The man who would be premier used soothing tones with an ideologically hostile audience.
The members of the Council of Forest Industries returned the favour.
Adrian Dix, leader of the provincial NDP, was the luncheon keynote speaker Thursday at the COFI conference in Prince George. He touched on how in B.C. politics - in his experience in previous NDP governments, an unelected outsider at the Legislature, and back in an opposition seat - there may be partisan disagreements but "there is far more consensus than you realize" on the major issues.
The audience seemed to agree. While much conversation in the hallways of the conference expressed worry about the economic implications of an NDP government, there was still a sincere willingness to hear them out.
Dix did not give any definitive hints, however, as to how his party would handle the forest industry. No planks in the platform were revealed, despite this being the biggest room of forest industry stakeholders Dix will likely to encounter before the May election.
He did speak of how past governments were not without their successes, and those should be acknowledged by any new formation of government, and that future success should be built on those practices done well.
He also threw in some comments about how NDP forest critic Norm MacDonald had been in that portfolio for the past four years.
The subtle message seemed to be that an NDP government would definitely try to fix problems but not blow up the policy framework set up by the previous Liberal governments, most of which the general forest industry is currently happy with, according to the hallway chatter with the COFI crowd.
Dix did give some outright assurances that the forest industry would run best with a competitive stumpage rate (the fees lumber companies have to pay the province to cut down publicly owned trees) and that there should be no capital tax charged on forestry companies trying to tool up and innovate to function better as a business.
Another repeated term Dix used in his speech was "industry-led." He was referring to innovations and business gymnastics done by forest companies trying to survive the five-year global economic meltdown, and the opening up of new markets in Asia to offset the crushing loss of the U.S. market for B.C. lumber. It was his attempted dismissal of the marketing work done in China, Japan, India and other places by many elected officials at several levels of government, but also a way of assuring industry leaders that he wanted to play a support role in their efforts to attract new international business.
The NDP leader also demonstrated campaign civility by not only recognizing his elected political opponents in the room, but openly praising the character of current Minister of Forests Steve Thomson and enjoying some jokes with local MLA and cabinet minister Pat Bell. He was collegial and friendly, a subliminal policy message, perhaps, to a crowd prone to distrust the left side of the political spectrum espoused by the NDP.
Dix did not win himself a standing ovation, but the applause was genuine from a crowd with deep traditions of centre- and right-leaning political views. It set the stage for the visit from Premier Christy Clark, who addresses the same 500 delegates at today's luncheon.
