Right Government: The B.C. Case

They are happening in Britain and the European Community, as I wrote in recent columns. They are happening there in spite of the wishes of the people and often, in the face of determined opposition. One British protest, for instance, against Britain joining the war in Iraq was the largest protest demonstration in British history! So Tony Blair took Britain into the U.S. War against Iraq. The forces named are active here, as every Canadian knows.(Read any issue of the National Post or the ten other Canwest papers, almost any publication of the Fraser Institute, any statement by 95% of Canadian economists. If Sheila Copps' new book is even 50% right (and it is,doubtless, a lot more) the “appointed suits” and the top elected Liberals now in Ottawa believe in the list of things I use above to describe Right Government. Right governments aren't dumb. But they're not smart either. They are cunning and dishonest. They have to be to work for other people than the ones who elected them. Gordon Campbell, B.C.'s premier knew well he was going to (in fact) privatize B.C. Rail and sell it to (in fact) U.S. interests. And so he lied to the electorate. That's cunning, but it can't be called smart. Mike Harris (Ontario: the Common Sense Revolution) took power in the 'nineties and decided right off to 'put the Indians in their place'. As a result an innocent Indian, Dudley George, was gunned down in Ipperwash Park. From the beginning, Mike Harris was alleged to be directly involved, somehow, with Dudley George's death.A full, objective investigation was called for. Mike Harris refused to have it. That was cunning, but it wasn't smart. (The investigation began with the new Ontario Liberal government.) Paul Martin made passionate speeches about guaranteeing Medicare into the far future. But he has avoided the recommendations of the Romanow Report that would help to anchor medicare indestructibly in Canada. And he has had no initiatives of his own. The federal government could begin national pharmaceutical production, could begin experiments in “expert shifts”from specialists to general practitioners to nurses and paramedics. It could create a “national crisis nurse' training initiative”. And so on. It is doing nothing but providing stop-gap, uncreative money increases. It is doing nothing to make the system flexible, initiating, people-based. Is that because the Martin government is dumb. No, it is because it is cunning. I wrote in a recent column about a letter to the small B.C. Gulf Islands bi-weekly, The Island Tides (Sept. 23 04) In the letter Bruce Jordan, a private citizen, reported that the B.C. Gordon Campbell cabinet had passed (secretly) by order-in-council, without debate, The Private Managed Forest Land Act. Jordan charged it was a dramatic violation of parlimanetary democracy, that it intended to brush aside local governments, and that it permitted “forestry” rights of private owners to the extent of almost any kind of residential building. I added, in my column, that the Toxic Right Gordon Campbell team hates the B.C. Islands Trust legislation of the early 1970s because it gives Islanders in the Trust Islands considerable democratic force in their island communities. The Campbell government is (a) too cunning to attack the Islands Trust legislation head-on; and it's (b) too cunning to hit any community hard using the legislation ... until after the up-coming B.C. Election. And so Campbell slipped the legislation through secretly and, in fact, dishonestly. Lo and behold. A B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, Murray Coell (an Islands MLA) replied to Bruce Jordan in the Island Tides paper (Oct 21 04). What does Coell say about the secrecy, the order-in-council legislation, the attack upon democracy? Nothing. Zero. But in a spate of spin-language Coell says government of the forests is being privatized allowing “private land owners to assume greater responsibilities”.... As good corporate citizens they will “commit” to values that might even please David Suzuki. Having given the Gulf Islands away to developers, Coell assures readers that there is a Private Managed Forest Land Council subject to the Freedom of Information Act and must publish an Annual Report. Less government? Of course not. More government loaded against ordinary British Columbians – government by private corporation. The Council which didn't exist before has to be paid for, the Annual Report must be paid for, the legal disputes which are inevitable will have to be paid for, and when/if the Minister asks for an independent audit of the Council's (almost certain-to-happen)shenanigans, it will have to be paid for (by the taxpayer). Corporate government is not cheaper; it simply hands unlimited profit-making to an elite class. Right government destroys democracy. The Private Managed Forest Land Act intends that by brushing aside the people of the Gulf Islands in favour of corporate greed. But the very passing of the Act, as Bruce Jordan points out, was a secret, intended, devious, cunning blow agaisnt democracy. Murray Coell, minister in the Campbell Toxic Right government has written a letter designed, I believe, to disguise the dishonesty of the Act and of its passage. He refuses even to acknowledge the charges made by Bruce Jordan. Repeat after me: Right government destroys democracy. Right government destroys democracy....