BC Needs a Truth Squad

What do you do when governments consistently feed us terminologically inexactitudes? That famous term was used by Winston Churchill, in 1906, because to use the word lie would be un-parliamentary.

I will, in order to be parliamentary, use Churchill's term "TI" rather than mine.

The trick of government is to get things in place before those who might object have a chance to say anything, thus allowing officials to sneak projects past the public.

When the public cottons on, the government must tell fibs -- sometimes whopping great fibs. They also must stonewall damaging evidence. To help them do this they often call in large PR firms to make horse buns look like bonbons. It also helps if the opposition falls down on the job -- which too often it does.

Cartel? What cartel?

The first example of this in my experience came in the mid-'70s when the United States stopped buying our uranium. Unfortunately, Atomic Energy Canada had stockpiled huge quantities of the stuff and was without a place to sell it. Trudeau's government of the day created a quite illegal international cartel to fix the price of uranium.

Investigations under the Combines Investigation Act were stonewalled and a study done by a well-regarded federal public servant, Robert Bertrand, was simply kept under wraps and 25 years later still hasn't seen the light of day. The whole sordid mess was recorded by the late Earle Gray in The Great Uranium Scandal. No one resigned, no one was tried and no one was punished.

The interesting part for today's purposes is how the Liberal government of the day got around the questions asked. "Why," they said, "this is uranium we're talking about so it's a defence of the realm issue and we must remain mum." And the ploy worked even though it was nonsense. The issue was simply that our main customer had deserted us and in order to secure our investment we formed a cartel to keep the price up. It had zilch to do with national security. Throughout, the media and the opposition parties lay doggo.

Plot to kill Nechako River

The next egregious abuse of power and stonewalling of the public came in 1986 with the proposed Kemano Completion Project (KCP) which would have reduced the Nechako River to 20 per cent of its normal flows thus badly threatening the sockeye runs through the Nechako to their spawning grounds. A 1985 report by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, known to the federal and provincial governments, and Alcan, was suppressed. And for good reason -- it condemned the KCP in no uncertain terms. The report didn't see the light of day until it was leaked to me 10 years later!

The entire issue was an example of Terminological Inexactitudes from the federal government, the provincial government and Alcan. A federally-mandated environmental assessment hearing was canceled by Ottawa. The public, when not stonewalled from getting any information, were throughout told whopping TIs.

I cannot move on without praising then Premier Mike Harcourt for having the courage to cancel the undertaking.

Fish farm tycoon gets it

Fast forward to 2001 when the Campbell government took office and within a couple of months lifted the moratorium on Atlantic salmon fish farms.

It's not my intention to canvas that story at length but only to point out that at every turn the Campbell government has ignored the science and the premier sees his nose grow longer every time he talks about things like escaped farm salmon and sea lice destroying runs of wild Pacific salmon.

Even when 18 independent scientists signed a letter dealing with sea lice from fish farms decimating runs of pink and chum salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, and confirming that the independent science, ignored by the Campbell government, was 100 per cent correct.

So what did the government do? It issued new licenses and the farmers filled pens they had promised would lie fallow.

John Frederiksen, owner of Marine Harvest, one of the biggest salmon farming companies globally and in Canada, has now said: "I am concerned about the future for wild salmon. Fish farming should not be allowed in fjords with salmon rivers." That statement cannot be true, the evidence of the independent scientists can't be true, if the Campbell government is right. But that statement has had no effect on the Campbell crowd.

It rather reminds me of the mother watching a military parade who exclaims: "There's my Johnny! See, everyone is out of step except him!"

How to fight TIs

What can the public do when the government stonewalls, obfuscates and tells TIs without end?

The traditional answer is that it relies upon the opposition to hold the government to account. But what if they don't? What does the citizen do when 18 scientists confirm the government isn't telling the truth and the premier gives them the finger while the opposition is struck dumb?

It's so exasperating! Is the present Carole James opposition so afraid to offend anyone they simply cannot come up with a policy?

On the fish farm issue, oppositions of days gone by would have been all over the government, not just because of their policy but for not telling the truth.

An opposition from yesteryear would have revealed a policy on the Gateway projects at least six months ago. A policy that was substantive and in-depth. Not the silly statement made recently by leader Carole James that this would be the wrong bridge for the wrong place at the wrong time.

I concede that the NDP have a political problem when it comes to widening Highway 1 and twinning the Port Mann Bridge -- after all, plenty of their supporters need that highway and are sick to death of playing a slow game of "go, go, stop" every time they get on the TCH.

But how could the NDP not have seen the South Fraser Perimeter Road as the environmental scourge it will become?

How could they not be able to deal with the Deltaport expansion giving rise to the SFPR?

Surely the NDP would have had their ducks in a row for the Tsawwassen Indian Band treaty and the concomitant loss of more than 200 hectares out of the Agricultural Land Reserve!

NDP's big opportunity

This isn't an ideological issue -- it's a matter of democracy. The opposition has two main purposes. First, to oppose, thus raising matters of importance so that the public can inform itself. And second, to be a government in waiting.

The Campbell government, flush with arrogance and hubris which so often accompanies people with power and no respect for the truth, are getting away with it simply because they're not being held to account by the puzzled and puzzling opposition.

Carole James is daily disclosing that she thinks parliaments should be run like school board meetings. As a result, her continued "leadership" of the NDP all but assures the Liberals of another term in office.

As I look back, the two member NDP caucus of 2001-5 did a better job raising issues than does the 30-plus caucus in the present Opposition. And that, dear reader, is no terminological inexactitude.

Related Tyee stories:

• Carole James on the Tsawwassen Treaty
  Despite farm land concerns, it's a vital next step.
• In Tsawwassen, a Cow for the Killing
  When saving farmland and forging treaties conflict, sacred blood is spilled.
• A Fish Farm Critic Vindicated
  New research bolsters Morton's claims of sea lice devastation.