Opinions

HARCOURT!

DOSANJH!

CAMPBELL!

BC Politics are Quite Boring, Actually

JJ McCullough, OP Senior Political Analyst

I, often said that Canada is a fundamentally “regional” country, with strong provincial differences that carry on into the political realm. We’re a nation of 10 different political cultures and philosophies, they say. No wonder we can’t get along!

There is a lot of truth to this of course. Politics in Newfoundland are quite different from those of Alberta, for instance. What is iitating, however, is when the legitimate and sophisticated political differences between provincial cultures get boiled down to a few trite generalizations, with those generalizations in tum being treated as proven fact in the media and elsewhere.

If there is one particularly tired cliché in this regard that is in dire need of retirement it is oft-repeated claim that politics in British Columbia are somehow fundamentally more “wacky” and “polarized” than is customary in the rest of the country. This nauseatingly trite piece of conventional wisdom has very little basis in actual fact, yet its one that is almost never second-guessed just the same.

Let us confront the charge of “polarization” first.

According to Fair Voting BC, an interest group set up to promote that convoluted “STV” voting reform a while back, the political climate of British Columbia is “highly polarized” with our partisan elections subjected to “ideologically driven wild swings.” Similar comments were espoused in a 2001 report by Dr. Andrew Peter, speaking for the normally staid Fraser Institute. Once again making the case for electoral reform, the good professor declared that our propensity for “radical policy swings between left and right, may make for good entertainment, but it creates a political environment that is costly and detrimental to our long-term economic and social well-being.” Reading such sentiments one would be excused for imagining BC as some sort of northern Italy, with perpetual elections and perpetually changing governments.

In the real world, British Columbia has undergone a grand total of five changes of government since the Second World War,

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which averages to about a switch about once every 12 years. This is only one more switch than Ontario and Saskatchewan have made during the same period. Manitoba has changed hands six times, while Quebec and Ottawa have switched seven times each since 1945.

In the BC context it’s worth recalling precisely how some of our recent switches occurred. In 1991 the drab and moderate Socred Premier Rita Johnston was defeated by the equally drab and moderate Michael Harcourt. Both individuals were former city counselors with thick glasses who had been elected to lead their parties mostly because the better candidates were considered too radical ideologically and “risky” electorally.

In 2001 we likewise saw the painfully moderate and pragmatic Ujjal Dosanjh (the NDPer would would one day eck out a successful career in the Federal Liberal Party) go down to defeat at the hands of the similarly directionless Gordon Campbell. (The tired NDP had been in power for nearly a decade at this point, and their 2001 defeat was widely predicted. Yet one still read about this throughly unspectacular historical event in tones that portray it as some sort of spastic BC mood-swing).

For all the hysterical demonization of Mr. Campbell by the provinces’ leftists, who for years had bought the NDP line that kickback schemes for corpulent union bosses were somehow in their best interests, the new premier has hardly turned out to be the neo- conservative monster promised.

He has privatized absolutely nothing of note, raised welfare rates, and entirely capitulated to the Native lobby on all matters of land claims. He has endorsed Larry Campbell’s idiotic and oxymoronic “safe injection site” and spoekn firmly against any efforts to bring private clincs into Vanouveer. Worse yet, the man displays a creepy obsession with trying to micromanage the lives of citizens in as many ways as his bored goverment can concoct. In Campbell’s BC it is the state’s job to tell us where to smoke, when to drink, how many veggies to eat, and how much exercise to get. It’s socialist lunacy on par with anything the NDP would ever

dare attempt.

Premier Campbell is at best, a moderate fiscal conservative and a liberal in every other way that counts. Perhaps that’s why he, like Mr. Dosanjh before him, has been courted for a career with the federal Liberal Party. His uninspired rise to the premiership is certainly no more dramatic than Michael Harris’ defeat of the Ontario NDP, or, for that matter, the numerous lurches Quebec has experienced between separatist and non-separatist parties.

Mr. Campbell is also, let it be said, an excruciatingly boring and uninspiring gentlemen, which segues us nicely into the next allegation, that BC’s leaders are somehow fundamentally more “colorful,” “eccentric,” or outright brain-damaged than the breed of politician found in the rest of the nation.

In the run-up to our most recent election the Globe and Mail dubbed British Columbia a “delight” for pundits and commentators due to our “tradition of electoral brawling and wacky candidates.” The introduction to the CBC web archive of BC political coverage proudly proclaims that our elections are “unpredictable, raucous affairs featuring larger-than-life leaders.” Favorite son Douglas Coupland likewise speaks of our propensity for electing “charismatic bumpkins” in his BC expose “City of Glass.” Hell, simply Google some combination of the word “BC” “politics” and “wacky” and you'll get over 60,000 matches.

Once again, the actual timeline tells a different story. In the last 60 years British Columbia has had exactly two (out of 10) premiers who can be described as having been, in any way “wacky” or even, in most cases, “‘charismatic.” Bill Vander Zalm was the first and Glen Clark the second. The former was, admittedly something of an oddball. An evangelical Dutch tulip salesman, “normal” was rarely a word used to describe the ‘Zalm. The fact that his government was ultimately brought down over a conflict of interest spawned by his botched attempts to sell an Christian-themed amusement park to a Taiwanese billionaire makes our 28th Premier aman whose legacy is justifiably delegated to Canada’s political sideshow.

Compared to Vader Zalm, Glen Clark, the mustachoid champaign socialist, is only a distant second in the wackiness department. And even then, Clark’s wackiness mainly came from his government’s staggeringly careless levels of corruption. The amount of poorly-thought-out crooked idiocy perpetuated by the Clark regime was often absurd to the point of dark comedy, but hardly a charge that cannot be just as justifiably leveled against other governments in other provinces as well.

Clark and Vander Zalm stand alone in a crowded field, however. Our other Premiers, be they Bill Bennett Jr., David Barrett, Rita Johnston, Mike Harcourt, Ujjal Donsanjh or now Gordon Campbell, are hardly a cast of eccentric bumpkins whom leap off the pages of history. Even the great William Andrew Cecil Bennett, who helped strengthen the “wacky” reputation due to his rather unfortunate first initials, was not a terribly amusing figure. He was a ferocious debater and something of an authoritarian, but even in his later years he never tried to communicate with the ghosts of his dead dogs, which is more than we can say for at least one

And as far as our elections being “raucous” affairs, well, I need hardly mention that these dullards were the ones who WON, which should hopefully say something about their caliber of opponents.

I’ve always been inclined to believe that BC’s reputation as the political crackpot of Canada is a mythology that was largely cooked up by Eastern-types eager to find a retroactive justification for their overall ignorance and disinterest in this part of the country. “Oh, that’s just crazy old BC,” they say, “who can even keep track?”

And the leading voices in our own media play along, like the obedient Uncle Toms that they are, desperate for any attention from the Eastem establishment and even more desperate for a feeling of “distinctness” from the same. BC has become comfortable with a slur against our democracy, and it’s high time we were mature enough to fight back.