The perils of a ‘one-man government’

Vaughn Palmer

Kimberly Daily Bulletin

May 12th, 2008

This time next year BC will be in the last weekend of the 2009 election campaign and, if the current opinion polls are any guide, the BC Liberals will be poised to win again.

The third majority government would put Premier Gordon Campbell in rare company.  Among 33 BC premiers, only W.A.C. Bennett, Bill Bennett and Richard McBride did as well or better.

No one should underestimate Campbell’s chances.  Through a quarter-century in politics, his record is eight wins in nine contests, civic and provincial.  Even in losing, he won more votes, though fewer seats, than the other guy.

Of course, that streak tends to promote the view that he can do no wrong, not least among Liberal supporters.

“Often the commentators say, ‘You know, this guy Campbell sets these goals, they’re crazy, we’re never going to do it,’” he told a cheering crowd at a party fundraiser this spring. “That’s why they’re commentators and not leaders.”

I have no idea which commentators he means.  Most of us regard him as he does himself – infallible, if not Godlike.

But seriously…

If opinion polls were crystal balls rather than snapshots, then Stephen Harper would be washed up, not prime minister, and Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, not struggling.

You only need to review the BC Liberals’ ups and downs to see how the numbers can change:

May 1996. Rookie Liberal leader Gordon Campbell leads his party into an election against a New Democratic Party government that has trailed in the polls for most of its term.  But he fails to unify the various strains of oppositions in the province and runs a clumsy, off-centre campaign.  The New Democrats squeeze out a second term by the closest of margins.

2002 – 04.  Elected to government with one of the largest majorities in provincial history, Campbell squanders support on such badly conceived initiatives as the attempt to privatize the Coquihalla Highway.  The New Democrats, almost wiped out in 2001, climb back to a lead in the polls.

May 2005. The economy has recovered.  The Liberals are sitting on that huge majority.  How could they lose?  They almost do.

Campbell campaigns in a bubble, backstopped by little more than his weird penchant for sloganeering – ‘five great goals for a golden decade,” etc.

The New Democrats run on the likability of their leader, Carole James, and the need to keep the government honest.

On election night they celebrate a resurgence that almost carried them back to power.  Liberal headquarters is ore like a morgue, as party insiders digest the loss of 30 seats.

Fall 2005. The Campbell government puts the second chance at risk by provoking a pay fight with school teachers and losing decisively.  At year’s end an Ipsos Reid poll has the Liberals just two points ahead, less than the margin of error.

Since then the numbers have been looking up.  In the two most recent polls, the governing party had a double-digit lead, 12 points according to Ipsos Reid, 18 according to the Mustel group.

Credit goes to Campbell for moderating the government on a number of issues, from climate change to relations with first nations.

But thinking back to the low point in the second term – the botched showdown with teachers – the Liberal resurgence is also owing to Finance Minister Carole Taylor.

Her public sector pay framework, introduced in late 2005, brought – ‘bought’, some would say – much-needed peace with the public sector unions.

But Taylor is leaving after a single term, depriving the cabinet of its most independent, respected and best-liked member.

Her departure will only increase the premier-centric qualities of a government dominated by Campbell and his tiny inner circle of advisers.

Campbell tries to minimize the Gord-knows-best tendencies of his government.

“I encourage people to say what they think,” he insisted in a recent interview with reporter Justine Hunter of the Globe and Mail.  But that is not a view you’ll hear form many folks who’ve dared to stand up to him in the closed setting of the cabinet or the caucus room.

And ministers who’ve been crowded off the public platform by his spotlight-hogging tendencies more times than they can count, must be wondering: “How inconsequential does an announcement have to be, for Gordon Campbell to let me handle it on my own?”

Still, even the internal critics – and they exist, though none is suicidal enough to put his or her views on the record – will concede one point.

He’s put the governing party in an exceptionally comfortable position in the polls, one that is unprecedented in modern times.

If they win, it is his win and more evidence that leaders lead and commentators are no better than pond scum.

If they don’t, well, with a one-man government, there’s no challenge in deciding who to blame.