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2011, Year of the Political Animal

Hang on tight, British Columbians, this is going to be quite a ride!

Rafe Mair 15 Nov 2010TheTyee.ca

Rafe Mair's column runs every second Monday on The Tyee. Find his previous Tyee columns here and more of his writings on The Common Sense Canadian.

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Surrey mayor Dianne Watts: Does she want to lead Libs?

For the Chinese, every year is named after an animal. For British Columbians, 2011 will be the year of the "political animal" -- and it's sure to be a dandy.

Political wannabes are always hard to figure in many ways, because they're asked questions before they're ready to answer. There is a built-in coyness, a feigned shyness. Those who are ready are usually those with little or no chance because they're using the early attention to attract support and money. It usually turns out they won't have either when, as the cowboys say, it's time for the nut-cutting.

2011 will be the year of three events, such that even mainstream media columnists will be permitted to get off the Liberal bandwagon, mostly because the mainstream media puts its own interests miles ahead of journalistic freedom. They want a winner at all costs and if they don't know who it will be, they panic.

Campbell's leaving, now what?

Let's get started on 2011 with the issues as they are now, not as they will be.

The Liberals are first in the "conjecture stakes," because the winner of Campbell's tarnished crown will be the premier for two years -- assuming that Campbell does go sometime. As Henry Kissinger said, "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" and just to have been premier, even with a Rita Johnston-Dan Miller "I never got elected button," is something.

A year, hell even six months ago, I would have said "if Campbell resigns, Carole Taylor is the logical replacement." But Taylor made it clear that she didn't want the job and wouldn't seek it. Then she accepted the position of chancellor of Simon Fraser University which seemed to end speculation, and while I don't think she'll change her mind, she hasn't yet felt the full weight of Liberal insiders' pleading. The SFU position is non-paying, and if only on the basis that it's human nature to change your mind, she can't be finally counted out.

I hope she doesn't change her mind, for if she loses and wins a seat, she has the worst job in politics: leader of the Opposition for four years. Being the fan of SFU that I am (it's amazing what an SFU honourary degree can do to a UBC grad), I'd like to see SFU's new president, Andrew Petter, and Taylor as a team.

(Permit me to digress to say that any university getting substantial funding from the provincial government that will grant honorary degrees to the likes of Alex Morton and me has my undying admiration!)

A few days ago I said that I doubted very much that Dianne Watts, the hugely popular mayor of Surrey, would be a candidate, but now I'm not so sure. I sense that her denials of interest have been downgraded a bit and the lure of being premier, if only for a year, is pretty strong. Leaving aside Taylor, Watts is obviously the best outsider available.

Christy Clark and Geoff Plant, though away for the second Campbell government, are both a plus and a minus -- the minus is that each served under Campbell and were part of what happened, the plus being that both are very well connected to the Liberal Old Guard.

A member of the current cabinet may well get the leadership, but their chances of winning the big enchilada in 2013 range somewhere between slim and none, closer to the latter, although one must always remember that in politics, six weeks is an eternity.

What about James and the NDP?

The NDP, on paper, would seem to be in the political catbird seat. Miles ahead of the Liberals in the polls, you would think they were a slam dunk, but to think that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the New Democratic Party is all about. Even NDP premiers have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. The fissures are deep and wide, and one need look no further than Carole James for proof. Party loyalty is thin gruel indeed, and the only thing necessary to change cheers into boos is the passage of a little time.

Contrary to much public opinion, Carole James is tough -- to have moved her party so much closer to the centre demonstrates that. Those who blame her for losing the last election ought to reflect upon the terrible campaign that the party ran. The leader is the leader, no doubt about that, but the leader doesn't direct the day-to-day operation of the campaign and those who did, in my eyes, had a death wish for her.

James's problem is that she doesn't look or sound tough. She's inadaptable to the B.C. political scene, and that's a compliment. Because of our first past the post fighting cocks in the pit system, it (sadly) pays to be a strong, vicious fighter weak on integrity and issues, rather than the other way around.

My job as spokesperson for The Common Sense Canadian takes me all around the province, and what you hear from NDP-ers is: "I love Carole, but she's not tough enough to win the next election." To add to her problems, she has her own version of Joe Btfsplk, the character in the long gone and lamented comic strip Li'l Abner, who was "the world's worst jinx who always had a dark, rainy cloud over his head," in the person of Moe Sihota. Moe is now being pilloried for accepting a union gift as a salary and not telling anyone about it. Never far from being heartily disliked by one or other faction of the party, Moe's peccadilloes, happening on Ms. James's watch at this particular time, are distinctly unhelpful especially since, to the extent Sihota has loyalty to anyone else, it's to Ms. James. This, to say the least, might not be what Ms. James really needs at this moment.

Room for a new party?

Then there is the possibility of a third party to occupy the considerable gap in the centre between the NDP and the true believers in the doctrine of the Fraser Institute, the Campbellites. The reaction to my piece on The Tyee about Gordon Wilson, whether favourable or not, told me he has considerable presence and the adverse reaction is more of fear than of opinion. Chris Delaney, leader of the BC First party, has been a minority party member or leader for some years with nothing to show for it, but then, how could one horn in on a game where the spectators only wanted two teams on the field to cheer or boo?

I know both Wilson and Delaney, and both have an extraordinary depth of knowledge of B.C. issues and neither is a political extremist. With no chance to even get into the arena in past elections, these two, especially if they can unite, could be different. With two years left before the next election, a new party in the mode of the Bill Bennett Socreds with either Wilson or Delaney, but especially both, could provide an interesting option for many British Columbians who like to be centre-left on social issues and centre-right on fiscal matters. Which is to say most of us.

I make no secret of my issue of most interest in the political times to come -- the environment. Campbell has destroyed every environmental issue he has touched. Whether it's farmland, fish farms or our rivers, the Campbell government has been consistent in utter and wanton destruction while lying about it. Not for nothing has he been dubbed "Pinocchio." 

The mainstream media has had little to say on the environment, but I can tell you that the people of B.C. are fast making it their number one priority. Leaders like Donna Passmore fighting for farmland and wilderness reserves, Alexandra Morton fighting to preserve our wild salmon, my partner on The Common Sense Canadian, Damien Gillis, now one of the world's top environmentalist filmmakers, Joe Foy and Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee, Melissa Davis and author/Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler of the Citizens for Public Power, Patti MacAhonic and the BC Wildlife Federation, Jennifer Lash and Cath Stewart of the Living Oceans Society, the Georgia Straight Alliance and far, far too many others to name, partnered by the vast majority of First Nations, will ensure that the environment will be a, if not the, major issue in 2011.

The next election will very different

Damien and I at The Common Sense Canadian will be showing our films and speaking at about 30 locations around the province next spring.

There is a unity of purpose amongst environmentalists hitherto not present. Much credit for this goes to many leaders of First Nations that many, if not most, other British Columbians chose to ignore for so very long. Their leadership has been critical to many environmental hot buttons such as salmon, rivers and pipelines.

I predict that First Nations opposition to the Enbridge pipeline from the tar sands to Kitimat, and subsequent carriage of the sludge from Kitimat down the coast will be killed, in large measure because of First Nations. Many environmental movements, and certainly we at The Common Sense Canadian, will actively support them.

I predict that by election day 2013, no party will be able to get away with trite statements and one-liners about environmental issues. The political party that understands the issues and comes up with a strong environmental policy will be rewarded at the polls.

Hang on tight, folks, for 2011 is going to be quite a ride!  [Tyee]

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