Always willing to help and generous to a fault, allow me to pitch — absolutely free — some sure-fire political ideas anyone can use to build a winning Vancouver Island election strategy.
Premier Christy Clark made some headlines last week by announcing the B.C. Liberals are going to have a specific Island platform for next spring’s campaign.
It will amount to a 10-year economic and investment plan for the Island. In what was interpreted as either a threat or promise, she said Vancouver Island ‘‘deserves the government’s full attention.”
The B.C. Liberals have been falling further and further behind since the sweep in 2001 and now have just two of the Island’s 14 seats. The “Liberal Island caucus” of Don McRae (Comox Valley) and Michelle Stilwell (Parksville-Qualicum) tries to make the best of their dismal plight. McRae likes to brag that between the two of them, they’ve won six Paralympic gold medals.
But the party is tired of joking. McRae is retiring, so they have only one incumbent seeking re-election, which is an uncomfortably thin margin.
The idea of an artisanal, home-grown, fair-trade Island platform suggests they’re tired of failure and are going to make a concentrated effort to regain some self-respect, or at least avoid annihilation.
(Here’s one small example of how bad it is for the Liberals. Education Minister Mike Bernier is doing an annual visit to all B.C. school districts, and when word got to one Island district, they voted last week to boycott him. The chair might grudgingly shake his hand if he shows up, but the obligatory photo-op with the board won’t happen, because they won’t be there. “It’s just speed-dating,” sniffed one of the trustees.
The kicker is: It’s the Qualicum district, in a Liberal riding.)
Here’s what needs to be done so that B.C. Liberal photo-ops on the Island have more than just one person in them. If they ignore this advice, which has been known to happen, the NDP or the Greens can take the concepts and run with them:
• Island Corridor. It’s a community-owned swath of real estate stretching 234 kilometres that comes with a rail line, on which next-to-nothing has been done for the past 10 years. The foundation that owns it is mistrusted by local governments, the promised upgrades never happened, the passenger service is defunct and there is no momentum. B.C. put $7 million on the table as a start on rail upgrades, but has rather quietly let it be known that it can be spent on a trail if the rail idea — which needs huge dollars — fails.
Any ideas to rejuvenate the corridor concept, set a direction and start toward a goal would be welcome. Somebody do something.
• The Malahat. Despite years of incremental safety improvements on the highway, there’s a new feature of Island life in the 21st century: total paralysis of the highway for hours on end on a regular basis after serious accidents. It is possible to drive over the Malahat without crashing into something. Lots of people do. But even when they achieve that, the peak-period volumes are to the point where alternatives need to be discussed.
Nobody expects a zillion-dollar promise to bypass the Malahat. But some kind of public conversation about long-range alternatives needs to start.
• B.C. Ferries — 4.1 per cent, four per cent, 3.9 per cent and 1.9 per cent. That’s the record of fare hikes since the last election. (The last one was offset by fuel rebate, which isn’t going to last forever.) B.C. Ferries has ridden low oil prices and a tourism boom out of a financial crisis. Fare rage has eased compared to a few years ago, but it’s always smouldering. Pro tip for platform proponents: Lay off the fare increases.
• Campgrounds. The government says about 200 new provincial campsites have been created in B.C. over the past few years. It’s not nearly enough. Parks and campgrounds aren’t getting the attention they need. Vancouver Island is a recreation destination that’s coming up short on quality campgrounds, further hampered by block booking that cuts into availability even more — 2020 new campsites by 2020!
