Ten Key Questions on the Next B.C. Election

 
A year from now - on April 19, 2005 - the next provincial election campaign will officially begin.  Unofficially, of course, the battle is already well underway. 
 
Recent polls show that Mr. Campbell has squandered the apparently insurmountable lead his Liberals had in 2001. Although Carol James still ranks as an underdog, the New Democratic leader is positioned to give Campbell a tough fight leading up to the May 17, 2005 vote. Here are 10 things political junkies will watch as the campaign heats up:
 
10) Can Gordon Campbell be repackaged as a moderate?  The typical B.C. voter is a fiscal conservative with a social conscience.  The "New Era" platform appealed to them in 2001. Yet Campbell's government has been a radical one -- pushing privatization, imposing service reductions and layoffs, ripping up labour contracts, and attacking the most needy in society. Campbell needs to regain the middle ground to win a second term.
 
9) Is Carole James ready to be Premier? James has given the NDP a new face and a calm, moderate voice. She's already pulled even with Campbell as the popular choice for Premier.  But almost a third of voters know little about James.  She needs some high-quality candidates and a credible platform before she'll be ready for prime time.
 
8) Can Adriane Carr reverse the slide in Green Party popularity?  In the fall of 2002 Green Party popularity peaked at 19 percent.  Current support stands at 12 percent -- still substantial, but the trend is in the wrong direction. Carr can't win in 2005; she has to convince voters to cast a Green protest vote rather than switch to the NDP to try to defeat the Liberals.
 
7) Is the BC Unity party still alive? Seldom heard from and standing at just five percent in the polls, this inheritor of the mantle of Reform and Social Credit barely has a political pulse. But as the economy sputters and the population shrinks in the so-called "heartlands," populist discontent with the big-city corporate orientation of Campbell's Liberals grows.     
 
6) Can the NDP overcome the financial clout of Liberal fundraising?  If money is the mother's milk of politics, then the Liberals are mommy's favourite kids.   Corporate donations enabled the Liberals to outspend the NDP by better than two to one in 2001. Some 15,000 individuals contributed to NDP last year, but little guys don't write big cheques.
 
5) Will the B.C. economy finally kick into at least second gear?  An economic boom won't materialize over the next 12 months. But even moderate growth would give the Liberals some credibility when they boast about their economic record.  More importantly, growth would allow them to reverse some of the cuts to health and education.
 
4) Will the stench of scandal continue to hang over the Liberals?  It's been a tough year for the government: drug raids on the provincial legislature, allegations of fiscal mismanagement, special favours to friendly salmon farmers, the whole Doug Walls mess, suspicion of influence peddling in the sale of BC Rail assets … and then there's that drinking binge on Maui.
 
3) Has voter distaste for the NDP really vanished? The best weapons Gordon Campbell had in 2001 were Glen Clark and the perception of fiscal recklessness.  Count on the Liberals to trot out memories of the fast ferries as the next election nears.
 
2) Will the 2005 election be all about sex? Seventy-one percent of women think Gordon Campbell is doing a poor job. The Liberals will make serious efforts to repair the perception that they don't care about issues important to women.  But Carole James is, well, a woman. When she says that Mr. Campbell just doesn't get it, she has credibility.
 
1) Will Gordon Campbell lead the Liberals into the 2005 election? The defection of two disgruntled MLAs signals simmering discontent in his caucus. More serious is the increasing unhappiness of Liberal power-brokers as they watch their guy alienate one group of voters after another.
 
The starting gun won't be fired for a year, but the election race is already on in B.C.

Paul Ramsey is a former NDP MLA and cabinet minister. He now teaches at CNC and is a visiting professor in the political science program at the University of Northern B.C.