Gordon Campbell, I feel your pain. Truly I do. What a bummer; after weeks of Olympic hype, photo ops with Gold medallists, 24/7 cheering and grinning while literally wallowing in an excess of 2010 Games success, the polls have you in the tank. It seems the more we see the premier, the less popular he becomes.
As Tuesday's Citizen editorial duly noted, it's time for the final tour. The latest Angus Reid poll has the B.C. NDP and leader Carole James at 43 per cent popularity while Gordon Campbell's Liberals are huffing and puffing half a lap behind with 35 per cent.
More troublesome, poll respondents say they have confidence in Carole James to find the right solutions for our B.C. economy. My how times and opinions change. By way of a quick re-wind, in the fall of 2008, as the global economy slid into the red, Campbell's fortunes soared. Polling showed a direct relationship between troubled times and Gordon Campbell's popularity.
At the time, fear for our fiscal fortunes was Campbell's friend. Not so today.
It's too bad and although many will disagree, Campbell's economic policies have been solid. His strategy of using consumption taxes to raise revenue, but decreased income taxes - both personal and business - to grow the economy have benefited the province in the long run.
But that strategy comes at a cost. The carbon tax, though seemingly not a factor in the 2009 election, still raises the hackles of many. The soon-to-be-introduced harmonized sales tax is also taking its political toll on the Liberals. It's good policy, but suffers from bad timing and terrible optics.
All of which must have the Liberal caucus and party organization shaking their heads. In the Canadian scheme of things, B.C. will continue to be an economic leader, yet the polls show we want an untested New Democrat as our next premier.
If you're a nervous cabinet minister, backbencher or someone genuinely terrified of another NDP government, what do you do? Well, for the time being, nothing.
HST, as unpopular as it is, will pass and the anti-HST petition will fail. The B.C. economy will continue to improve. Pulp prices are high, natural gas is a solid revenue producer, the mineral sector is healthy and tourism will benefit substantially from the 2010 Olympics.
In the interim, no members of the current Campbell cabinet, or backbench, are going to swing at the king. Unlike the NDP-Glen-Clark-led move on Mike Harcourt there is currently no one in the Liberal wings with the political horsepower to move Campbell out of the way.
Likewise, Gordon Campbell will make no decisions until it's time to go, probably the fall of 2012. Under the Liberal fixed-date election legislation, our next general election will be May 14, 2013. As an aside, Alberta premier Ralph Klein stepped down too early and became a lame-duck leader. You can bet Gordon Campbell will never suffer the indignity of losing control until the timing - his timing - is absolutely right. He will resign, but on his terms.
Can the Liberals, under a new leader, form government in 2013? Sure. But, as 2013 approaches, Gordon Campbell has to hunker down, stay out of the limelight, let Carole James fall on her own sword and avoid controversial policies.
A little recession might help as well.
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Separation desperation.
I've always viewed leaders of the Quebec separatist movement as little more than a gang of freeloading, hypocritical, snake-oil-peddling hucksters. I could say more but this is a family newspaper.
However, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe has reached a new low.
Speaking last week to the party faithful on the 20th anniversary of the Bloc, Duceppe compared Quebec separatists to the French Resistance movement in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War.
Had Duceppe took the time to read about French resistance, he would know that during those brutal times anyone making a public statement about resisting the Nazi occupation would not survive the day. And if they did, they would have wished they hadn't.
Those members of the French resistance - some of them Canadians - were heroes and fought for decent, open government. Gilles Duceppe will never be in their league.
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