Only poetry can do justice to BC politics

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun . . .” wrote Canada’s greatest poet more than 100 years ago and if Robert Service was alive today I’m sure he’d start his great epic a little differently . . . “there are strange things going on in Victoria these days.”

How strange? Well, where do I begin? First it was 11-year MLA and former cabinet member John van Dongen jumping ship Monday, quitting the Liberals to sit in the House as the first Conservative wannabe in many years and saying some very nasty things about his former party and Premier Christy Clark to boot.

Whew! And, if that wasn’t enough, van Dongen’s bombshell announcement Monday is followed by two senior cabinet ministers and three back-bench Liberal MLA’s saying Thursday they are considering not running in the next provincial election in May 2013. What’s going on here? Are the Taliban at the gates of Victoria? Will they march down Government Street to the Legislature? Stay tuned. You may take this as a joke but I’m telling you it’s not very far from the truth, at least metaphorically, especially when one of the cabinet ministers cites “family concerns,” the ultimate fib of any politician from Victoria to Washington D.C. (I say this because if they genuinely had family concerns they wouldn’t have entered politics in the first place.)

So what is going on here? Well, you don’t have to be the proverbial rocket scientist to figure that out. This is a government in total disarray! Even in the last, dark days of the much derided government of former NDP Premier Glen Clark nothing remotely close to this occurred -- cabinet ministers openly musing about not running again. (Finance Minister Kevin Falcon and Education Minister George Abbott) Three sitting MLA’s saying the same thing. (Joan Macintyre, Kash Heed and Randy Hawes) And saying it more than a year before the next provincial election. And, oh yes, another minister (Harry Bloy) resigning from cabinet less than two weeks ago. Will the last Liberal MLA to leave the Legislature turn off the lights?

At this point, you have to wonder how Clark, dubbed Ms. Photo Op, by her many critics, will even be leading her party in the next election? Some observers say Falcon, who holds the crucial finance portfolio and finished a close second to Clark in the Liberal leadership race, is the power behind the throne and still lusts for the leader’s role. It’s also obvious that the dark shadow of former Premier Gordon Campbell lies heavy over the provincial Liberals and there is much unfinished business in the party.

This is ironic because potentially the most lethal shot van Dongen took at Clark as he made his hasty exit was about the B.C. Rail scandal and the Basi/Virk affair, which the Campbell Liberals have been trying to bury for years. Van Dongen has hired a lawyer to get to the bottom of the B.C. Rail mess and the lawyer he hired, Roger McConchie, is considered very capable and was earlier given “unprecedented access” to Crown files in the corruption case, according to a Globe and Mail story this week.

In the celebrated case, defendants Dave Basi and Bobby Virk copped a plea to breach of trust just before senior government ministers were expected to testify in the corruption trial and the government spent $6 million of public money to cover their legal fees, something van Dongen calls “completely contrary to government policy,” according to reporter Mark Hume.

If an NDP government is elected in May , Opposition Leader Adrian Dix says it will launch a public inquiry into the B.C. Rail affair which may reveal the seamy undersides of several unturned stones in Victoria and seal the fate of the provincial Liberals, one way or the other, for ever. Ever wonder why they call politics a “blood sport” in B.C.?

So the stakes are already high and there’s more than 13 months to go before the next provincial election, which could be the ugliest in B.C. history and that’s saying something in a province known for its visceral campaigns.

Clearly the Liberals are on the ropes and the two upcoming byelections in the Lower Mainland will probably confirm this. The government is not expected to win either one of them in what normally should be friendly territory.

Then there’s the revival of the BC Conservatives, which alone could split the vote and guarantee an NDP victory. But let’s not get carried away because over the years the many ways the BC NDP has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory is a wonder to behold.

Will they do it again in May 2013? The clock is ticking.

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Jumbo “victory” will likely be short lived

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

As you try to digest the blockbuster announcement out of Victoria this week that Jumbo, the world’s most delayed ski project is going ahead, there are several salient points to keep in mind.

The first and most important you shouldn’t forget is that Jumbo is first and foremost a real estate play. The fact that people will also ski in that less-than-pristine valley is incidental. The money to be made building Whistler in the Kootenays will come from the sale and rental of condos, townhouses, hotels, lodges and monster log edifices like you see at any ski resort in B.C. be it Fernie, Kimberley, Big White or Whistler.

Now, is it such a big surprise that a so-called “free enterprise” government with a passionate, ideological belief in the free market that borders on the religious and numbering many of the province’s biggest developers, realtors and businessmen in its ranks would approve a Palace of Versailles in the wilderness where the rich and idle can play?

Do fish swim? Do birds fly? Does the sun rise in the east? The only surprising thing about the Jumbo announcement is that it didn’t come years ago. And why didn’t it, you rightfully ask?

The answer is relatively simple. Many, but by no means all, of the people living in close proximity to Jumbo vehemently oppose the project. Some for quite selfish reasons because they want to play there themselves and others because they sincerely believe that the Kootenays needs another ski resort like the proverbial hole in the head and they would prefer to see their beautiful part of the world less overrun by rich interlopers from Alberta and elsewhere.

Then there are the environmentalists who waged a marathon campaign against the project that was both emotional and strategic and kept a succession of governments on edge and afraid to make a move on Jumbo. One of their smartest moves was planting hockey legend Scott Niedermayer on Jumbo’s lofty summit and posting a hero picture of him that went viral around the world garnering incredible support for the anti-Jumbo campaign.

Ironically, many of the environmentalists’ arguments were dubious at best and some plain false as the claim that the heavily logged and mined valley was “pristine.” But to the many opposed to the mega-resort this doesn’t matter, and industrially damaged or not, Jumbo is still a spectacularly scenic and relatively unscathed valley that has managed to escape much of the world’s march of “progress.”

And then there’s one not-so-little legal matter that’s stayed under the radar most of the time but exerted tremendous power on the government to cave on Jumbo. It could be best described as abuse of process, namely that by delaying the Jumbo decision for so long, the government owed the original would-be developer Oberto Oberti compensation. Lots of compensation. Very expensive compensation. In fact, only a few years ago the then Campbell Liberals paid $30 million in compensation to Boss Power, a mining company that was suing them for taking back a permit it had issued the company to mine uranium near Penticton.

Don’t think for a moment that putative Jumbo developer Oberti was unaware of this expensive settlement and would have been in court in a flash seeking the same remedy if Jumbo was ultimately turned down.

Finally there’s the matter of the Ktunaxa aboriginal claim to the Jumbo territory, a deeply spiritual issue to the Ktunaxa people who harbor strong feelings about the threatened grizzly bears that live in the valley. The government’s feeble attempts to appease the Ktunaxa was one of the major factors why the decision was delayed so long and is still a major factor in the Jumbo issue. The Ktunaxa have made it clear they will continue their fight against Jumbo in the courts and Canadian courts are traditionally very sympathetic to native claims.

Which brings us to the greatest irony of all in the Jumbo announcement. There are people in government and outside that are calling the announcement a “victory” for their cause when in fact it’s nothing of the kind. It may be one victory in the Jumbo battle, but the Jumbo war is far from over.

The strongest arguments against Jumbo are not environmental or aboriginal, but economic. Simply put, in today’s shaky financial world there is no market for resort real estate in a glacial valley 55 killimetres  off a paved road where you will have snow on your roof 10 months of the year and a big, mean glacier staring you in the face.

In short, Jumbo is doomed. Not by environmentalists or the native people, but by the free market, which in its infinite wisdom, will ensure that few people will ever want to invest there.

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She’s coming back and what will we do now?

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Oh my God! What’s happening now? I don’t know how to break this to you, but the buzz in the Beltway is that if there’s no clear winner in the Republican primary race by June it may lead to a “brokered convention.”

What’s that you say? (Pregnant pause.) I really don’t know how to break it to you gently so I guess I’ll just have to plunge right in and say it outright – SARAH PALIN!!!

I’m not kidding. At this point, it’s only being talked about in dark corners, but this nightmare scenario may actually materialize if neither Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum can break away from the pack and gather the magic 1,144 votes they will need at the Republican convention in Tampa to take the Grand Old Party’s (GOP’s) nomination.

If that doesn’t put you off your Wheaties I don’t know what will. I mean wasn’t  Palin finished? Kaput? Dead, at least politically? Apparently not. And the Alaska Barracuda may come back for Act 2 and no writer less than Shakespeare or Hunter S. Thompson could do justice to that. Fear and loathing, indeed. Mind you Steven Harper might welcome the advent of Palin. He’s always been a big fan of the American military, George W. Bush and the like. As for the rest of the world, we all better take a Valium and pray.

After “Super Tuesday” this week, Romney had 458 committed delegates to Santorum’s 203 and Gingrich’s 118 which puts the former Massachusetts governor well in the lead, but barely a third of the way to winner take all status, which is not a strong position considering how much time is left between now and June.

Even the devout Santorum, though well back of Romney, could conceivably win because he’s winning states in the South that nobody thought he’d win and he claims to have a personal pipeline to the Creator. One celestial call to God up in heaven and it would be all over for Romney and the second American Catholic president would be ready to move into the Oval Office, or so Santorum would have us believe.

But what if the all-powerful Creator in all his/her/its majesty declines Santorum’s prayer? What indeed? It’s at this point we have to go from the sublime to the ridiculous and consider the rifle-toting, moose-gutting, Queen of the North Slope and potential first female president of the Excited States of America.

It fairly boggles the mind! In fact when recently asked by Fox TV what she would do if there’s a deadlocked GOP convention, Palin replied: “I would do anything I could do to help.” That’s big of her. “Help” from Sarah Palin is about the last thing the U.S. or the world needs now. Yet it’s happened before.

In the 1924 Democratic convention, it took 102 ballots before John W. Davis (who?) became the Dem’s candidate with the party totally split between “wets and drys” (drinkers and prohibitionists). One of the greatest American presidents of all time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, won in a brokered convention in 1932. And as recently as 1976 the Republicans did not have a clear winner going into their convention and it had to go to one ballot for Gerald Ford, the president that pardoned Nixon, to edge out Ronald Regan. So could it happen again this time?

Fox News TV commentator Joel Smith calls Palin “a dream candidate.” But in another Fox News interview, Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter said of her “I don’t know what people are cheering for,” and Washington Post reporter Rachel Weiner says Palin is too much of a polarizing figure. “Her clout is dubious. Her popularity peaked long ago, and the supporters she does have won't necessarily follow her lead.”

But in a country where over half the population doesn’t have a passport, two-thirds are “born again” and close to half don’t believe their president is an American – anything goes. It’s also a deeply patriotic country and who better than a Tea Party darling to be the next president.

What about Oprah Winfrey? Someone should ask her. She’d make a hell of a better president than Romney, Santorum, or God forbid, Newt Gingrich.

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Education in B.C. – a militant union; an incompetent government, both ways students lose

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

March 9, 2012

A plague on both of their houses. But a bigger plague on the house of the BCTF, which has to bear the brunt of the blame for the dysfunctional education system we have in the province now, depriving the province’s children – the forgotten victims in this dispute – of their right to be educated because of dereliction of duty by teachers and a government that’s lost its way.

I can explain.

B.C.’s education system began to go off the rocks in 1972, the year the NDP came to power for the first time aided by the BCTF’s infamous “apple campaign,” when federation members openly campaigned for the NDP and were given credit for helping bring Dave Barrett’s crew to power.

But once teachers got their feet wet in politics they quickly got addicted and they’ve been a political force ever since. Then in 1987 the Social Credit government of the day passed legislation forcing teachers to choose between an association or a union model for the BCTF with only the union model having the right to strike. The government move was designed to split the BCTF and gain power over it. Instead, the move backfired and close to 99 percent of teachers chose the union model and the rest, as they say, is history.

You’d think the Socreds would have known better in 1987 because the teachers had already participated in an illegal three-day strike as part of the Operation Solidarity movement which came perilously close to triggering a general strike in 1983. But like the Clark Liberals today, they didn’t, and once again education in the province is being held hostage by a rogue union and a bumbling, incompetent government incapable of showing decisive leadership. And the big loser? I don’t need to tell you because there’s 450,000 of them from K to 12.

In October 2005, the BCTF went on strike illegally again this time against an NDP government, which shows if nothing else, they don’t discriminate politically in getting what they want. And what they want is always gussied up in talk about class size and composition, but it always boils down to the same thing – money. You be the judge.

Under the last province-wide contract (June 30, 2010) that I was able to find, salaries of fully qualified teachers in the province ranged from $43,099 to $83,195. Now in a perfect world that may not be enough because teachers are in charge of educating our children and it’s hard to underestimate the importance of that responsibility and the great job most teachers do.

But gentle reader, I don’t think I need to remind you that we most assuredly don’t live in a perfect world and these days the world has been looking even less perfect than usual with most of the globe still in recession, the European economy collapsing and Israel and the U.S. engaging in ominous war rhetoric with Iran. Indeed, most of us are just glad to hold onto the jobs we have and hope sanity returns to the world scene. And many of us would be damn glad to have a job that pays what teachers get and comes with more than two months vacations, a generous pension plan, classroom assistants, paid professional days off, and in the case of Cranbrook teachers, almost every second Friday off.

Nice work if you can get it. Little alone a ludicrous 15 per cent raise no other government worker is getting.

“It’s not about the money,” teachers are fond of saying, but I’m sorry because I have trouble believing that. If it truly wasn’t about the money 450,000 B.C. students would have been safely in their desks all this week soaking up knowledge instead of falling further behind in an already badly truncated educational year or being looked after by a parent at home missing days of work or – and this is the one that really bothers me – being shamelessly exploited by their teachers and participating in illegal demonstrations against a stupid, incompetent and apparently somewhat leaderless government.

Yep, and once again B.C. is the laughing stock of Confederation. Can’t you hear the tongues wagging. “B.C., what a place. Not only do the teachers strike, the students strike with them.” I don’t blame the students. They’re caught in the middle. But we know who to blame, don’t we? Teachers whose priorities are askew and a government incapable of setting priorities.

The obvious way to end this dispute is to impose binding arbitration and salvage what’s left of the school year. But that would take maturity by both sides, something sadly lacking in B.C. politics.

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Righteous robo-call rage running rampant

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Drip, drip, drip. No, that’s not an icicle melting or a faucet leaking. Quite the contrary. That’s the credibility of the Harper government draining away into a vast ocean of doubt as the robo-call scandal grows more viral every day.

Now I hasten to say, as indeed the PM is saying, that nothing has been proven yet and there may, indeed, be a “smear job” loose in the land. But I’m old enough to remember Watergate very well – not the movie – but the actual scandal that brought down a president. And you know something? It started out very slowly one drip at a time. But as the weeks went by those drips became a torrent and eventually that torrent became Niagara Falls. And . . . well, you know the rest.

But before we get into that, I’d like to talk about my own experience with a robo-call I received in the federal election campaign. It came at supper time, of course, like all those !!#$!%&!! telemarketer calls. “Hello,” a familiar voice boomed out of the speaker. “I’m Jim Abbott.” I started to respond “hi Jim,” but the voice continued and I quickly realized I was talking to a tape recorder. “I would like to introduce you to David Wilks, Conservative candidate for Kootenay Columbia,” the voice continued. Now that was several months ago and I can’t remember if Abbott or Wilks then made a 30-second pitch for the Harper Conservatives. But I do remember feeling vaguely queasy, offended and somewhat angry that someone wanting me to exercise my precious franchise on their behalf would try to communicate with me by tape. Not even a live call where I could ask a question or two – or better yet – appear at a public forum where I could actually see them in the flesh, gauge how they responded to the crowd and make an informed decision on whether they would earn my vote.

Has it come to this, I thought. Robot candidates making robot calls to recipients that might as well have been robots themselves? Is this what modern democracy has come to – digital democracy? No real people need to participate.

I was upset about it, especially when the Conservative candidate did not appear at election forums in Cranbrook and Kimberley – the two largest cities in the riding. So I took the trouble to visit the Conservative campaign office and talk to candidate Wilks personally. He said his schedule filled up before the forums were booked in Cranbrook and Kimberley and there was nothing he could do about it. I left his office thinking it was a shame local voters were denied a chance to see how Wilks would fare on stage with other candidates instead of communicating with them by taped robo-calls.

Now keep in mind that as far as I know the Wilks robo-calls were legitimate calls and were not up to any nefarious purpose as is being alleged in many other parts of Canada. I’ve covered Wilks at several news conferences and public meetings and found him to be a forthright and competent individual. I’m sure he would have acquitted himself admirably at an election forum. But he didn’t, of course, at least in Kimberley and Cranbrook and I think there’s something wrong with a political system that eschews real flesh and blood contact with the voters for disembodied, digital messaging by phone. And this applies to all parties that “communicate” this way.

In the last election, the Harper Tories did this big time and now it has come back to bite them in the butt. Maybe this is poetic justice because it strikes me as both deceptive and cowardly to try to win people’s hearts and minds through slickly programmed cyber-talk instead of a face-to-face exhortation from a soap box.

As for the possible scandal threatening to engulf the Conservative Party now, only time will tell. Harper sounds arrogantly confident as he challenges the opposition to come up with the goods. That kind of hubris has got more than one politician in trouble in the past as the evidence builds, drip-by-drip.

In this world, you never know where a “deep throat” may be lurking. Just ask Richard Nixon.

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