Lovable NDP geek versus chipper Grit soccer mom
VANCOUVER— He comes across as a lovable geek, she as a feisty, if somewhat obsessive, soccer mom.
He wants to be premier of British Columbia. She already is. Both are fighting old battles. The he in this story is Adrian Dix, leader of B.C.’s new-look New Democrats. The she is Christy Clark, premier and head of the provincial Liberals.
On Friday, they took on one another directly for the first time in this provincial election campaign through a leaders’ debate broadcast on radio. There was little new content in this debate, which also included leaders of the Conservative and Green parties.
As usual, Dix said his NDP would focus on incremental change.
As usual, Clark insisted that behind Dix’s centrist veneer lurked “unions and special interests. . . the same old NDP we saw in the ’90s.”
More telling than content was the tone. Dix on radio is like Dix in person. He’s soft-spoken, engrossed by detail and prone to droning on. Clark, a former radio host, is relentlessly chipper.
Dix focuses on how moderate the NDP has become under his leadership, how limited its aims.
One example he likes to bring up (although, for some reason, he didn’t do so Friday) is the number of baths old people living in nursing homes would receive under an NDP government.
Currently, nursing homes rules require residents receive a bath once a week. Dix calls this shameful. Should the NDP win power, he says, old people in nursing homes would get two baths a week.
Clark, by contrast, focuses on kids, debt and liquefied natural gas.
A self-described soccer mom, she talks relentlessly about her own children. She vows, as she did to a group of lunching female executives Thursday, that when she dies her kids will be left with no debt. She explains that running a government is a bit like dealing with children. Sometimes the leader/mom has to say no. A real leader would ensure that B.C. became debt-free. In fact, she says, that’s exactly what she would do.
Outsiders might find it odd that Clark goes on about debt, given that B.C.’s has risen by at least $11 billion since she took office two years ago. But this inconvenient fact does not dismay the premier.
Debt is the enemy she says. Liquefied natural gas is the saviour. If the province manages to create a liquefied natural gas industry, the debt will — eventually — be wiped out. Dix talks about diversifying the B.C. economy by making it less resource dependent. But his is a peculiar kind of diversification. What he really means is he doesn’t want B.C. to depend only on a liquefied natural gas industry that does not yet exist. He wants it to depend also on forestry, agriculture and made-in-Vancouver movies. Indeed, one of the NDP’s earliest campaign promises was a pledge to offer bigger tax breaks to Hollywood producers and others who make films in B.C. In his public appearances Dix is endearingly awkward. He makes self-deprecating jokes about spilling cake on his pants. He never seems to know what to do with the buttons of his suit jacket. He leans alarmingly to one side when he talks. And he can’t resist detail. On another radio show Thursday, in a long answer to questions about NDP plans to privatize a Vancouver stadium, he managed to list, among other things, the number of Blue Jays home games in Toronto. Clark is unnervingly perky. The half-smile never leaves her face. No matter how low her party sinks in the polls, she is always upbeat. The NDP would ruin B.C. she said again Friday. Think of the kids. Think of the debt. Think of liquefied natural gas. Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.