of taxpayers’ money. Read full article at The Common Sense Canadian: Campbell in Full Flight

Leaders of a political party are very difficult to depose especially if the party brass supports them as is the case, we must assume, with the NDP and the Liberals. We of a certain age saw how difficult it was for the Social Credit Party to get rid of Bill Vander Zalm in the late 80s. In his case it took a former Supreme Court judge, Ted Hughes to find him guilty of big time conflicts of interest before he would budge. By that time Mr Vander Zalm had sown the seeds of destruction within the party and, as some in the media (me) predicted, his refusal to budge from the premier’s office in good time brought the factions out and the party self destructed.

In fact, both the Liberals and NDP ought to look at the Vander Zalm case.

The fact patterns are different all around but there is this in common – their leaders became unpopular and, for different reasons, unelectable. It also appears, at this moment at any rate, that the parties themselves lack the will to depose their leaders and each of the leaders seems bent on staying on without any concern for the party. And it’s in the public interest that there be two parties, one on each side of the political spectrum. If one party crumbles because the leader is detested or seen as incapable of governing, the voter’s choice is to vote for a party that doesn’t suit their views, vote for a political corpse, fingers on the nose, or stay away from the polls. None of these options is in the public interest.

What about third parties?

The BC Heritage party holds right wing Christian notions and can never have anything remotely close to enough public support to win. The Greens – and at the core that’s where I am on environmental but not other issues – cannot get enough support to even elect an MLA much less become the government.

The BC First Party is mainly Chris Delaney and is positioned in the centre where the vacuum is. Delaney has a very good grasp of where British Columbians stand both on current issues and those which lie deep in their tummy. The problem is that Delaney seems unelectable although he has never been in a party that was electable. He is not, to put it kindly, charismatic. But neither was Pinocchio at his most popular and neither was Bill Bennett, but they each had the main asset needed for election – a substantial party and a core elector base.

Can Chris Delaney turn the BC First Party whose press releases are deleted even before they are opened?

It’s a long shot. All new parties attract tarnished wanabes from elections past where their public acceptance hovered near 0%. This makes it difficult for a new party to be taken seriously. For all their peccadilloes, voters want a party leader to look and sound like he/she can actually govern.

For the Liberals to win again they must have a new leader, new policies, and a commitment to environmental issues.

For the NDP they have two choices – stay with Ms James and hope that the Liberals don’t recover and that a new party doesn’t eat away at their Centre-Left position or it can change leaders.

There’s one rule of politics that never changes – once the leader has a revolt, however big or small, that leader is almost certainly wounded past his/her ability to recover.

For their parties to be in decent shape to fight the next election, their leaders must go, in the very near future, so the new leader has a chance grasp the nettle and run with it.

And if this column does nothing else you must admit it closed with one hell of a good mixed metaphor.

So, Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell is at 12 per cent “popularity.” I’d like to know who the hell the 12 per cent are! They must have just been aroused after a lengthy coma.

In my lifetime I have witnessed four political meltdowns, four parties that had the wheels fall off. They were:

The Bennett crash: In the 1972 election, an unbeatable Premier W.A.C. Bennett was indeed beaten when his party came apart during the election, the highlight coming when Phlyin’ Phil Gaglardi (so called because as highways minister he kept getting speeding tickets when “testing the curves”) offered to take over from Bennett. Neither the voters nor Bennett were comfortable with that offer.

The Zalm slam: In 1988 Premier Bill Vander Zalm (yep, same guy) faced a leadership secret vote at the Socred party convention in Penticton and was saved by Don Philips and Phil Gaglardi who put forward a motion to have the secret ballot be an open one, with the vote on that motion being open! The day was saved but unfortunately for Bill, there was a tomorrow, then a lot of tomorrows and it just got worse. At that, it was really Vander Zalm’s successor, Rita Johnston, who could have saved the party but put herself first.

The Kim Campbell gamble: In 1993, Brian Mulroney quit and turned the reins of office over to the luckless Kim Campbell, who tried to pull a party together that had been all but smashed to bits by her predecessor.

The New Dem sinking: In 2001, an NDP led by Ujjal Dosanjh and reeling from a premier Glen Clark scandal, plus a terrible decision to build ferries that weren’t appropriate for our waters now, was all but wiped out in the general election.

These situations had one thing in common — once the political vehicle began to wobble badly, nothing could save it, not even a leadership change as the federal Tories and provincial NDP made.

The factions factor

There’s a reason for this and it goes to the nature of a political party under our system. Unconditional loyalty only goes to a leader when things are going reasonably well. That loyalty is not a “for better or for worse” situation at all. All parties have factions and not all factions wanted the leader in the first place and have a death wish for him, believing that their guy/gal could have done better. They bury their feelings when things are going along OK but they return just when the leader needs loyalty most.

This goes deeper than just the party at large. Once the cracks show, usually with an angry MLA/MP crossing the floor, other well-known members of the party speak out. Constituency organizations turn on MLAs who won’t denounce the leader and snapping wannabes (who probably lost the nomination last time) lurk, awaiting the right moment to bite.

The leader tries to administer discipline, which just makes matters worse. Perhaps he tries to bring in legislation and policy that will appease the caucus, which is now a caucus that smells blood and won’t do what is expected of it any more. Grumbling turns into serious rumbling. One might call it the Tiger Woods syndrome, where no matter how hard you try, your efforts fall short.

Hard to forget

On the CBC political panel I share with Moe Sihota and Erin Chutter, the latest polls was the only topic and Moe suggested that Campbell still has two years to get things right. I suspect that answer was more a warning to the party he’s president of than a statement of belief. He suggested that Campbell might come up with a popular move, such as, he suggested, making mortgage payments tax deductible. Apart from the fact that since only the provincial share of income tax would be involved, thus a fairly modest amount, it’s easily handled by the NDP saying “we’ll do the same.”

It has been truly said — the putative authors are many — “In politics, six weeks is an eternity.” The problem the Liberals have is that not only must they come up with policies that appeal, but ones that block out the bad things that have happened. For that to happen, those bad things have to be buried in the past. Unfortunately for the Liberals, those bad things reappear anytime a voter buys something and pays the HST. It’s not just the hated tax, it’s the history of that tax. The HST not only reminds voters that they don’t like the tax but that the government lied to them.

Without intending cynicism, politicians are always “economical with the truth.” And the public expects that. They understand that politicians polish the apple, hire expensive spin doctors and only put out bad news on Friday afternoon when the media is in its pre-weekend tippling mode. What voters will not put up with is policy that was snuck by them and based on flat out prevarication. The leaking of the ministry policy paper that Finance Minister Colin Hansen saw two months before the election statement that HST wasn’t even on the radar, has created an open political sore that no ointment can cure.

But there’s more. This blatant untruth, of which voters are constantly reminded, also reminds them about other government, which is to say Gordon Campbell, deceits about the privatization of BC Rail, the size of the budget deficit, the fish farm issue and impacts of his energy policy. These would not be ongoing issues but are secured to the next campaign because of the premier’s utter lack of credibility of which these past events are resuscitated.

Then there is the Basi-Virk trial, which promises to have lots of ongoing reminders of government, ahem, shortcomings.

Prescription for survival

What should the Liberals do?

Just what Bennett Sr., Bill Vander Zalm, Brian Mulroney and the 1991 NDP failed to do — put the party first and fight not to win an election (though God knows what can happen in B.C. politics) but to have a viable party available to be a strong opposition and government-in-waiting.

One cannot leave this subject without speculating whether a new party might come out of the political fog. The opportunity is certainly there — there is a political collapse happening and politics, no less than nature, abhors a vacuum.

At this writing, however, it doesn’t seem to be happening. We hear rumbles from the Conservative party, which doesn’t seem to understand that the vacuum is not at the right but in the centre. Those who run this tiny gaggle of failed politicos and wannabes seem oblivious to the fact that any party connected by even an invisible thread to Stephen Harper & Co. is a bad political joke in these parts.

My way out long shot?

John Cummins and Vicki Huntington start a party clearly of the centre, thus resurrecting the late but now much lamented B.C. Social Credit party.

Most pundits including me (have we ever been wrong?) believe that Campbell will step down in 2011 and, in my view, get his reward with a high 6 figures or better job in the energy business for whom he has done so many nice things. If he does, the leadership will be open (there’s a brilliant statement for you!) and we’ll see if the Premier has any favourites in or out of cabinet.

I’m going to assume he has but that they’re confined to one man, about which more in a moment.

Outside cabinet, two names make some sense, Carole Taylor and Dianne Watts, the Teflon mayor of Surrey. Both have, in addition to their talents, the positive factor of being women to be compared and contrasted with the NDP lady who probably still be in charge.

Permit me to digress. I’m told by some NDPers that I’m seen as disliking Carole James. Quite the opposite – I like her very much. In a system that was civilized, and minority governments were the norm, she would make a damned good premier in my view. The fact is that we have a legislature reminiscent of a nest of adders and government comes from the premier’s office, not the House.

What about inside cabinet?

The next couple of cabinet shuffles will tell the tale.

The one man with the royal jelly combined with political smarts (they don’t always go together) is Mike Dejong. He also is the most effective of Cabinet adders when he’s free to fight. He’s thorough and vicious reminding me of when Margot Asquith said of David Lloyd George “he never saw a belt he didn’t hit below”.

As attorney-general he’s in that strange anomaly, a cabinet minister whose guns must be spiked. To be an effective A/G one must be above the fray and Dejong has proved remarkably good at that. He is also turning out to be an effective A/G thus one of the only cabinet ministers – hell, he is the only cabinet minister who’s effective.

If Campbell sees Dejong as his blessed, hand picked successor, Dejong will stay as A/G thus out of harm’s way. If Campbell doesn’t want him to take over the corner office, he will switch him to Children and Families or Finance minister or some other handy graveyard of political ambition.

Why wouldn’t Campbell lay hands on Carole Taylor (in a political sense, silly)?

First, one must consider whether or not Ms Taylor wants the job. Her husband has not, I’m told, been in perfect health and she’s getting on a bit. She may see the chalice as sufficiently poisoned to wish it upon someone else.

Second, she quit Pinocchio’s cabinet over fiscal concerns she had as Finance Minister. To seek the big job she will have to deal with that issue. If she seeks the leadership while supporting Campbell’s fiscal policy, she puts herself on the same plane as Mr. Dejong and will upset members who want to eradicate all memory of Campbell.

If she denounces Campbell’s fiscal policy she will piss off the remaining Campbellites.

What about Diane Watts?

She may not even be a Liberal but, of course, that’s a trivial point with that ever pragmatic group. Of more interest is her ability to sign up delegates from her interesting but tiny base of power in Surrey.

Is Ms Watts any more than a pretty face who mesmerizes the media?

We’ll find out more in the coming months.

There is another name, of course – Christy Clark. She has been a great talk show in the sense of always being kind to the government. Her husband is the quintessential backroom boy in the party.

Christy Clark is a possibility but she too has to live with the facts she quit Pinocchio’s government and somehow lost the NPA nomination for Vancouver Mayor to Sam Sullivan. It wasn’t just that she lose but she, her hubby and the “machine” were convinced she would win.

For now, keep your eyes on what Premier Campbell does with Mike Dejong

Postscript: Look for Ralph Soltan, the best business brain in the entire Caucus (though that’s damning with very faint praise indeed) to finally make cabinet.

Why?

Because after being such a loyal soldier for so long, he now looks as if he wants to speak out on issues and not be concerned about whom he hurts. That’s one of the better ways to get into cabinet.

There’s no need to dwell on Campbell – he is a horrible premier and the people are on to him and indeed were in the last election which he won because 50% of the voters stayed home and the NDP ran a pathetic campaign.

What about the leadership or lack of it shown by Carole James?

I’ve been very hard on her because she won’t do battle with the Liberals. I’ll tell you frankly how I could be wrong.

If the Liberals stay with Campbell in 2013 – and they may have no other choice – and if they continue to be lower than a snake’s belly in the polls, Ms. James tactic of staying cool and doing spade work constituency by constituency may pay off. The prospect of a premier that’s not always in your face may be appealing. Her gamble is that she will be listened to more and more the longer Campbell is Premier – that she will be seen as a statesman (sorry Carole, I just can’t spit stateswoman, statesperson out!) at a time when that will be the very thing people want.

There are two very important considerations Ms James must deal with. Whatever her strategy, she is owed the support of the party or the pink slip. And here is where the Liberals have their best thing going for them.

The NDP traditionally assassinate their leader. At the best of times they are at each others’ throats and these are not the best of times. Many blame Ms James for losing the last election and that, I can tell you from personal and close up observation, is unfair. After one fiasco that I was present at – the famous media flight over private power sites which was a shambles – I told her personally and in writing that whoever was running her campaign had a death wish for her which was clearly true. The NDP, if they want to win the next election – and it’s not always clear that they do want to win – they must either tell Ms James now that it’s time to go or rally behind her and her strategy.

What the NDP must do is make their decision now and base it on the assumption that there will be a new Liberal leader and if it’s Carole Taylor, Diane Watts or Mike DeJong it’s sort of like “new pitcher, new strikes” – a new game where past performance won’t much count…

What these numbers also tell me is that there is a golden opportunity here for a middle of the road party. This won’t likely happen as long as some who hate Campbell but loathe the NDP think that the public will vote for a party connected to Stephen Harper and run by Harperite Randy White. There’s a reason why Gordon Wilson, upon becoming leader of the BC Liberals, quickly seceded from the main party. He understood that British Columbians will not vote for a Liberal party or Conservative Party that’s a suburb of the national party. He knew that if he kept the federal association that the worst thing that could happen in a campaign was his federal leader endorsing him or, God forbid, campaigning for him. This rule doesn’t apply to the NDP because no one thinks the NDP will ever be the federal government.

These polls show two things for sure – the Liberals better get rid of Campbell before 2011 has passed and the NDP must either support Ms James or find someone they can all support and soon.

The government of BC’s handling of this issue has been disgraceful.

As soon as Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell took office he began to deal with the moratorium the NDP had placed on the development of new fish farms. He started by returning all fines paid by fish farms for shoddy practices.

Then in full possession of the facts about Atlantic salmon escaping and crowding wild salmon off the spawning beds AND in full knowledge of the terrible impact of lice from fish farms on wild salmon smolts, he lifted the moratorium. For nine years Campbell and his ministers have maintained that fish farms were safe in the face of all the independent evidence to the contrary. The only fair description of the Campbell government is that they lied through their teeth.

In this prevaricating policy the Canwest media were in their camp. The fish farmers PR flack had steady access to their op-ed pages. First class writers on these two papers, writers who specialized in outdoors matters, wouldn’t touch the issue. Bad news about fish farms was buried in sidebar comments. Alexandra Morton, the hero from Echo Bay who started the research into the sea lice problem was ignored while turncoats like Patrick Moore had access to space.

We live in a country that gives Orders of Canada to the likes of Conrad Black, Alan Eagleson and Brian Mulroney and tries to put Alexandra Morton behind bars for “illegal testing”.

On June 17, Alex was honoured with an honourary Doctor of Science at Simon Fraser University. That to me, and I think Alex, was a higher compliment than the highly political Orders of Canada and Orders of BC would ever be.

I, along with many friends and compatriots watched Alex receive her honour and there wasn’t a dry eye amongst us.

Canada could do with fewer Mulroneys, Blacks and Eaglesons and with a hell of a lot more Dr. Alexandra Mortons.

It must always be remembered here that we’re not dealing with presumptions of innocence when judging whether or not a person is fit to be a cabinet minister. Rather it’s a question as to whether or not his conduct compromises his position as a Member of Her Majesty’s Council.
Clearly Premier Gordon Campbell is well within the confines of his duty to leave Mr. Les on the Backbench.

What must, however, astonish us is how Mr. Campbell can apply these standards to Mr. Les and not to others, including himself.

There is, of course, the Premier’s own conviction for drunk driving. One doesn’t need a fertile imagination to wonder what Campbell would have said had he been in Opposition and an NDP premier done the same. In fact no guess work is required – some of the best speeches on cabinet morality came from Opposition Leader Campbell’s lips when he laid down sacred principles for the NDP to follow when their conduct was in question.

One of the clearest examples of when a premier/minister must resign comes when it’s alleged, with reasonable evidence, that they didn’t tell the truth. Admittedly, what is truth or what is what in law is referred to a mere “puff” is not easy to demonstrate in politics. Getting elected and staying elected – that which most politicians deem to be their main task – often brings out the apple polisher. Government information releases are invariably spun until sufficiently vague as to move them from being falsehoods to being partisan – a distinction not easy to define. Having said that, the Campbell government and especially the premier, have told a number of untruths; they have persistently stated as facts that which they new were not true.

We can start with the statements in the election 13 months ago about the state of the province’s finances. When then Premier Clark brought in a budget in 1996 then called an election based upon it and won, when it was obvious the budget was fudged, opposition leader Campbell had no trouble seeing that the Premier and his cabinet had knowingly not told the truth. The Liberal Opposition howled like stuck pigs. The discrepancy  was several hundreds of millions of dollars.

When the Campbell government went to the people in May of 2009 based on a budget deficit of some $700 million it became known as out of town votes were still being counted that it was about four times as high. By Campbell reckoning Glen Clark lied but Gordon Campbell simply made an error in arithmetic.

When Mr. Campbell assured the voters in 1996 and repeated in 2001 that he would not sell BC Rail – and did so because he would lose heavily in many areas if he did not take this stance – then couldn’t wait to do just that on becoming Premier, he committed a falsehood made worse by his trickery in pretending that a 990 year lease wasn’t a breach of his promise.

Probably the most egregious falsifying the facts has come with his energy policy and here there can be no doubt.

He and his ministers have said over and over again that BC was a net importer of energy when the Federal Energy Board showed otherwise.

He and his ministers have consistently said that the companies to be involved would be small, mom and pop operations whereas the very opposite is the case and huge international corporations are the benefactors.

He and his ministers claimed that there would be no damage to the environment when even the smallest of projects have done enormous permanent damage to the rivers and the ecologies they support.

Campbell and his ministers have said over and over that private energy is needed to make BC energy self sufficient by 2016 when the fact is that this private energy only can be created during the run-off period when BC Hydro doesn’t need it.

Let me pause here so we can all catch our breath – the cornerstone of the Campbell government’s energy policy is obtaining private power for BC self sufficiency when that private power comes when our energy company, BC Hydro can’t use it! At this point BC Hydro, our own company, owes some $40 BILLION to private power companies for power they can’t use! Worse, because BC Hydro must buy this power at double what they can sell it for, they are compelled to export it at a huge loss!

Without any question, the Campbell government has been untruthful on the fish farm question since they removed the moratorium in 2002. It’s been demonstrated beyond doubt, by documentary evidence recently uncovered, that the government knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that fish farms posed a huge danger to wild salmon and possessed documentary evidence of that.

The plain truth is that the Campbell government has wallowed in deceit and sharp practice from the outset. It is this which makes it hard to understand why Gordon Campbell would impose upon Mr. Les a much higher standard of morality than it imposes on itself on its day to day governance of the province.