The Site C dam needs an extra C.
It should be called the Site CC dam, as in Site Christy Clark.
Virtually every time she visits Prince George, she brings up W.A.C. Bennett. She sees herself as a 21st century Bennett, pulling all of the levers necessary to open up the northern half of the province to development.
Bennett left a legacy in B.C. of big projects. Clark wants to do the same, so she sees the development of Site C, which has been talked about for more than 30 years, as her way of showing she's done talking and she's the one that will make things happen.
Come hell or high water, hopefully it's high water on the Peace River, the premier plans to cut the ribbon on construction of the dam before her first full term in office ends in 2017.
She'd also like to be invited back some day, preferably after her graceful retirement from politics with numerous election victories under her belt, to have the Site C dam really become Site CC and formally carry her name.
Both Site C and the development of liquified natural gas are Clark's legacy projects. Clearly a student of history, she wants to be remembered as a premier who did big stuff, who built big things and changed the province.
She doesn't want to get bogged down with budgets because that's what finance ministers are for. She doesn't want to get distracted with small fry like have more public transit to keep young women safe on the Highway of Tears. She doesn't want to be held back by teachers, doctors, nurses or public sector employees.
She has tasked ministers to address those matters so she can focus on her legacy pieces.
To be fair, she's not devoting so much attention to LNG and Site C just so people will think kindly of her when she's gone. Like Bennett did, she sees B.C.'s future in resource development in general and northern development in particular. Clark can't give a speech without talking about creating a prosperous British Columbia "for our children and our grandchildren."
In other words, the day to day operations of government belong to ministers and senior bureaucrats under her leadership. Her role, as she has set it out since winning her majority government a year ago this week, is to pursue her vision of B.C.'s future, five years and 20 years down the road. She is putting the full resources of her office behind her efforts and, like she did during last spring's campaign, she will not let naysayers get in her way.
That's why she has such open disdain for question period in the legislature. Why care about a sideshow for poseurs and loud-mouthed schnooks, when there's work to be done and progress to be made?
There is something admirable about politicians with vision. They tend to not care much about the small victories that give them bumps in the opinion polls (or about opinion polls at all). When the small victories happen, they belong to the minister that made it happen, rather than to the boss who swoops in to take credit, then disappears again (see Campbell, Gordon).
Visionary politicians believe in something bigger than themselves, that will endure far longer than their time in power. They believe in the future and all of the potential that awaits around the next corner.
It's the focus on the future, however, that can make visionary politicians a liability. With so much attention on tomorrow, what's going on today (and how it will shape tomorrow) can get ignored or downplayed when the outcry becomes too loud. The visionary politicians often see today's problems as beneath them and not worthy of their efforts. Viewed this way, so many of today's concerns will just disappear if that elusive but noble vision of better days ahead comes to pass.
Looking ahead can also blind the visionary politicians of solutions available in the present.
As Vaughn Palmer pointed out in a Vancouver Sun column this week, the Liberals could refurbish the Port Moody gas plant into a global showcase for the clean energy potential of natural gas for about $1 billion, a fraction of the expected cost of the development of Site C. The gas plant could
generate 75 per cent of the same amount of power expected from the dam and produce power in the immediate vicinity of the urban population that needs it most.
Renovating a gas plant doesn't fit in with Clark's vision, however, either for the province or for her personal legacy.
