Weaver and Clark step up attacks

No easy win for the NDP as leaders address weaknesses of first debate

After the first debate of campaign 2017, all three party leaders knew they needed to do something different when the main event convened Wednesday night in Vancouver.

The defender, B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark, had been thrown off her game somewhat last week, not in command of her material, struggling at times to make points.

Then there was that slogan the Liberals dreamed up for her to slot into every message box and sound bite: The Only Party with a Plan. Not in the same league as Obama’s Yes We Can or Trudeau’s Real Change Now, or even Debt Free B.C. to mention what was slapped on the side of the Liberal bus in the last election, bogus as it turned out to be.

The challenger, NDP Leader John Horgan, needed to find a way to hold Clark and the Liberals to account without getting overly personal the way he did in the first debate.

“You are all politics all the time,” he said. “Take a few minutes and read something. It may be like that in the firstclass lounge, but in the rest of the world, people are struggling. If you want to keep doing your thing, I’ll watch you for a while — I know you like that.”

That was just some of the invective that the would-be premier of B.C. hurled at the incumbent during the 30 minutes or so of unremitting hostility that passed for the first phase of the debate.

As for the Green leader, Andrew Weaver, he mainly needed to provide something more memorable than those admittedly charming moments in the first debate where he put up his hand in hopes of being called on by moderator Bill Good.

He was also expected to redress the inexplicable lack of balance in the first debate, where he attacked Clark and let Horgan off the hook.

So much for the theory. In practice, the trio started on-message: Clark more in command of her material, Horgan passionate without getting personal and Weaver a stronger presence, taking shots in both directions.

Clark introduced a new theme: Vote for her because she is the toughest, calmest, best-equipped person to take on the softwood challenge and other threats to B.C. trade by the Trump administration. It was a theme she hammered away at again and again throughout the evening.

Toward the end of the first half-hour, the debate entered a series of exchanges that mainly featured Horgan and Weaver going at each other.

Having ignored the New Democrat in the first debate, Weaver now waded into him, at times even goading him. “Are you going to lose your temper at me the way you did last week?” he challenged at one point.

“I can’t believe you said that, John,” he cracked at another point when Horgan half-suggested the Liberals would win the next election.

Weaver was effective on the political fundraising issue, pressing Horgan on the hypocrisy of insisting that the Liberals were corrupted by corporate donations, but the New Democrats were not in the least compromised by taking money from the United Steelworkers and other unions.

He also got off a good shot at Horgan’s promise to phase out MSP premiums by an unspecified mechanism that would be crafted by a blueribbon panel. “A plan to come up with a plan for a plan,” Weaver called it.

Horgan, for the most part, kept his temper, at one point denying he had an angermanagement issue. But there was no shaking the impression he regards Weaver as an upstart and a threat to the NDP’s hopes of forming a government for the first time in 20 years.

Weaver, on the other hand, seemed to be hunting where the votes are. His best chance of gaining the four seats necessary for official-party status is on the southern end of Vancouver Island. And that is exclusively NDP territory, other than his own Oak Bay bailiwick.

At the end of the night, he all but pitched for viewers to give the Greens the balance of power in the next legislature. “Neither of these parties can be trusted with majority government,” were what was almost the last words out of his mouth.

This battle of the leaders of the opposition parties in the last house somewhat overshadowed their attacks on Clark. Every time the camera returned to her after the two guys finished hacking away at her, there she would be: poised, confident and smiling.

Not to say her record escaped scrutiny: It came up again and again, as Horgan demonstrated his ability to look straight into the camera and deliver his attacks without a note, pause or hesitation. He is a better, stronger communicator than his predecessor Adrian Dix, and you can see why New Democrats are warming to him in this campaign.

But Clark, better prepared this time, got off a few good lines at his expense as when she said his promised $400 grant to renters amounted to little more than $1 a day.

Horgan also didn’t answer one of the key questions of the night: whether the tax increases in his election platform are the only ones he would bring in during the first term of an NDP government.

Still, no knockout blows. But a stronger showing for Weaver and an easier ride for Clark, a combination that is likely to tighten up a race that has more often than not gone in the NDP’s favour to date.

Horgan, for the most part, kept his temper, at one point denying he had an anger-management issue. But there was no shaking the impression he regards Weaver as an upstart.