BC Politics with Hubert Beyer

MITCHELL’S APPOINTMENT HAS LIBERALS UPSET

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VICTORIA – Premier Glen Clark sure knows how to get a rise out of the Liberals. His appointment of David Mitchell as conflict of interest commissioner was calculated to tweak the noses of his political opponents, and the results fell nothing short of expectations.

"I was waiting for someone to tell me it was April Fool’s," said Liberal House Leader Gary Farrell-Collins, one of Mitchell’s most bitter enemies. Appointing Mitchell without consulting the opposition parties, Farrell-Collins said, was "immature and irresponsible" of Clark.

The enmity between the Liberals and Mitchell has good reasons. Mitchell quit the Liberals to sit as an "Independent Liberal" in 1992, and since then has let no opportunity go by to attack his former associates in general and Liberal leader Gordon Campbell in particular.

The premier was quick to point out that Mitchell has also been critical of the NDP. "The only thing that entered into my thinking was his nasty attacks on me at an earlier stage," Clark said.

Cute but no cigar. While Mitchell has criticized the NDP on numerous occasions, that criticism amounted to little more than mild rebuke, compared to the viscous and well-aimed volleys he fired at the Liberals.

In that respect, Mitchell took the same stance as Gordon Wilson, the former Liberal leader who was ousted over his relationship with his now wife Judy Tyabji. He, too, warmly welcomed Mitchell’s appointment.

For political junkies like me, it’s the stuff good times are made of. The more friction between the parties, the better. Democracy would be in peril if the opposition were supportive of the government’s every move.

But that doesn’t necessarily make Mitchell’s appointment a good one. The conflict of interest commissioner has one of the most powerful positions in the province. He can make and break political careers.

Ted Hughes, who has held the job since its inception, forced former premier Bill Vander Zalm’s resignation. But Hughes has never held political office. He has never been accused of favoring a political party. His reputation as an impartial arbiter was impeccable.

Mitchell, on the other hand, comes heavily burdened with political baggage. An unabashed admirer and biographer of W.A.C. Bennett, coupled with his own political career, Mitchell can hardly wrap himself in a mantle of impartiality.

Mitchell, who resigned his Vancouver-Garibaldi seat minutes before Clark announced the appointment, dismisses concerns over his potential partiality.

"I’ve been pretty feisty in my remarks, but as of a few minutes ago, I’m no longer a politician. I wouldn’t be accepting the challenge if I didn’t think I was up to it," he told reporters.

Well, once again, it’s not a matter of whether he can be impartial. I’m sure he can. The problem is that he will have great difficulty to appear impartial. And perception is as important as reality.

In fact, according to one of Hughes’ rulings, the perception of a conflict of interest can actually be a conflict. Something for Mitchell to chew on.

Reform leader Jack Weisgerber, meanwhile, stayed out of the fray. He said it was unfortunate that the premier didn’t consult with the other parties, but would neither condemn the appointment nor indicate that his party would vote against it when the legislature sits.

Ironically, Mitchell has on several occasions criticized the office he will now hold, saying its scope was too broad and its impact on elected officials too severe and restrictive at times. He has also questioned some of Hughes’ rulings.

Of course, Mitchell may never actually start his job. The Liberals have said they will un-appoint him if they win the election. That might, however, be an unwise move, considering the cost of golden handshakes these days.

CONTEMPTIBLE REFORM RHETORIC

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VICTORIA – Criticism is the lifeblood of a democracy, but when criticism stops being constructive and instead caters to fear and bigotry, it becomes an odious instrument.

Keith Martin, one of British Columbia’s Reform MPs, provided a vivid illustration last week of misplaced, uninformed, unjustified, mean-spirited and destructive criticism when he compared the Nisga’a treaty to the homeland policy of apartheid South Africa.

"Apartheid never worked in South Africa and it’s not going to work in Canada," Martin, the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, told the House of Commons.

Let me say at the outset that the Nisga’a treaty, signed last week, isn’t a sacred cow. Criticism of some of its components, such as the Native fishery rights, may be rightfully criticized, but to compare the treaty to the affront to human dignity that was apartheid is shameful.

The homelands policy to which Martin likened the Nisga’a treaty was South Africa’s instrument of keeping the 80-per-cent black population in its place of poverty and exclusion.

By creating the socalled homelands, such as Venda, Bophuthatswana and Transkei, the white oppressors cramped the black population into about 13 per cent of the country’s most arid and undesirable land, told them they were citizens of those homelands, and made them foreigners in the rest of South Africa.

These homelands were very much reminiscent of the ghettoes the Nazis established for the Jewish population in occupied Europe. Their sole purpose was to confine and oppress those living within.

The creation of the homelands was not the result of negotiations but of brutal government-decree.

The Nisga’a treaty, on the other hand, was freely negotiated. And although there are concerns over some aspects, it was the result of fair negotiations between equal partners.

Moreover, the Nisga’a treaty is the first comprehensive attempt at addressing 200 years of injustice against British Columbia’s Native population at the hands of the white majority. It should be celebrated, not besmirched.

While apartheid and its homeland policy constituted one of history’s low points, the Nisga’a treaty corrects an historic wrong.

Apartheid, as the name implies, set the black population apart, while the Nisga’a remain citizens of Canada and are subject to Canadian law. What the treaty does is give recognition to Nisga’a culture and history.

The Nisga’a themselves celebrated the signing of the treaty as a milestone in their struggle for justice, something the blacks of South Africa certainly never did with regard to the homelands.

Comparing the Nisga’a treaty to South Africa’s infamous apartheid policies, as Martin has done, is deplorable.

The Reform Party has a reputation for cashing in on people’s fears. Repeatedly its members have appealed to the public’s prejudices. That reputation was reinforced by Martin’s remarks.

Reform leader Preston Manning likes to think of himself as being in firm control of his caucus. If that is so, he should admonish Martin and set the record straight.

And to think that Martin is the man who defeated David Barrett. An unknown, parachuted into the riding from Prince George, where he still practices medicine, Martin turned out to stand head and shoulders below the rest of his colleagues in Ottawa.

I consider it a privilege not to live in his riding.

THE NDP IS DEFINITELY BACK IN THE RACE

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VICTORIA – Who would have thought a couple of months ago that the New Democratic Party would have a chance at being re-elected?

Haunted by the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society scandal, the NDP found itself trailing the Liberals so badly that even party insiders were at the verge of throwing in the towel.

And when Mike Harcourt resigned as premier, few people expected his gesture would make the slightest bit of difference. The NDP’s goose, they predicted, was cooked. Gordon Campbell, they said, was a sure bet for premier.

That was before pitbull Glen Clark became premier. Starting with a promise to launch a public inquiry into the bingo scandal, a promise he has yet to make good on, and ending with the latest announcement that every high school student qualified to attend a university, college or technical school, is guaranteed admission, Premier Clark dragged the NDP out of its polling slump into a dead-heat with the Liberals.

In between he fired some public servants, although not as many as he claims, talked about a balanced budget, although the method by which he counts is debatable, froze university tuition fees, and generally behaved like a politician sure of re-election.

What a difference a leader makes. Harcourt knew he couldn’t pull off a victory at the polls, even though he personally wasn’t involved in the bingo scandal. His resignation, however, did more than just make room for another leader.

The leadership race, culminating in the convention, gave the party much-needed publicity. The spotlight was on the NDP, while the Liberals and the Reformers languished in limbo.

The Hydro affair was to turn all that around. The release material was originally to be released during the election campaign, but the Liberals got spooked by the NDP’s steady climb in the polls and jumped the gun.

Alas, the beast that was to devour the NDP didn’t have any legs. Clark moved as quickly as I have ever seen a politician move to minimize the damage.

Appointing Brian Smith, a former Socred cabinet minister as Hydro chief and instructing him to get to the bottom of the affair, was masterful move, and before the Liberals knew what was going on, the story was off the front page. And election promises seem to do the rest.

The major promise, one I predicted in a previous column, was Clark’s announcement that if he’s re-elected, he will order forest companies to create 21,000 new jobs in the next five years or lose timber cutting rights.

There are about 105,000 direct jobs in the forest industry today, and the premier said it wasn’t unreasonable to expect more.

"Simply maintaining jobs in the industry isn’t good enough for me. We want more jobs. I believe we can get a timber-and-jobs accord, but if we can’t, the government can start attaching strings to the access to the trees we own," Clark said. In other words, if the carrot doesn’t work, he’ll bring out the stick.

Clark’s most powerful ally in the upcoming election, however, is Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell, whose political image is in the dumps. Asked whom they preferred as premier, respondents in the latest poll chose Clark over Campbell.

The Campbell factor has Liberal party organizers so worried that some riding associations are planning to write the leader out of the campaign. The same happened to NDP leader Bob Skelly in the 1986 election.

A lot of people would like to vote Liberal but don’t like Campbell. Unfortunately for the Liberals, this late in the game, there isn’t enough time to reshape Campbell’s image. That should have been done two years ago.

As things stand, the election will be a political junkie’s dream. It will be hard-fought and close. And perhaps for the first time in decades, British Columbians will elect a minority government.