The newest B.C. Liberal candidate, John Martin, is a competitive barbecuer and there's no better background for someone trying to pull off what he's attempting. He's used to standing close to the fire and getting smoke in his eyes while watching fresh meat roasting on a spit.
Some observations he made to Taste and Sip magazine last spring are particularly pertinent, now that he's bolted the B.C. Conservatives, for whom he ran in a recent byelection, to sign up with the Liberals.
Speaking as the head of the "Big Ass BBQ Team," he was commenting on the world of competitive cook-offs.
"These contests are impossible to predict. Last year's grand champion can come back the next year, do damn near the very same thing and finish somewhere near the bottom. The judging process can be quite erratic so it's best not to invest too much emotion in the scores."
He might as well have been talking about the provincial politics.
(Personal disclosure: I find it difficult to be objective after seeing his mouth-watering Qualicum Pinwheel recipe - Qualicum Bay scallops wrapped in bacon, then in pork tenderloin, smothered in maple sugar and mustard, then rolled in crushed cashews. OMG.)
But drooling aside, he's going to have to work through a few things before his candidacy takes hold. His rambunctious attacks just five months ago on the party he just joined are the first thing to come to mind.
They bounced back to life hours after he made his move in Chilliwack Friday morning. A small sampling:
- "Not even the most devoted Liberal supporter could argue with a straight face that this government has earned a fourth mandate. Theirs is a legacy of deceit, incompetence and financial mismanagement."
- "The only people getting ahead in Christy Clark's B.C. are cronies, insiders and lobbyists."
- "The Liberal government has ... squandered trust with the public on issues such as paying $6 million in legal fees for two convicted criminals [Dave Basi and Bob Virk] and the introduction of the HST shortly after the last election when they said it was not on the table."
A couple of things emerged from the campaign during which that platform was pitched.
One is that it didn't work. He came third, behind runner-up Liberal Laurie Throness and the winner, NDP MLA Gwen O'Mahoney.
Coupled with the Conservatives' disappointing finish in Port MoodyCoquitlam the same night last April, it was a demoralizing finish. The party had been riding a poll-induced high for months and had just won over MLA John van Dongen, who quit the Liberals to join up. But the results showed them to be underfunded and very weak on the ground.
The other thing that developed is that Martin and Throness developed a friendship. It apparently continued after the campaign, as they both teach in the criminology department at University of the Fraser Valley.
As B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins and van Dongen started parting ways and various factions started developing, Martin likely perceived the party was stalling out. When Chilliwack Liberal MLA John Les announced he is retiring, it opened a viable Liberal spot right next to the riding where his pal Throness will be trying again.
All that was left to do was remember Ralph Waldo Emerson - "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - and switch teams.
He was obligated to attack the government as a candidate, he said. He disagrees with several things the Liberals have done, but "on balance, in the big picture, I think they've provided decent, solid government.
"I don't think I flip-flopped, I think I listened to the people and they said very loud and clear: 'We don't want a B.C. Conservative MLA in the Fraser Valley.'
Martin said the party was under the impression it would do very well in the byelection, but that's not what the people decided. "I sincerely believed the Conservatives were going to displace the B.C. Liberals as the free-enterprise choice. I was wrong."
It takes a lot of "big ass" nerve to make this move, but it's the first good news the Liberals have had in months.
Just So You Know: The (remaining) Conservatives' judgment on the need for a leadership review will be announced this afternoon, after the mailed-in ballots are counted. A friend offers this handy rule of thumb on interpreting the results: If the support percentage is less than Cummins' age (70), he has to go.
