The Christy Clark strategy of moving closer to the beliefs of the NDP in an effort to attract the urban vote for the B.C. Liberals is paying dividends — for the NDP and the B.C. Conservative Party.
Abandoning the traditional Social Credit/federal Conservative base that provided its qualified support to the Liberals since the demise of the Socreds under Vander Zalm has forced many soft Liberals to review their support of Clark’s party. Red and blue Liberals see no distinction between Clark and the NDP and are leaving the party to support their respective ideologies.
Now tied with the Conservatives in the polls and trailing an ineffectual and virtually invisible Adrian Dix, Clark is coming to the realization that her brand of “liberalism” — which is the disingenuous politicking practised by Trudeau, Turner and Ignatieff — no longer resonates with enough people to win elections.
Clark’s political pedigree is that of the Trudeau/Turner Liberals. This brand of Liberal, more akin to the NDP than the traditional St. Laurent Libs, is based on an elitist disdain for the electorate and a belief that individuals are incapable of making rational decisions in their own best interests. Only government can provide answers. People and businesses, with the exception of the progressive friends of the government, are inherently evil, and it is the job of government, in the minds of many of the Clark Liberals and all the Dix NDP, to legislate and regulate fairness and goodness. Of course, the logical starting point of this philosophy is that it is the government that decides what is “fair” and “good”.
This brand of imposed fairness requires the expansion of the civil service to enact legislation and enforce new regulations. The expansion needs to be financed somehow, and at the provincial level, that means higher taxes, fees or borrowing secured by future higher taxes and fees. It also never works.
Clark’s heroes, Trudeau and Chretien (even Mulroney who was just a Liberal with a blue tie), spent Canada to near default in the ‘70s and ‘80s with this brand of liberalism. Their profligate vote-buying eventually forced Paul Martin, against every fibre of his Liberal upbringing, to impose Reform Party-inspired austerity measures, that eventually resulted in a period of economic prosperity and the rise of the federal Conservative party. Given the choice between over-reaching government that over promises, chooses winners and losers in all walks of life and misallocates tax dollars, and a government that respects its constitutional limitations and the intelligence of the individual, the people chose the latter, and eventually gave the Harper government a majority.
Clark today faces the same Hobbs’ choice the Martin Liberals faced a few years ago. Abandon the corrupt liberal ideals that bought elections in the past, save the economy and be defeated by a gradual swing to the right by a frustrated electorate, or move further left, alienate the traditional support and, perhaps with a short NDP-dominated transition period, be swept away by a hard turn to the right by an angry electorate. Either way, the Clark Liberals are dead in the water.
On every file, Clark has equivocated and misspent her political capital. From her handling of the HST, her incoherent “Families First” platform, all-day kindergarten proposals and arbitrary imposition of increased minimum wage levels, the premier has moved closer to the NDP, alienated the small-c conservative base of the party and turned small business, the Liberals’ traditional source of party funding, against Clark and her party.
In a year-end interview, Clark gave some indication that the realization of her untenable position is sinking in. Faced with making good on a promise of creating an environment of economic growth, while at the same time enforcing the Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Act, which necessarily restricts economic activity, Clark seems to have a hazy recognition that her liberal ideas are in trouble. She cannot possibly satisfy her left wing of the party and at the same time maintain the support of the majority of the traditionally conservative B.C. voters.
It remains to be seen if the B.C. Liberal Party executive has the courage or the political savvy to engineer the removal of Clark before the 2013 election and return the party to its conservative base. If not, B.C. can expect a return to the dark days of socialism under Dix and the NDP — which will be enough to solidify the B.C. Conservatives as the only alternative and result in the demise of the B.C. Liberals as a political force.
Either way, like Ignatieff, her federal alter ego, Clark must go — sooner would be better for the Liberals and the province.
Mark Walker is the publisher of the Penticton Western News.
