John Cummins should be wearing steel-toed boots because he is giving the B.C. Liberals exactly what it needs -- a forcefully applied kick in the pants.
Christy Clark has been premier for more than a year and her major accomplishment to date has been raising the minimum wage from the lowest in Canada to one of the highest.
Being cheerleader-in-chief of this province is not enough and leading government is not like yakking on the radio. As premier, she has avoided staking positions on some of the most pressing issues facing the province.
Where does she stand on the Northern Gateway Pipeline?
Where does she stand on environmental reviews?
Fracking?
Resource development, particularly mining?
First Nations treaties and self-government?
A big smile and a "if it's good for British Columbia, I'm all for it" isn't enough.
NDP leader Adrian Dix has staked his party's platform clearly. He opposes the Enbridge pipeline and the building of the Site C dam. He believes resource development should only proceed after intense environmental assessment and with the full approval of area First Nations. Businesses should not be subsidized by government to add staff, expand production capacity or build new infrastructure. Successful businesses, heavy industry and the wealthiest citizens should pay the greatest share of taxes. New and small businesses should be given tax breaks only to help them get on their feet. Impoverished and disadvantaged citizens should be given every educational and financial opportunity to improve their circumstances. Negotiations and contracts with government employees, nurses and teachers should be fair, their unions respected.
And then there's Cummins.
He says with a straight face that he's on a "listening tour" of the central and northern parts of the province, hoping to kickstart constituency associations in the backyard of Pat Bell and Shirley Bond, two of the most popular and well-liked Liberal MLAs in the region and possibly the province. Cummins listens...and then promptly informs whoever he's speaking with what he stands for and what he believes.
Cut a revenue sharing deal with Enbridge and Alberta to get the pipeline built.
Get those mines open and operating to provide jobs for workers displaced by the decline in forestry activity caused by the mountain pine beetle infestation.
Work with First Nations and environmental groups to accommodate their concerns but don't let either of them hold up the development of mines, oil and natural gas projects, the pipeline or Site C indefinitely.
Government at all levels looking to build new infrastructure should either cut from within or make users pay, instead of just adding another level of tax onto the whole population.
During a visit with The Citizen this week, Cummins carefully danced around two central issues facing his fledgling party.
If Clark and the B.C. Liberals float through the summer and then decide at their October convention to poach most or all of Cummins's platform with a sprinkling of some of the more centrist NDP offerings as sugar on top, what can the provincial Conservatives do about it?
Not much, except say it was a Conservative idea first, therefore they're more genuine about it.
The "hey, that was mine! no fair!" response doesn't work much in politics.
Cummins seemed more direct on the second issue. He insisted that if either the Liberals or the NDP formed a minority government, with the Conservatives in the role of kingmaker, he would take each piece of legislation proposed by the governing party on its own merit.
Don't believe a word of it.
In an NDP minority, Cummins and his fellow MLAs would say no to every proposed legislation, forcing the Liberals to either prop up the hated NDP or trigger the fall of the government. Either way, the Conservatives win, portraying themselves as the honest right-wing alternative.
In a Liberal minority, they would do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons for exactly the same outcome.
That's the way bare-knuckle politics is played.
Cummins is already working the divide-and-conquer tactic on the Liberals and there's no reason to suggest he'll stop until either Christy Clark gets her act together or she becomes for the Liberals what Rita Johnston became to Social Credit 20 years ago - the nice lady left holding the bag.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
