fipril 7, 2004

Features

e the other press ©

 

how Margaret Thatcher went down.
It works really well in that individual
members have a lot of say, but are
also accountable. I think in Canada,
the direction we've gone in has been
very unhealthy, where really all the
power gets vested in the prime min-
ister, or the premier, because the
prime minister or the premier elects
cabinet, and cabinet doesn’t elect the
leader. And then private members
get whipped into line and they say
“if you don't vote the way we want
you to on this, you're out,” more or
less. So it’s not healthy.

But on the other hand, the
American system not only doesn’t
elect the cabinet, it has a sort of per-
verse impact, electing people as indi-
viduals, as opposed to party mem-
bers. Yes, they vote their conscience,
but in the United States they've
become extremely vulnerable to the
money of special interests, and that
hasn't happened in Canada because
we have a party system. If you are
the gun lobby, and you've got a mil-
lion bucks, you don’t go to Christy
Clark and say, “I’m going to put a
million dollars into advertising
against you in your riding.” What
you do is you try to defeat the
Liberal Party. But it’s much harder
for you to try and leverage your mil-
lion dollars on a nation-wide or
province-wide campaign than it is
on individual campaigns. So in the
United States individual congress-
men and individual senators are so
vulnerable to that, they know that if
someone decides to put a million
bucks on their forehead, they're
going to lose. Period. So they really
feel pressured to try to follow the
orders of the special interests.

Some people, though, might say that in
our system the special interests are just
concentrated all at the top, as weve
seen with Prime Minister Martin’
government, and all of the scandals
swirling around there. While the indi-
vidual legislators might be totally left
in the cold, the top part, the executive
branch of the government is sort of
where all of the special interests con-
verge.
If you were just an MP Im sure
no one would ever contact you, just on
the basis that you wouldnt have any
actual power within the structure of
the government. I think special inter-
est groups in this country realize that
to affect anything, you go to where the
power is, and that means that you go
straight to the top of the government,
the cabinet and the prime minister—
which can allow for a concentration of

corruption.

Yes, except because you're talking
about trying to affect a national
campaign, as opposed to an individ-
ual, local campaign, you have got to
have a lot more money than any-
body does in Canada to be a special
interest group that has that kind of
affect. Because the value of my mil-
lion dollars to the Liberal Party,
nationally, or the Conservative
Party, nationally, isn’t very much
compared to the value of my million
dollars if I decide I am going to
spend it defeating you, J.J., in your
riding. Special interests can’t get big
enough, really, to have that same
kind of control over a national party

that they can have over individual
candidates, because individual can-
didates just can't compete with that
kind of money. Unfortunately, polit-
ical campaigns are all about money.
So whoever has the most money
wins, and at an individual level, if
we didn’t have spending maximums
here, and the NDP decided to spend
$500,000 to defeat me, they proba-
bly could—just because they wanted
to defeat me. But nobody does that,
because I’m part of a party, and what
you want to try and do is influence
the total number of members who
get elected. It’s much harder for spe-
cial interests to target people, so it
dilutes the value of their money and
makes it much harder for them to
manage it.

But you're right. It does con-
centrate power in the prime minis-
ter’s office, or the premier’s office.
There is no question about that.
And that’s the trade-off that we
make. We should have a system
more like the British system. We
should go back to that, where we let
people vote their conscience and
give them some real power and con-
trol of who the leaders of the parties

are, and that kind of thing.

What do you think of the whole idea
of “confidence votes?” Ive always
thought of that as being a sort of out-
dated notion. Thats why I’ve sort of
admired Premier Campbell in setting
election dates, because that seems to
ensure a lot more stability. I mean, I
dont think that the public really feels
like having an election every time the
government gets defeated on some triv-
ial bill about the budget or whatever.
So do you think that perhaps its an
idea whose time has passed?

Yeah, I do. I think the nature of a
confidence motion is to say that on
some things, you cannot vote
against your government no matter
what your conscience says, and if we
really want to free up peoples’ con-
sciences and let them vote in a way
that reflects their own views and the
views of their constituents, you're
right, we have to get past that
notion,

So another thing that Gordon
Campbell did was define what a
confidence motion was. He said that
certain types of legislation are not
motions of confidence.

Minister, you are currently serving as
deputy premier, which I think is a
position very few Canadians fully
understand. What exactly does the job
entail? If Premier Campbell had
resigned last summer, would you be the
Premier right now?

I don't know. It’s not an automatic
thing. Because in British Columbia
leaders of parties are elected by the
political parties, or maybe by the
caucus. So it’s not an automatic suc-
cession.

The deputy premier’s job is to
chair cabinet when the premier is
not there, and that’s a very impor-
tant role. I do all the “visiting digni-
tary” kind of roles that I need to do
when he is not there, as well. I con-
fer with him quite a bit about poli-
cy, too, and those kinds of things.
It’s a role that is probably different

in every jurisdiction. It depends on
what the premier is like, and what
the deputy premier is like.

Would you say, then, that it’s an exag-
geration to say that you're the “second
in command” of the province?

Well, I have a responsibility to
answer all the questions that are put
to him when he’s not there. I don’t
know if you could say there’s a sec-
ond in command, though. It really
depends on the issue. But when he is
not in the House, for example, I
answer his questions. So I suppose
on a flow chart, that’s how it works,
yes. But the reality is nothing ever
works that way. Everything is a little
more fluid than that. Like for exam-
ple, at your home, is your mom the
head of the household, or is your
dad the head of the household? Or,
are neither of them really head of the
household, and you're all kind of in
charge in your own way? It’s more
like that—in a political party a cau-
cus is like a family.

During your tenure as education min-
ister, you were subjected to intense crit-
icism, and more than a few rather
brutal personal attacks. I was wonder-
ing if that had any kind of personal
effect on you.

No. It doesn’t get to me at all.
Because I know that the critics don’t
care about me, they care about my
position. I’m just a concept to them,
I’m not a person to them. And I
know they're not attacking me as a
person, they're attacking me as a
concept of what I represent to them
(laughs). So it’s like, okay, fill your
boots. Now that I’m gone, they're
just going to attack the new guy. So
its not about me, it’s about them,

police to track down grow opera-
tions. That’s not an issue every-
where. They wonder about the
future of Burrard Thermal. There
are specific local issues that I need to
pay attention to.

I won the last election with 75
percent of the vote. I was the third-
highest vote-getter in BC in the last
election. But that doesn’t mean I
don't have to work for the next one.
I always have to work, and I have to
make sure I am out there, listening
to my constituents. That’s Job One
of every politician, to tend to your
constituents first, and then do all the
other jobs that the premier gives to
you, or the caucus gives you, or
whatever, as a second priority.

Do you feel, then, that in your own
riding you're a popular figure that will
not have a difficult time winning re-
election?

(Long pause) I get lots of positive
feedback from people. I mean, there
are lots of critics out there too, no
question about that, but I do get lots
of positive feedback from people.
And I’m working hard, and I’m in
my community a lot. So I guess we'll
know the answer to that question at
the next election.

What would you say is the publics
biggest misconception about your gov-
ernment?

I think that the single biggest mis-
conception is that we want to bal-
ance the budget because we like to
play with numbers. The reality is,
we want to balance the budget
because that’s the only way we can
support social programs. Again, if
we don't get BC on a sound financial
footing, we are not going to be able

 

I know they're not attacking me as a
person, they're attacking me as a concept
of what I represent to them. So it’s like,
okay, fill your boots.”

Deputy Minister Christy Clark

 

and what they want. Trying to criti-
cize me is just a means to that end.
It’s not personal, and so I never take
it that way.

Do you view yourself as being popular?

Um, I don't know. I’ve never really
thought of myself in those terms.
That’s

an interesting question.

Well, how confident do you feel about

your re-election?

Well that’s a more specific question.
We always have to think about
whether or not we're going to get re-
elected. And the reason we have to
be concerned about that is because if
we're not going to get re-elected it
means we probably haven't paid
enough attention to the people in
our riding. It’s often on a very spe-
cific basis. For example, people in
Port Moody care about the big issues
like taxes, but they also have some
very specific concerns about whether
or not BC Hydro is providing them
with enough information for the

to afford to pay for education or
healthcare anymore. So what we
want to do is put us on a sound
financial footing so we can pay for
those things, and more importantly,
recognize that a deficit really is a
matter of saying that “We want to
spend all the money that we take in
and we want to take all the money
that belongs to the next generation,
too. So we don't care if they get pen-
sions, we don't care if they get
healthcare, we don’t care if they get
anything in their future. We want to
use it all.” That’s what a deficit is.
One generation being greedy
enough to say “We want you to give
to us, and take from our kids, too,
and let them figure out the prob-
lem.” So I think we have to work
hard to scale down our expectations
in a generation. Because we have to
leave something for people like you.
We have to. Otherwise, all we'll have
at the end of our reign as govern-
ment is more debt. That's all you're
going to pay for. You're going to be
paying the banks. So you're not
going to be thinking about “Gee,

http://www.otherpress.ca

should we be expanding medical
coverage to cover podiatrists?” you're
going to be thinking, “Okay, maybe
we shouldn't be covering heart trans-
plants at all.” Those are going to be
the kinds of questions that your gen-
eration is going to have to ask unless
we take care of it. And it’s just not
fair. Because you don’t use up a lot
of resources of government. The
years when you use up a lot of
resources of government are when
you turn 60 or 70. So all those peo-
ple who are making the cases for
those who are 60 or 70 right now are
using up the resources for your
future.

On a personal level, what frustrates
you the most about government?

(Long pause) I...would say...the dis-
tance between a politician making a
decision and the people who receive
service on the front lines. Someone
like you could come to me and say,
“We have a real problem at our hos-
pital and it’s this.... and it is so hard
for me as a politician to change that,
because there is so much bureaucra-
cy and decision-making and com-
plexity between the top level of gov-
ernment and the bottom level, the
front lines. That’s the most frustrat-
ing thing. Nobody in any political
party you run for gets into office
with anything other than the idea
that they want to change everything,
they want to make things better for
people. That’s why we do this. And
then you get there, and it is really,
really hard to get things done. It’s
just so unwieldy and cumbersome.

What party do you hope wins the
federal election?

I don’t publicly speculate about that.
Because our provincial party has a
whole coalition of people. We have
people who are Federal Liberals,
who are working on the Liberal
campaign, and people who are
working on the Federal Alliance
campaign, and people on the
Federal Conservatives. Actually, I
guess they are one party now.

Lastly Minister, where do you see your
iy J J
political career going in the next ten
years?

I don’t know...
Is there a dream job you have in mind?

I want to be a mother again. I want
to have another baby. That’s what I
want to do. But I think I can accom-
modate a professional job at the
same time I have another baby. So I
don’t know. The thing about politics
is that it doesn’t lend itself to long-
term planning, in terms of personal
career planning. You get re-elected,
or not, every four or five years. So
your future is not in your own
hands, and I think it is foolhardy for
any politician to try to make a long
term personal career plan, because
who knows when you're going to be
chucked out of office.

Thank you for your time, Madam
Minister. Best of luck in the future.

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