NO WONDER HORGAN’S SMILING AFTER THE BREAK
NDP spent long weekend knowing campaign is a winning one thus far
The story so far:
April 9: The B.C. Liberals, used to setting the agenda after 16 years in power, put out the most newsworthy plank of their platform for the pending election campaign. If re-elected a month hence, the governing party would cap bridge tolls for commuters at a $500 maximum annually.
The Liberals hinted at relief from their arbitrary tolling policy as far back as November 2013. But the belated exercise in promise-keeping is soon upstaged by New Democratic Party Leader John Horgan. He’d eliminate the tolls completely, thereby winning the first round of populist grandstanding.
April 10: The Liberals put out the rest of their election platform, drawing reviews that are not likely to feature in their campaign highlights package. Rob Shaw of The Vancouver Sun: “Liberals deliver stand-pat platform.” Mike Smyth of the Province: “Liberal platform underwhelms, giving NDP hope.” And so on.
April 11: Writ day, and in the first meeting with reporters after securing dissolution of the provincial legislature, Christy Clark spends much of her time fielding questions about the fallout from the ombudsperson report into those botched firings in the Health Ministry.
The firings themselves took place almost six years ago and the Health Ministry commenced reinstatements and financial redress shortly after the 2013 election. But the B.C. Liberals tried to avoid a full public accounting for what went wrong. Clark herself fronted the effort with a hollow promise to “get to the bottom of it” delivered on the floor of the legislature in the fall of 2014.
Without all that footdragging, the case could have been wound up two years ago. Instead, the full story of the debacle, including all the delays and evasions, landed at Clark’s feet (where it belonged) on the eve of the election call.
April 12: The first big rally of the campaign is staged by the third party in the lineup, the B.C. Green party and leader Andrew Weaver. David Suzuki, the other major draw of the evening, talks and talks. Green candidate Mark Neufeld will later apologize for a clumsy impersonation of Martin Luther King.
But the political significance is Weaver’s pitch for the Greens as an alternative to both major parties. Both parties pay grudging tribute to the possibility, the Liberals dissing the Green platform as too far to the left, the New Democrats grumbling that the press is paying unwarranted attention to Weaver.
At this stage, it is enough to pose a wild card scenario where Weaver ends up holding the balance of power in a minority legislature.
April 13: Platform day for Horgan, and the media reviews are good enough for the New Democrats to quote several in a followup press release. Not everything is fully costed. The NDP doesn’t say how it would finance phasing out Medical Services Plan premiums and stopping projected increases in rates at B.C. Hydro and ICBC.
Still, there are enough positive planks in the platform to reinforce the NDP’s time-fora-change message. I gather some Liberals are already hearing that line from potential voters more often than they would like to hear it.
April 14-16: The campaign moves to a lower-key phase owing to the long weekend, with one Sikh and two Christian holidays. The holidays don’t always coincide, but this year’s timing provided the parties with a pause to reflect on the early going and get ready for the middle game of the campaign, framed by this Thursday’s radio and April 26’s TV debates.
For the New Democrats, the stock-taking should have been relaxed. The party got off to a strong start, with some effective attack ads and a platform that passed initial muster at least. Horgan was poised, showing none of the prickliness that sometimes undercuts his effectiveness as a communicator.
Full credit to the New Democrats for absorbing the lessons from their own brutally candid post-mortem on the last campaign. This time they and their leader are both more focused and not fighting with one hand tied behind their backs on the matter of attack ads.
At the same time, the New Democrats have every reason to expect a stronger push back from the Liberals in the coming days, not least because of the view (which I share) that they came out ahead of the governing party in the first week.
The Liberals say they accomplished what they needed to do in the first week — reintroducing the public to Clark, the effective campaigner, through a series of television- and social-mediafriendly events. They insist they are where they wanted to be at this stage.
My own read is that for all the talk among the Liberals about bringing new ideas to the campaign and not taking the electorate for granted, they ventured nothing fresh this time out.
Like generals fighting the last war, they are running on much the same themes as the last four elections — jobs, resource development, taxes and keeping the NDP at bay.
They won all four elections, so the decision to play it safe with a game plan that worked is understandable. We’ll know May 9 whether they can again draw enough water from that same public well to secure a fifth term of government.
Platform day for Horgan … There are enough positive planks in the platform to reinforce the NDP’s time-for-a-change message.