Congratulations, premier-designate Christy Clark.
Now get to work. The honeymoon's over.
After four months of watching our politicians idle in neutral while the Campbell carnage was cleared from the road, British Columbians are impatient.
People want action, now. That gave Clark, so peppy that she looks fast even when standing still, the winning edge among the four Liberal leadership candidates.
Of the four, Mike de Jong had the most totally awesome hairline. George Abbott had that Jimmy Stewart rumpled country lawyer thing going (even though he was a farmer) and a pragmatism-over-politics approach that scared the NDP. Kevin Falcon showed well despite appearing at times to be afflicted with a terminal case of the blinkered self-certainty that allows politicians to confidently march off a cliff.
Not Clark, though; she looked more likely to take the cliff at a run.
We are told she represents real change, mostly because A) she was out of the room when the Liberals blindsided us with the HST, and B) she's not a grey-haired, grey-suited, grey-faced guy (though that could change after a few months on the job).
But real change? No, real change would have been replacing Gordon Campbell with Moammar Gadhafi or Charlie Sheen (the difference between the latter two being that Sheen's bodyguard isn't made up of virgins). This looked more like a choice between Daniel Sedin and Henrik.
Appearances aside, it was hard to tell the four candidates apart, either from one another or the policies of Campbell. Shaw TV's leadership debate sounded like an echo chamber: Six per cent hike in medical premiums? You bet. Fifty per cent B.C. Hydro rate hikes over five years? Gotta do it.
Pay increases for teachers? Ain't going to happen. Get back to a balanced budget as soon as possible, keep health care as the priority, put everything else on the back burner.
"I'm running in this because I want to bring real change to British Columbia," Clark said. "I'm not running in this because I want to be just another politician doing the same old thing."
Truly? Then she should lead. Really lead.
Wade into places where other politicians fear to tread. Draw up a list of priorities, call it - for originality's sake - Five Great Goals for A Golden Decade.
1. Mental health and addictions. Not as much fun as the Olympics, and way more expensive to deal with in the long run, but the gooeyness of the issue is no excuse to ignore it. It was bad enough 30 years ago when the province emptied the mental institutions without replacing them with the promised community supports. Self-medication with street drugs has made it worse, as you're reminded whenever a user breaks into your car to feed his habit with your iPod. They can't wish this one away.
2. Children in care. These are the most vulnerable people in B.C. Enough of the airy-fairy conceptual stuff. Stop ignoring the nuts-and-bolts advice of B.C.'s representative for children and youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond.
3. Amalgamation. An internal report said the Lowered Mainland's fractured policing allowed Robert Pickton to keep killing. Greater Victoria, pop. 330,000 has as many entire municipal governments (13) as Edmonton, pop. 800,000, has individuals on its lone city council. Not since the shotgun marriage of a handful of Kamloops municipalities in 1973 has the provincial government had the courage to choose common sense over parochial politics.
4. Buy a map. The Liberal party deserves credit for choosing a leadership-selection model that gave a voice to party members outside the Lower Mainland (even if the dragged-out, made-for-television release of the results was goofy). Now govern the same way. And don't call it the Heartland.
5. No free lunch. Take away MLAs' $61 daily food allowance when the legislature is sitting. Let them know what it feels like to pay the HST, just like the rest of us. (OK, this one won't fly.)
Newly elected politicians usually get a grace period. Ascending the throne in mid-term, Clark doesn't have that luxury. She has to prove she's different, fast.
