BC Politics with Hubert Beyer

BRIEF SESSION PRELUDE TO ELECTION CALL

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VICTORIA – The new session of the legislature, called by Premier Clark last week, will be one the shortest on record.

It will have nothing to do with legislative approval of the course the government plans to chart for the province during the coming year. The budget, which will be introduced by Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull a week after the session opens, will not dictate government spending during the current fiscal year.

This session will be a grandstanding prelude to the election that is likely to be called within a few weeks. It will be the starting short for an election campaign that promises to be ferocious.

For the NDP, the session will be an opportunity to draw the lines between it and the opposition parties. Clark put it this way:

"I’m really looking forward to this. This gives the government a chance to show the really dramatic differences between our party and our government and the two opposition parties.

"We’ll be talking about jobs first and foremost. We’ll be talking about protecting health care and education and the best way to do that, and we’ll also talk about crime and safety and I think it’s a good opportunity to see the dramatic differences between us and the opposition."

The opposition parties, however, have a different agenda. They will be ruthlessly attacking the government on all fronts. They will mercilessly lay into the NDP during daily question period with issues ranging from the bingo scandal to the B.C. Hydro affair, to government spending.

Under normal circumstances, the opposition can shine during question period, but circumstances are anything but normal.

The Liberals have yet to effectively embarrass the government and put it on the run with razor-sharp questions, something the NDP had developed into a fine art during its years in opposition.

And both the Liberals and the Reform Party are at a disadvantage because of the ruthless spending cuts of what are perceived to be their soul mates in Ontario and Alberta. Mike Harris and Ralph Klein will be the NDP’s biggest allies in the upcoming battle for the hearts and minds of British Columbians.

Some time ago, when the NDP was just beginning to recover from its slump in the polls, I warned Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell that the light he saw at the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming NDP train. And that’s exactly what it was.

The latest MarkTrend poll placed the NDP in front with 38 per cent of decided voters, followed by the Liberals with 32 per cent and the Reformers with 22 per cent.

That’s quite a recovery from the 22-per-cent support the NDP had been relegated to only a few months ago, and a whopping drop for Campbell’s Liberals who used to enjoy absolute majority support.

It appears that Clark has managed to largely defuse any potential bomb that might have exploded in his face during the campaign.

He ordered the long-overdue public inquiry into the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society scandal, and he derailed attempts to link his government to the B.C. Hydro affair by firing the Crown corporation’s chief and appointing Brian Smith, a former Socred cabinet minister as his successor.

As for the NDP’s propensity to spend money, the public seems to be more swayed by the government’s record, than the opposition’s attempts to discredit it.

It isn’t over until the weight-challenged person sings, but the NDP’s remarkable rise in the public’s esteem should give the opposition parties some concern.

THANK YOU FOR CARING

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VICTORIA – Next time someone tells you that the world is a cold and hard place in which no-one gives a damn for their fellow humans, send them to me. I know better.

Although I have never lost faith in the basic goodness of mankind, I was not prepared for the incredible outpouring of love, affection and encouragement with which our family was showered after the recent loss of our son Roderick.

Please allow me one more digression from my regular political observations which normally occupy this space and give me the opportunity to express mine and my family’s gratitude.

The response from people, many of whom I have never met, to the tragedy that hit is so brutally has been overwhelming.

After my final tribute to our boy appeared in the newspapers I write for, my mailbox was over-flowing with letters from readers. My publishers and editors, many of whom have been close friends for years, called to express their condolences.

There were dozens of e-mail and fax messages every day from people expressing the affection and support we so badly needed.

I had written that piece not only to express my own anguish and hurt, but in the hope that it might touch people.

Death is so cruel in its finality and inevitability that nature has kindly conditioned us to live our lives without constantly fearing it. But when death does strike, its effects are devastating.

By sharing my grief with you, I wanted to remind you just how fragile life is, that love unspoken for one day is love lost for one day. Judging from your letters, I succeeded.

A number of readers told me they read the column aloud to their families. Others said they would keep it to remind them of the need to treat every day as a precious gift.

One thing I could have done without were the dozen or so anonymous letters, containing what were, in my opinion, rather questionable religious observations on death by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Unaccompanied by any personal note, the "tract" told me, in so many words, that other faiths got it wrong when they tell people the dead go somewhere after they die. I found the anonymity especially tacky.

Please spare me any further messages. I’m not convert material. You keep your God, and I’ll keep mine, even though he or she did a lousy job looking out for our son.

It’s been a month since our Roderick died. During the first few days, I was certain the intensity of my pain would never let up. But it does. I cry less often now. And the incredible ache is slowly being replaced by a more bearable feeling of loss and abandonment.

There is, of course, the joy of having Roderick’s little girl with us. When I look at Pamela, I see our son. And being parents to an eight-year-old demands an affirmation of life rather than contemplation of death.

I’m the kind of guy who can’t walk past a baby carriage without looking at the little tyke and feeling good all over, and I’ve often said to my wife I wished we could do it all over again. And even though I didn’t want it to happen this way, I count my blessings.

Children are resilient, and Pamela is coming to terms with her father’s death in her own way. We talk about her dad often, remembering him the way he would like us to. We look at photo albums and recall the great times we had with him.

For us, as parents, the pain of losing a child will never go way. As I said before, it offends the natural order, but with the help of family and friends, it is so much easier to bear. And I had no idea just how many friends we had.

Once again, our deep-felt thanks to you for caring about us in a difficult time. I will not forget it.

GRIZZLIES UNDER SIEGE

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VICTORIA – "No less reprehensible than the slaughter of African elephants for their ivory is the hidden scandal of Canada’s grizzly kingdom under siege by chainsaw and gun."

Thus warns the Raincoast Conservation Society in a recent report on the grizzly bear population that depends for its habitat on the rainforest valleys of British Columbia’s central and northern mainland coast.

"Ecologically catastrophic effects of clearcut logging are driving these old-growth-dependent monarchs from their homes in one coastal valley after another. Logging and over-fishing are reducing their principle food source – salmon. And the coastal grizzlies face an additional threat as hunters and poachers continue taking their poll," the report says.

The society accuses the government of doing little to preserve British Columbia’s grizzly population or worse, hastening its demise.

"British Columbia’s grizzly bear population is headed for extinction due to the combined pressures of clearcut logging, trophy hunting and bureaucratic indifference," the report says.

The Rainforest Conservation Society’s report admits that last year’s dedication by the B.C. government of the Khutzeymateen Valley as a grizzly bear sanctuary was a commendable move, but adds that the area is too small to preserve the local population of grizzlies.

B.C. Environment Ministry figures suggest that about 3,000 grizzlies should have come out of hibernation last spring. That estimate has changed little over the last 20 years, and the Raincoast Conservation Society the figures are way off base.

"Actual counts were never conducted, but we believe that an unstable population closer to 1,000 grizzlies may survive on the entire west coast," the report says.

Aside from logging and licenced hunting, poaching is the most serious threat to grizzlies. Following an RCMP sting operation last year, 60 bear paws were seized in a raid, and 29 charges were laid against 11 individuals and businesses for trafficking in and possession of bear gall bladders.

One man was fined $3,500 for possession of 33 gall bladders, hardly a deterrent when grizzly gall bladders can fetch thousands of dollars in Asia.

The report claims that government policing is virtually non-existent. "On the entire central coast, one or two conservation officers were in the field a total of three days in 1994. It falls to guide outfitters themselves to report kills and sightings that make up official data on bears."

One of the society’s directors is Peter McAllister, and I should tell you that I’ve been less than kind to him in the past.

It was McAllister who told the European Parliament some time ago that despite government initiatives to increase the province’s park land from six to 12 per cent, British Columbia was still the "Brazil of the North."

At the time, Stephen Owen, then chief of the now disbanded Commission on Resources and Environment, just happened to be in Europe and was able to also get a hearing before the European Parliament and set the record straight.

Yes, McAllister is a rebel, even by mainstream environmental movement standards, and yes, I’ve tanned his hide on several occasions for his all too frequent and irresponsible outbursts, but the Raincoast Forest Society’s fears of a dangerously declining grizzly population is shared by many other environmentalists who are less radical than McAllister.

In a nutshell: I’m willing to listen to his concerns, and if the government has conclusive evidence that McAllister is wrong, I’d like to see it.

The last word goes to the Raincoast Conservation Society: "History has taught us that we rarely come to the rescue of a species until it’s too late."