Right, three weeks to go until the provincial election, let’s check out where the parties stand.
The Liberals (motto: “Gordon who?”) are hanging their hat on liquefied natural gas and promises of a debt-free B.C. As Les Leyne pointed out last week, the Liberals took the $36-billion debt they inherited from the NDP in 2001 and whittled it down to $63 billion today. They plan to further reduce it to $69 billion in three years time. Christy Clark talking about being debt-free is like Tiger Woods talking about being celibate — a nice dream eventually but, you know, not right now.
The New Democrats (motto: “Solving the world through regulation since 1933”) have a campaign that hinges on skills training, not building fast ferries and not being the Liberals.
They’re also striving not to be New Democrats, voting last week to drop the word “socialism” from the party’s national constitution. This was an attempt to appear more voter-friendly — kind of like watching Christopher Walken trying not to be spooky.
The Greens (motto: “Splitting the vote like a Hungry Hippie pizza”) favour replacing oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy with the power of love. They also favour legalizing and taxing marijuana, a wedge issue that might rouse the mythical youth vote but ignores the reality that it’s the federal government, not the province, that controls drug laws.
The Conservatives (motto: “John Diefenbaker was my paperboy”) want to repeal metric, ban French and force Chrysler to bring back the 1968 Valiant with a slant six.
It would be easier if we believed any of them had the ability, let alone the will, to deliver what they promise. In truth, political parties don’t control the economy as much as ride it. If this were the U.S., they could drum up votes by seizing on the Boston bombing and pandering to some good old-fashioned post-terrorism paranoia: whip up anti-Muslim hysteria, jail all young men as a precaution, find Chechnya on a map, then nuke it.
Just to be on the safe side, we might as well take out the Czechs, who on Friday took so much online abuse from geographically challenged Americans that their ambassador in Washington felt compelled to issue an official statement pointing out that his country and Chechnya are 3,000 kilometres apart. (I’m not making this up.) Also, we should ramp up security at all sporting and cultural events: implement mandatory backpack and cavity searches at the Symphony Splash. Can’t be too careful these days.
On a related note, I will vote for anyone who can make CNN and Fox News care as much about being accurate as they do about breaking news first. Last year, scrambling for the scoop like a couple of stoners racing for the last slice of pizza at the 4:20 Food Fair, they both reported, mistakenly, that the U.S. Supreme Court had tossed out Obamacare. On Wednesday, desperate not to be beaten on the Boston story, both reported, erroneously, that a suspect had been arrested. They were topped only by the New York Post, which ran a front-page photo implying that two dark-skinned kids — one turned out to be a 17-year-old Moroccan track star — were the bombers.
I don’t actually want the editors to be horse-whipped (this should be reserved for politicians who use the cliché “going forward”) but it wouldn’t hurt to have their faces fill the screen or page in a dunce cap. This should also apply to anyone who spreads rumours on the Internet.
What we really want is a candidate who can fix the things that tick us off: people who say “nucular,” shoppers who abuse the nine-items-or-less lineup, the Boston Bruins, crosswalk texters. You know how B.C. police chiefs want to temporarily seize the phones of distracted drivers? I will campaign for anyone who extends this to people caught chucking cigarette butts out the car window: Take away their smokes, don’t let them have any more for a week.
You might have other priorities: jobs, mental health, pipelines…
Just make the promises real, and realistic.
