What a year in politics

Editorial

The year 2010 was an interesting one in British Columbia politics, though it will pale when compared with 2011.

Both the premier and the leader of the opposition have announced that they will leave their positions. Premier Gordon Campbell, the Liberal leader, reached unprecedented lows in public opinion and, though an election is two years away, he chose to go before his party pushed him out. Opposition leader Carole James, the New Democratic party leader, however, waited until she was pushed.

James’ popularity was below that of her party. NDP rank and file – and at least 13 members of her caucus – openly expressed their concern that she would not win the 2013 election. However, one wonders if really they feared the opposite. The only thing more daunting for a party destined for victory is to be headed by someone who would probably make a better opposition leader than premier.

Almost everyone would prefer to win elections rather than lose them, the exception being those pols who prefer permanent and self-righteous opposition to the actual responsibility of governing. History has shown several instances where parties destined for victory nevertheless behead themselves. This is usually because the people closest to the chief know the kind of leader they are and realize that the Peter Principle dictates that the leader of the opposition must not become head of government.

The B.C. Liberal party realized this 15 years ago, when Gordon Wilson was forced out of that party’s leadership ostensibly because of a now-famous intra-caucus romance with his now-wife Judy Tyabji. In fact, many in the party were less concerned with their leader’s love life than they were with the possibility that he would become premier.

Similarly, James’ detractors may have been less concerned that she would lose the next election than that she would win it. The B.C. NDP has won elections three times in history – but no NDP premier has been reelected. James may very well have won the next election, but many insiders worried about the kind of government she would lead and, by extension, their chances in the election after that.

Now, of course, all bets are off. Anything can happen and probably will. While the NDP is ahead in most recent opinion polls, the Liberals cannot be underestimated, if only because of this province’s history.

The “free enterprise” party – whether Liberal or Social Credit, the difference is effectively one of name only, and neither is necessarily more business-friendly or fiscally conservative in practice than each other or even the NDP – has won 14 of the past 17 elections, going back to 1952. In fact, the centre-right party or coalition has prevailed in all but those three aforementioned elections in B.C. history, so it is not to be taken for granted that the party that is tanking now will fail at the polls in 2013. From the 1930s on, the threat of the “red menace,” or some variation on this theme, has polarized politics in B.C. to great effect.

So, it is definitely not a given that the Liberals will lose in 2013. Certainly, the number of candidates popping up to contest the leadership suggests a healthy hopefulness. Officially, there are five candidates so far registered: George Abbott, Kevin Falcon, Mike de Jong, Christy Clark and, of particular interest to our readers, Moira Stilwell, MLA for Vancouver-Langara and an active member of the Jewish community. Other candidates may yet join the contest.

Before resigning her position to contest the party’s leadership, Stilwell was the minister of advanced education and labor market development. Before entering politics, she was head of nuclear medicine at several hospitals, including St. Paul’s, served as a nuclear medicine physician at B.C. Women’s Hospital for nearly a decade and co-chaired the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation’s 2020 Task Force. While Stilwell cannot be considered a front-runner, this is a relatively wide-open race. If anyone is a front-runner, it is probably Clark, though she was a front-runner in the race for mayor of Vancouver five years ago and that did not end in a successful bid for her.

On the NDP side, no candidates have officially entered the race and, while there is no definite potential front-runner, neither is there likely to be a shortage of candidates.

To complicate everything, Campbell is leaving behind quite a mess, including the unpopular harmonized sales tax, on which there is to be a referendum next fall. Which makes one wonder why anyone would want the job at all.

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