Shari Green a poor choice for Surrey

South Surrey-White Rock, you deserve so much better than Shari Green as your Member of Parliament. The former mayor of Prince George announced Monday she is seeking to become the Conservative candidate in that riding for the 2019 federal election. Before she dismisses the following as a personal attack, which she always did while in office whenever she read something about her she didn’t like, or the writer as a misogynist pig, which she always did whenever her critic had the audacity to be male, the good people of South Surrey-White Rock should simply review her political resum.

She was elected to Prince George city council in 2008, finishing second in number of votes behind Coun. Brian Skakun, promising change and fiscal responsibility, delivering on neither.

Her claim to fame as a city councillor was the end run she tried to pull on then mayor Dan Rogers over Kin 1. With two councillors away, she forced through a vote to build a new arena instead of renovating the existing structure, despite the fact her plan would cost millions more and that the new rink wouldn’t be ready in time for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.

Rogers got the last laugh when he forced a second vote, with the two absent councillors following him and getting two other councillors to change their votes, but the damage was done.

Rogers looked weak and ineffective heading into a municipal election but it also revealed Green’s cutthroat style.

As a result, she trounced Rogers when she ran for mayor in 2011, with what remains to this day as, by far, the most expensive mayoral campaign in Prince George history.

The wheels started falling off the bus as soon as she moved into the corner office on the fifth floor of city hall.

She seemed to think her mayoral win was due to her personal popularity, instead of disenchantment with Rogers. Rookie political mistake and the first of many.

Instead of solidifying her base and forging new alliances, her governing style was autocratic and city councillors were either with her or against her. The only strike by unionized municipal employees happened under her watch. That’s not a badge of honour, that’s an inability to get a deal done.

She refused to talk to Ben Meisner and 250News during her entire three-year term as mayor, sniffing that the online news outlets were merely a blog. The public, not politicians, decides who legitimate journalists are... except in dictatorships.

And then there was the core services review.

The only thing worse than the $350,000 cost for the back-of-napkin quality recommendations was her mishandling of the process and the fact nothing came of it but a monumental waste of time and money.

Her local credibility destroyed and her chances of winning a second term as mayor down to nil, replacing retiring member of Parliament Dick Harris in Cariboo-Prince George, one of the safest Conservative ridings in the country, seemed like a good plan.

Except the former mayor of the largest community in the riding and the most experienced and best-known of the three candidates for the Conservative nomination couldn’t beat the two lesser-known candidates. Based on the people who bought Conservative memberships, Todd Doherty’s win was partially fuelled by people who wanted to make sure Green didn’t get the nomination.

After that, she moved to Surrey and helped Dianne Watts get elected as the Conservative MP. Can’t imagine that service will help her as the former Surrey mayor bolted halfway into her first term as an MP to run for the leadership of the B.C. Liberals. Not only did Watts lose that race but the riding flipped from Conservative to Liberal in the process.

Yet card-carrying Conservatives in South Surrey-White Rock can safely ignore all of the preceding in helping them decide who they should support as their candidate next year.

Instead, they should simply take a bit of time as part of their due diligence and call their fellow Conservatives in the Prince George area. They should ask what kind of city councilor Green was, what kind of mayor Green was and what kind of candidate Green was for the Conservative nomination in this riding.

Based on what they’ll hear, they should quickly discover that if they’re serious about getting that riding back from the federal Liberals, there must be better options, with more political experience and deeper community roots to fly the Conservative flag than the carpetbagger from Prince George.

Neil Godbout is managing editor of The Prince George Citizen