The B.C. Election: Renewal Or Suicide

The only thing needed to confirm that suspicion was the presence of Liberal campaign hacks – CanWest journalists Norman Spector and Vaughn Palmer, suitably attired – carrying drinks and finger-foods to the Carol James table. Make no mistake. There was no victory for the NDP on election night. The election was the NDP’s to win or lose – and we know how it came out. The Gordon Campbell Liberals won a healthy majority. It is a majority sufficient to continue, unabated, the destruction of B.C. forests, the pauperization of B.C.’s elderly and vulnerable, the cover-up of bizarre wrongdoing in the ongoing, lying sale of B.C. Rail, the decimation of B.C. Ferries, the devastation of fish populations, the destruction of a fair and just legal and court system, continuation of the United Nations criticized peonization of the workforce, the privatization of B.C. Hydro, as well as the cover-up of massive Liberal Party membership fraud alleged to be connected to the raids on the legislative offices in December 2003. Gordon Campbell is a new thing – a Canadian power politician who cares absolutely nothing for ordinary Canadians or for the environment. Anyone who misunderstands him is due for a rude awakening. He is a fanatical ideologue, a corporate totalitarian, a man with a mission – to so wreck the British Columbia of history that it will not only not be retrievable but will be set up for class divisions of a kind that turn powerless people, permanently, into disposable garbage. Election postmortems are usually not very interesting. So let’s not go there. Let's look to the future. With 33 or 34 – up from 3 – seats in the B.C. legislature, the NDP can now push the face of the Liberals into the garbage heap they are making of British Columbia. Will they do it? Will they follow Winston Churchill’s dictum that the role of the Opposition is to oppose? Will they demand – as they have a perfect right to demand – that the information from the raids on the legislative offices be made public and that the search warrants involved be fully revealed to British Columbians? Will they demand, and go on demanding? Will they demand a full-dress public inquiry into the sale of B.C. Rail, the allegations of money laundering, and the Liberal Party membership rigging connected to it? Will they publicize the U.N. condemnation of Campbell Liberals’ child employment legislation, and will they demand restoration of the minimum wage? Will they do in-depth study of the B.C. Ferries fiasco, foreign shipbuilding, and the removal of B.C. Ferries from the Auditor General’s review, hounding the Campbell government on its several dishonesties in those areas? Will they see their role as both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary? With formal opposition status restored and with research funds now available, will they research and prepare to fight court battles over legislation which is very probably unconstitutional, illegal, or more: the sale of B.C. Rail, the move to privatize B.C. Hydro, the removal of B.C. Ferries administration from the Auditor General’s scrutiny, and even the fiction of “privatization” of B.C. Ferries – and much more? Finally (though there are many, many areas not mentioned here), will the NDP demand legislation to end the evil corporate media concentration in B.C. – a major factor in the NDP’s failure to win power? Or will the NDP toady to the CanWest Global monopoly, hoping for a little coverage … sometimes? That struggle, alone, is a key area in which to make an ongoing, relentless campaign. Taking a strong stand, insisting upon opening all the closets holding Campbell Liberal skeletons, fighting the monopoly press in the province, doing everything possible to prevent the Campbell Liberals from continuing with destructive legislation, and constantly outlining a better way to B.C. government – the NDP can assure that government will be theirs sooner than later. If the Carol James NDP doesn’t want to be a peoples’ party but a party happiest in the Empress Hotel ballroom, then it will not address seriously any of those issues. If the Carol James NDP wants only to be a kinder, gentler Gordon Campbell party – “New Labour,” a “Third Way” - then British Columbians will watch the Carol James NDP sink and drown in its whipped-cream view of itself, of the Campbell Liberals, and the world. The NDP – in that case – will sink, just as Francis Rattenbury’s wife sank into the Avon River after betraying her marital promises and stabbing herself in the heart. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 25, 2005]