Public opinion polls claim more than half of Canadians have lost interest in the National Hockey League lockout, which threatens to cancel the season.
Jersey-wearing Premier Christy Clark is surely among the diehards begging for labour peace. If the Vancouver Canucks can resume their quest for Lord Stanley's mug, British Columbians would be distracted from the Vancouver-Point Grey MLA's struggles in the province's top office.
Clark's last 12 months have been the most challenging for a B.C. political leader since Bill Vander Zalm's tumultuous tenure atop the Social Credit Party.
Vander Zalm withstood calls for his resignation through March 1991 but was gone the next month over the Fantasy Gardens conflict of interest scandal. Clark's March 2012 set the tone for the rest of this year: The cancellation of the $40 million, Telus-sponsored renaming of B.C. Place Stadium; supporter Harry Bloy's cabinet resignation for breaching his oath of confidentiality; press secretary Sarah MacIntyre's gum-chewing incident; the defection of John van Dongen.
The Abbotsford-South MLA joined the Conservatives. Leader John Cummins didn't seem grateful that his party had a presence in the Legislature, so van Dongen quit during the September convention. He was already spending his own money on a lawyer to support the Auditor General's lawsuit seeking to find why guilty Liberal aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk got their $6 million legal bills swallowed by taxpayers. Van Dongen also complained to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner about Clark's role in cabinet during the 2003 sale of B.C. Rail. Clark denies wrongdoing and pledged to cooperate with the investigation. She has no choice: the law threatens resisters with arrest.
Van Dongen became a bigger thorn in Clark's side than NDP leader and Vancouver-Kingsway MLA Adrian Dix, who employs a passive "high road" strategy whenever attacked by the Liberals. While the Liberal bandwagon sputters on fumes and flat tires, Dix is whistling a tune, strolling on the sidewalk to the May 14, 2013 election. Meanwhile, citizens are starting to wonder what the next four years may be like under his NDP rule. Will all be revealed when the Legislature reopens?
Clark cancelled the fall sitting of the Legislature and embarked on the next phase of her multimillion-dollar jobs and families ad campaign. She had to defend her comments about Victoria's lack of "real people" and its "sick culture" where "all they can think about is government." Then came chief of staff Ken Boessenkool's late September departure over what she would only call an "incident of concern." The Tory returned to his family in Calgary after an apparent indiscretion involving a female political staffer at a Victoria pub.
The Liberals lured failed Chilliwack Conservative candidate John Martin back to the fold, despite his slamming the ruling party as corrupt during the April byelection. Clark again employed her lipstick for pigs and claimed politicians "will say anything" to get elected. One incident she did not gloss over was her early October chit-chat in Calgary with Alberta premier Alison Redford to talk pipelines. She called it "frosty and quite short."
Even mid-November's noble and necessary anti-bullying summit was overshadowed by controversy. Carol Todd, mother of bullying victim Amanda Todd, was refused an invite to observe.
Clark made smart moves to trim the considerable fat at B.C. Hydro and ICBC, but stubbornly tried privatizing the highly profitable Liquor Distribution Branch's warehouses, including the Vancouver headquarters. Before the final bids were in, the plan was scuttled when the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union cut a new two-year deal.
After all that, it made one wonder if the Liberals are formulating liquor policy on the back of a napkin in a crowded, noisy bar during elbow-bending sessions.
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