Bitter, expensive battle comes to merciful end

Voters should not have had to pinch their noses and vote for the least-bad option

There was nothing inspirational during this nasty, brutish and long provincial election campaign where so much money was sloshing around that it attracted international attention.

For the most cynical, the best that might be said is that at least we don’t have to do this again for another four years. Yet, even that is optimistic since the set election dates have meant that the unofficial campaigns begin earlier and earlier.

Election financing and all that money that B.C. Liberals raised from corporations and the B.C. New Democrats got from unions was an issue. Perhaps the donor limits and cash-for-access will stop. It’s not that all three parties agreed, but the B.C. Liberals finally conceded that it’s worth talking about.

Lies were perpetrated by the parties to work their unapologetic magic with the electorate. Personal attacks by one leader against another, ethnically focused attack ads in the Chinese media and a retro framing of the choices between ‘free enterprise’ and, presumably, the red hordes at the gate were all part of this campaign.

There was Christy Clark’s ‘calm down, John’ moment that the Liberals mined to their advantage in raising concerns about whether John Horgan was temperamentally suited for leadership. And there was the #IamLinda moment that the NDP used to their advantage in questioning Clark’s aloofness.

The omnipresence of media — mainstream, social or even smartphone-wielding bystanders — has bred fear in campaigning politicians when they are freerange among voters. One slip that goes viral and an election can be lost.

Among the new campaign lows were an NDP ad featuring the sister of the fired health ministry worker who committed suicide and the Liberals’ rental van plastered with anti-John Horgan slogans trolling the NDP’s campaign bus.

The televised debates were largely an exercise in futility. The questions were good and even tough. The answers were not.

During the so-called debate portion, the leaders talked over one another like “big, black, sand-spitting, Galapagos iguanas,” as one avid political watcher described it to me.

Sadly, it’s likely a harbinger of what’s to come in the new, deeply divided legislature — a place where reasoned and civil debate is rare.

The democratic bar is set quite low these days. Still, none of the B.C. leaders conjured up even a pale ghost of a visionary Obama, a principled Tommy Douglas or even an angry Trump inciting voters to ‘drain the swamp.’ Instead, what they help create was a muddier swamp.

With few new ideas, too many citizens were unhappy with the choice they felt duty-bound to make. A recent Angus Reid Institute poll described voters as “underwhelmed” and “unexcited” about their options and anxious about rising inequality and their own future. Voter turnout was just over 50 per cent.

No matter how many times Clark said British Columbia is leading Canada in job creation and economic growth, it belies the worries and the lived reality of many citizens including welleducated, young professionals who either can’t find a good job or who have a good job that still doesn’t pay enough to cover a mortgage and child care.

The ability of humans to live together in such concentrated numbers is “rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination,” Yuval Noah Harari writes in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

Democracy is one of our totems. But, faith in it is fraying. Trust that politicians are working in the public interest and not their private interests or those of big donors is being sorely tested.

As our society becomes more diverse, the first-past-thepost, winner-take-all system is problematic. It makes it almost impossible for disparate voices to be heard and minority views to be represented.

“Hold your nose and vote” was what one national newspaper urged, encouraging voters to stick with the status quo even as the editorial was little more than an enumeration of Liberal failures and miscues over 16 years.

“Perfect is not on the ballot,” it concluded. No one is asking for perfect in this all-too-human endeavour, only something better than what we got this time.

We need to fight for this over the next four years. Democracy can’t be sustained if citizens’ choice is to mark an X with pinched noses and trembling hands beside the least worst option.

With few new ideas, too many citizens were unhappy with the choice they felt duty-bound to make.