Humour (Though Black And Sick) In The B.C. Election

The Second Black Joke is that every previous appearance of Gordon Campbell has been staged to have 97% Liberal supporters at whatever the occasion. The leaders’ debate is the first time in at least a year that he appeared outside his “bubble” – without the chloroform Liberal/Media crew supporting him. Except…. But the “except” has to wait. Almost every commentator on the debate reports Carol James won it hands down, that Gordon Campbell was embarrassingly incompetent. I’m not giving my view, pressing it onto the situation. I haven’t read or heard an observer’s opinion that says anything different. It’s at this point the Black Jokes blossom. Vaughn Palmer, the Gordon Campbell Liberals’ chief propagandist at the Vancouver Sun, became the moderator of the leaders’ debate. Palmer always has the inside track to Campbell, always gives evidence of a pipeline directly to the Liberal cabinet. He might be called Vaughn Favourable-Cabinet-Leaks Palmer. Having him as moderator reveals better than almost anything else how the Toxic Right runs “information” in B.C. And, of course, Palmer took advantage of his “objective” position to work for Gordon Campbell. Not even Vaughn Favourable-Cabinet-Leaks Palmer dared fight for Campbell in the actual debate. But neutral, above-the-fray moderator Vaughn Palmer used the debate as fast as he could to campaign for the Gordon Campbell Liberals. What else did you expect? In his next column in the Sun (May 5, 05 A37), he writes at length to erase the victory won by Carol James. Showing his pipeline into the Liberals, Palmer tells us Campbell experimented with “a more aggressive” strategy for dealing with Carol James in rehearsals (that Palmer didn’t attend). That strategy wouldn’t work. There was really no way Campbell could find a way to debate with James. The reason, Vaughn Palmer explains patiently, is that Gordon Campbell “dislikes opposition politics.” “Opposition politics,” of course, are the lifeblood of the democratic process. Opposition politics are the basis of political life in a democracy. Joe Stalin, the famous Russian dictator, didn’t like opposition politics either. He didn’t debate with his opponents. He simply had them shot. Gordon Campbell had to get out of his bubble, out of his Stalinmobile once during this election campaign. But only because he was forced to do so. It wasn’t really fair, you see; for as Vaughn Palmer explains, Gordon Campbell doesn’t really like democratic politics. So Vaughn Palmer re-enacts the leadership debate, doing what he can to wipe out Carol James. First he tries to show that Campbell didn’t lose because he’s incompetent. He lost because of the strategy he chose. (But, Vaughn, isn’t that a sign of incompetence?) Palmer then pulls out all the answers Campbell should have given in the debate! We’ve been here before, recently. I cited the Georgia Straight article in which Minister of Advanced Education Ida Chong was either unavailable(?), or refused, to be interviewed. The writer (like Vaughn Palmer working for Gordon Campbell) then wrote what Chong might have said favourable to the Campbell Liberals if she had condescended to be interviewed. A day later (Sun May 6 05 A21), CanWest’s Mulroney leftover, Norman Spector, weighed in. Spector, you remember, was a key Mulroney functionary and then a Mulroney-appointed ambassador to Israel. Remember, too, what happened a few weeks ago. Spector, who was apparently ashamed of starting to work for CanWest, tried to pretend he wasn’t doing it. That takes some spectacular juggling. He entered a “disclaimer” in one of his columns. In it he told readers he doesn’t work for CanWest’s Sun or the Victoria Times Colonist, both of which he writes a column for. I suspect a person couldn’t say something like that with a straight face unless he’d worked a long time for Brian Mulroney. Very shortly after Mulroney left office as prime minister, Karl-Heinz Schreiber (of Airbus scandal fame, now wanted for several kinds of wrong-doing in Germany) met Mulroney in three separate hotel rooms three separate times. Each time he gave Mulroney an envelope containing $100,000 in cash. It was, Mulroney spokesfolk said, apparently, for work Mulroney did helping Schreiber set up some pizza parlours. Of course. Spector tells his readers, in effect, that he is contracted by CanWest, is paid by CanWest, has to produce a weekly column for CanWest, which is published in the Vancouver Sun and the Victoria Times Colonist. But please don’t be confused. Norman Spector does not work for CanWest. Understand? Good. In his column he doesn’t see having Vaughn Palmer as moderator of the leaders’ debate an off-the-wall happening, doesn't see it as bizarre. He sees it as a sign of B.C.’s growing political maturity. Then he gets addled in his mind in his attempt to campaign for Gordon Campbell. “Here (writes Spector) was Premier Gordon Campbell, a hard-hearted leader supposedly leading the most right-wing government in our history, talking about the need to eat fruits and vegetables.” Norman Spector really wrote that sentence. Is it crazy? Does it have any meaning? None. It’s pure hokum, pure mumbo-jumbo. Unless Spector wants to connect it to the fact that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian for whom fruits and vegetables were important. And if Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian, who cares? Spector teaches us that nothing needs to mean. Pad everything. Write nonsense. Get the Liberals back in. All that’s just a prelude to Spector’s heavy campaigning. After decades of bad blood between B.C. governments and Ottawa, guess what? “Rarely, if ever (Spector writes), “have relations between Ottawa and Victoria been as sound and productive.” He goes on to rhapsodize about the closeness of Paul Martin and Gordon Campbell. No one can deny their closeness. NDP premier Ujjal Dosanjh – claimed by many to have thrown the last B.C. election on behalf of Gordon Campbell – began working for the Liberals soon after his defeat, and now he is federal Liberal Minister of Health. What could be better proof of sound Liberal Ottawa/Liberal Victoria relations? What’s more, the RCMP raids on the Victoria legislature offices were surrounded with allegations that Campbell government assistants were in the game of rigging federal Liberal memberships to guarantee candidacy and election of Paul Martin favourites. How much Gordon Campbell knew about that we will probably never learn. But anyone has to admit it indicates Ottawa and Victoria working literally hand-in-glove, wouldn’t you say, Norman? As to B.C. Ferries, we know one of the key early directors of the new privatization shambles (involved in bringing in Yankee CEO David Hahn) was David Emerson. Soon after, Emerson dream-teamed his way to Ottawa and the position of Industry Minister. Emerson is perfectly happy on either terrain (B.C. or Ottawa) because he’s a happy sell-out Canadian cut to the pattern Paul Martin thought he was going to be following in Ottawa. Close buddies. Paul Martin and Gordon Campbell. Martin arrived in Victoria recently to announce the first big federal oil and gas payoff to provinces, a payoff of more than $600 million to B.C. - just as the election started. Federal politicians historically stay out of provincial elections. Except when they’re really close buddies with a provincial premier, and except when on certain sleaze levels they owe each other a lot to make relations “sound and productive.” Like Vaughn Palmer, Norman Spector ends his column with a sweet campaign note – almost as if the two were working together. Of course they’re not. Everyone knows they’re not. “Campbell,” Spector writes, “looked very much like a premier, and Carol James looked very much like the leader of the Opposition.” How’s that for a neutral, objective columnist writing in the Vancouver Sun (but not working for the Vancouver Sun, you understand) telling you how to vote? There’s one last joke to tell. Gordon Campbell made a point of praising Adriane Carr, the leader of the Green Party (Globe and Mail May 6 05 S1). Campbell, of course, wants to split the vote of the NDP and the Greens so his candidates can go up the middle to election. He doesn’t know he’s so hated that people will flee at full speed from anyone he praises. Perhaps that’s why The Globe and Mail now puts B.C. news in the Sports Section. Or maybe that’s how our Eastern brothers see anything that happens in B.C.: as sports. Doubtless the NDP wants Campbell to go on and on praising Adriane Carr. And he might just do that if he leaves his Stalinmobile long enough to talk to real people. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 15, 2005]