Justin Trudeau blitzes Ottawa, Dix plays it safe,
Christy bores B.C. - is Brad Bennett ready to take over?
By John Twigg
It's been an unusually busy time in B.C. and Canadian politics with lots of smoke and mirrors but not many truly earthshaking events.
Probably the biggest story was the massive 80% mandate given by the Liberal Party of Canada to new leader Justin Trudeau and then even moreso the brilliant speech he gave in accepting the job of trying to lift the former "Natural Governing Party" from third place and back into contention.
Actually the party is only in third place by seats in Parliament but in the latest opinion polls the 41-year-old Trudeau is slightly ahead of Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper (about 32% to 31%) and that explains why the Harper hatcheteers waited only minutes after the results Sunday to begin hitting him with missives.
Young Justin has good looks, charisma, a beautiful family and a real talent for speechifying plus he now obviously can organize a network of strong volunteers and fund it too but the Tories claim he lacks judgement, he's in over his head and he has no substantive policies - which is all hogwash.
Trudeau of course now has about two years to develop such things but he already wins big on one top priority: the growing need to get rid of a Harper Tory regime that with its long-sought majority has quickly become arrogant, insensitive, dictatorial and increasingly out of touch with public opinion such as regarding the environment, marijuana decriminalization, foreign workers and other major voting triggers (religion, gender etc.).
Trudeau also scored big in and with the media, with front page photos in most major daily papers, and he may even have received an endorsement from God because on the day he took over the Liberal caucus there was a small earthquake near the Ontario-Quebec border - so it WAS an earthshaking event in Canadian politics!
The federal New Democrats under new leader Thomas Mulcair also met for a major policy convention in Montreal on the weekend and though the party took some steps to popularize its positioning (switching from "socialism" to "social democrats") it still is dominated by minority single-issue activists (eg MP Libby Davies pushing through a new policy to liberalize the treatment of sex-trade workers).
While Mulcair himself is smart, debonair and charming - as I posted on Twitter - the federal New Democrats really need to expand their populist bases if they hope to do well in the next election, let alone maybe win it, and while several NDP MPs insisted on Twitter that they ARE succeeding in popularizing the party the proof remains to be seen on the TV screens and in the streets.
Perhaps it will come down to policy and for me the big big question is job creation, namely what will governments of all levels and orientations do to greatly and radically grow the economy for the benefit of not only deep-pocket interests but also under-employed low-skilled and middle-class Canadians.
It was noted that interestingly both the Liberals and the NDP are now openly appealing to the middle class and to the Idle-no-more First Nations movement and those are good thing but IMO what's really needed is a focus even lower on society's totem pole, to marginalized people needing jobs they are not trained for or able to do. So we need a major massive job-creation and make-work initiative and there ARE ways to do that without exploding inflation and debt (eg by B.C. issuing a new currency through a revived Bank of B.C.) but do you hear anyone advocating such things? No.
The B.C. New Democrats under new leader Adrian Dix have begun dishing out new policies on a so-far one-a-day basis but so far there is no sign of anything truly major, truly creative. It seems he and his large and well-financed team of organizers are deliberately being cautious, more concerned to avoid making mistakes than making waves.
Though we may have hopes for better things that probably is a smart strategy given the pictures in recent opinion polls, such as the new Ekos poll via Tyee in which the key numbers "among likely voters" are
Premier Christy Clark meanwhile used a provincewide television address (B.C. Liberal Party purchased 7 - 7:30 pm on Global) to attack Dix and try to portray herself as tough as nails and eager to fight to protect jobs and cut debt - all of which served mainly to remind people why they now revile her and her party: vacuous hypocrisy wasting tax dollars.
Few people bothered to watch her show and those who did found it either slick (her supporters) or boring, desperate, misleading, hypocritical and cynically trying to turn the May 14 election into not merely a two-party contest but a two-person fight for a presidency, which to me is appalling and disgusting when there are four parties with near-to-full slates, at least a handful of electable Independents and numerous small-party candidates in an election for a British-style Parliament.
Brad Bennett on hand to help Christy campaign
One point of noteworthy interest from her TV show was the prominent presence of Brad Bennett, a Kelowna-based businessman who is the son of former premier Bill Bennett and the grandson of former premier W.A.C. Bennett, two of the longest-serving Premiers in B.C. history.
On Twitter someone wondered why Brad isn't the leader instead of Christy but I noted it sounds like Brad Bennett is positioning himself to pick up the Liberal Party's pieces after a likely debacle loss much like his father did in 1973 for the Social Credit Party! So you can remember you read that here first!
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