Into the Breach with Christy!

Charge of the Christy Clark Light Brigade

by Peter Ewart - 250 News

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1854

BC Liberal MLAs can be forgiven for feeling that they, too, like the British army’s doomed Light Brigade during the Crimean war (1853-56), are marching into their own “valley of Death” on election day on May 14th. Leading the charge, of course, is Premier Christy Clark, smile frozen on her face, teeth flashing in the sun.

The grand coalition of the so-called “centre-right” welded together under the BC Liberal banner by former Premier Gordon Campbell has been unravelling for some time now. Part of that unravelling can be attributed to Campbell and his policies, especially the HST fiasco, but a substantial part has to do with current leader Christy Clark and her government.

In the last 60 years or so, the traditional leader of the “centre-right coalition” (whether it was called Social Credit or, more recently, BC Liberal) has been either a conservative-populist, such as W.A.C. Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm or more outright conservative, such as Bill Bennett and Gordon Campbell. During this period of time, Liberals of the federal Liberal type, have been a minority faction within the grand coalition, or, if outside during the Social Credit time in power, held minority party status. That is, until Christy Clark came along.

Tellingly, Clark ran for the leadership of the BC Liberals in 2010-11 with almost no support from the legislative caucus. Yet she still won the race over a number of high-profile “conservative” contenders. How did she do it? It was not as if the BC Liberal Party underwent a sea change towards federal Liberalism. Rather, at least in part, it was because of a cunning delegate-gathering manoeuvre apparently devised by one of her key advisers, Patrick Kinsella (who also played a key role in the sleight-of-hand associated with the sale of BC Rail).

It is a fact of the party system in BC that riding associations that do not have MLAs in the Legislature tend to languish in a kind of electoral Siberia, their membership ignored and inconsequential, even more so than riding associations with sitting members. Realizing that she would have great difficulty in obtaining votes in the ridings of sitting MLAs (who were almost all supporting rival candidates), Clark’s team actively courted the ignored membership in these other “Siberian” ridings. These member sign-ups, which were conducted under the radar, helped catapult Clark over the top to the great surprise and dismay of the rival leadership camps.

And so it is that someone of a federal liberal persuasion, i.e. Christy Clark, was crowned leader of the BC “centre-right coalition,” with almost no support from sitting Liberal MLAs (except grudgingly near the end of the campaign). But Clark is an anomaly. Like the disastrous charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War, she and her government were doomed from the very start. Not because her main policies were different in any substantive way from those of the coalition, but rather because of the factional divisions within it.

As a result, barring some unforeseen disaster on the part of the NDP opposition, Clark will most likely suffer a triple whammy, i.e. lose her seat, lose the general election, and, in the aftermath, be toppled off her horse as leader of the BC Liberals.

Why? One reason is that she is, indeed, an anomaly, an accident of sorts, a federal Liberal-tainted leader of an essentially conservative party. Another reason is the unravelling of the grand centre-right coalition, which actually began under Premier Gordon Campbell, especially with his handling of the HST fiasco. Driving it all, of course, has been the growing opposition of the people of British Columbia to Liberal Party rule.

By attempting to impose the HST, the BC Liberal government alienated a broad section of the population, including some of its core supporters. In addition, by failing in this endeavour, it ultimately disappointed its big business backers, especially the resource-exporting monopolies. After Premier Campbell resigned, Clark could have distanced herself from the hated HST but instead championed it all the way to its humiliating defeat in the referendum.

Since then, the speed at which the BC Liberal centre-right coalition is unravelling has accelerated dramatically, helped along by Clark’s fickle and capricious style of leadership, as well as unfolding scandals. As in Tennyson’s poem, the Clark government faces cannons on all sides as it marches onward into the “valley of death.” Of course, it is under withering fire from its traditional political opponents such as the NDP and others. But increasingly vicious opposition is actually coming from within the centre-right coalition, whether in rural areas such as Prince George, or in the Lower Mainland, as well as from high level civil servants deep within the bureaucracy.

Some of this fracturing is out in the open, such as the bitter, acrimonious fight between Clark supporters and the newly resuscitated BC Conservatives, but much has been just below the surface at least until now. And so it is that, in place of flags of victory for the BC Liberals fluttering in the wind, we see dirty laundry and leaked emails being hoisted by former supporters both inside and outside of government.

The centre-right coalition will, of course, be rebuilt. But the main obstacle now is Christy Clark herself. Thus, a temporary commonality of interest exists between the traditional opponents of the BC Liberals (like the NDP) and growing factions within the centre-right coalition, to bring Clark crashing down. From the ashes of the May election, so the thinking goes, a new coalition will emerge and a new leader. And not a few potential leaders are waiting in the hills overlooking the impending battle scene of May 14th.

To be successful, the new leader, riding down from the hills afterwards, will need the dictatorial will of a Bennett or Campbell to shoot the weak and wounded still groaning on the battlefield, and weld together the disparate parts of a new coalition. Not an easy task given its fractured state.

In the meantime, ever pragmatic, the big business establishment of the province will focus on getting what it can out of a BC NDP government, and there are already signs of this happening.

In his jingoistic poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet laureate of England, tried to put a patriotic gloss on what was actually a colossal blunder and failure of military leadership. Thus, in regards to an epitaph for Christy Clark and her Light Brigade, perhaps it is fitting to end with the high-sounding, but hollow, last lines of that poem:

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!

Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca