The current provincial election is likely to be hard fought and very close. B.C. elections nearly always are, but this one has some new twists. The B.C. Liberal party has been in power for 16 years. That’s a long time for any government to retain voter support. It’s also a long time for a party to stay fresh. Liberals will argue that the party has only had six years with Christy Clark as premier, and that’s true, but is it a positive?
Clark has done a lot to change the party that Gordon Campbell won three elections with.
Campbell was a builder. He built the sea-to-sky highway, the Canada Line, the Port Mann Bridge, the Vancouver Convention Centre and oversaw the 2010 Olympic Games. He was also a leader on climate change. He introduced the carbon tax and tried to build a hydrogen highway.
Clark froze the carbon tax and has showed little interest in climate issues. She championed liquefied natural gas plants, and made grandiose promises about the riches it would bring. She also claimed the industry would pave the way to a debt-free B.C. Since then, she has increased the debt by more than $10 billion.
Campbell tried to diversify energy production through controversial independent power projects. Clark has pushed a nearly $10-billion Site C power producing dam, which many analysts insist won’t be needed for decades. She has also pushed the more than $3 billion replacement for the Massey tunnel, a 10-lane bridge project, which most of the metro mayors oppose.
The NDP always has a tough fight in B.C. It’s only won three elections.
And this time it has some big hurdles to overcome. NDP leader John Horgan is not well known in most of the province. His party is divided over the issue of jobs versus the environment.
After some waffling he has come out against the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which Premier Clark approved. He’s also against Site C, but it’s not clear if he will cancel it if the NDP wins. It may be too far along to stop it.
The Liberals lost a long-standing fight with B.C. teachers over funding when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled they broke the law by gutting the teachers’ contracts back when Christy Clark was education minister.
The NDP is promising to move to $10-a-day childcare, which the Liberals say we can’t afford.
So there are some fundamental differences between the parties, but there is another factor at play this time around. The Green Party could be a major hurdle for the New Democrats. Andrew Weaver has become a fairly high-profile leader with a seat in the legislature and he was been firmly against Site C, LNG, and Kinder Morgan. I think he can win on two fronts. He can give former Liberal voters not enamoured with Christy Clark an alternative to the NDP and he can give environmentalists an alternative. That could be a real wild card in this election.
This election could be a watershed election for two of the three parties.
If the NDP loses a fifth consecutive election surely it will need to redefine itself.
The party keeps shedding leaders, but it doesn’t seem to present much new in its policies.
The NDP has long been the party of union leaders and union members, but unions aren’t the power they used to be in B.C. and the NDP’s opposition to big projects such as LNG and pipelines has cost them private union support.
Can the party reinvent itself?
For the Green Party, I believe this is a make-or-break election. If the Green’s don’t elect more than one candidate, that candidate, Weaver, says he’s done.
He won’t run again. If the party can’t win more seats with a leader as articulate and accomplished as Weaver, I would suggest the party’s over. Done!
For the Liberals it’s not quite as dire. If the NDP wins, Clark will undoubtedly leave and the free enterprise party will find a new leader and press on.
There’s a lot at stake on May 9th and you may have noticed very few people are daring to make predictions this time around.
Bill Good is a veteran broadcaster currently heard daily on News 1130.
