Nobody was happier than Vancouver-Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby when his leader Adrian Dix abandoned his principled position to wait and see on the Kinder Morgan pipeline on Earth Day and firmly came out against the project.
Yet now, on the eve of a provincial election where polls are predicting an increasingly tight race, you have to wonder whether the NDP was helped or hurt by that decision and why Dix did it at all.
Any veteran of election wars in these parts will tell you, regardless of who is ahead, the gap frequently closes near the finish line.
The last B.C. election I covered as a reporter was in 1983. It was central to the book I wrote shortly thereafter called Tough Guy, which mostly focused on Social Credit Premier Bill Bennett.
The Socreds were behind but slowly gaining; with a week to go Bennett was ill with the flu and it looked like Dave Barretts NDP would beat him. Then, in an unguarded moment, Barrett chose to declare, if elected, he would eliminate Bennetts Restraint Program. That program was put in place to deal with the ravages of the recession that was besetting this province and the rest of the country.
Barretts comments and the convenient availability of a new piece of technology a TV satellite truck allowed Bennett to hit back at Barrett that very night on a provincewide news broadcast. Bennett was like a man who had risen from the dead, folks who had written him off rallied to his side fearing what Barretts move might do to the economy. For the NDP, all hope was lost.
But here is one thing worth noting before getting back to the Kinder Morgan issue, which, while it may be troubling at first is nowhere near as profound as Barretts blunder 30 years ago. The most recent poll before my deadline came Thursday morning had the NDP ahead of the Liberals by a mere four per cent, which is almost within the margin of error.
While it does mean the Liberals wont face the slaughter predicted by the 20 point lead the NDP once had, it really does depend on how those voters the pollsters are counting are distributed. Most observers tell you when the Liberals win a riding they tend to win by great majorities. For the NDP, it is more often a squeaker.
And I was reminded of the 1996 election where the NDPs Glen Clark, amidst the scandal of a since-forgotten Bingo-gate won the election with 39 per cent of the popular vote and 39 seats; Gordon Campbells Liberals lost with 42 per cent of the popular vote and only won 33 seats.
That point in history was important for another reason. It was at about that time the NDP started bleeding supporters and activists to the Green Party.
A poll in 1997 apparently showed Greens with five per cent of voter support. A year later that number climbed to 11 per cent. In the poll that came out Thursday (yesterday) they were holding steady at 12 per cent.
While the provincial Tories turned up in that same poll this week with 10 per cent and may be chewing away on the Liberals right flank, the NDP still has reason to be fearful of what the Greens will do to their chances of winning.
And Eby in Point Grey isnt the only one who may benefit from that Kinder Morgan shift by Dix. As Charlie Smith points out in the Georgia Straight, there are at least two other Lower Mainland NDP candidates that will benefit by this move to nibble away at Green support: the former director of the Sierra Club George Heyman running in a hard-to-win riding against Margaret MacDiarmid in Vancouver-Fairview, and Langara College history instructor and Green party City of North Van Coun. Craig Keating trying to take out Liberal incumbent Naomi Yamamoto in North Vancouver-Lonsdale.
That announcement by Dix will also please First Nations in this part of the world. They are among the most determined opposition to pipelines that will mean more oil tanker traffic down the coast.
But will the strategy work and translate into an NDP win? Talk to me next Wednesday.
