In one sense, Christy Clark is probably correct in her assertion that British Columbians don't want an election this fall. British Columbians - in fact, Canadians in general - almost never want early elections, as they're usually considered a distraction from the business of governing. We at The Chief certainly don't want one because well, we've already got one - a municipal one - right on our doorstep, and when there's an election on, it becomes a major focus for a small, community-minded newspaper such as ours. Two of them back-to-back would no fun indeed.
But, in another very real sense, Clark's announcement this week that she won't seek a mandate on the heels of her government's crushing defeat in the recent referendum on the harmonized sales tax (HST) is a cynical move, driven by the very real possibility that after 10 years in power, the B.C. Liberals would lose if a fall election were called.
Back in May, we opined in this space that in endorsing the HST "fix" that had just been announced by Finance Minister Kevin Falcon, Clark had raised the HST referendum stakes. Instead of staying on the sidelines and letting former premier Gordon Campbell wear the mistakes that were made when the tax was introduced, she "has come down on the side of those who want to keep the tax by attempting to buy referendum votes with voters' own money," we wrote.
After she was named B.C. Liberal leader and premier on Feb. 26, Clark said repeatedly that she planned to seek an early mandate from B.C. voters. Her announcement this week that she plans to stick to the fixed election date of May 14, 2013, set by her predecessor, means that for more than two years, the province will be led by a person who has never received the assent of voters.
While Clark insists her decision not to seek that mandate is based on the assertion that an election might exacerbate the impact of the current global economic uncertainty on B.C., we think there's ample reason to believe political considerations played just as large a role in the decision as did economic ones. Back in May, both The Chief and former NDP MLA David Schreck, writing for the online news website The Tyee, stated that after endorsing "the fix," Clark had essentially made the HST vote a referendum on 10 years of B.C. Liberal government - herself included. "That is why," Schreck wrote, "the referendum could become a vote on whether she can be trusted rather than on the merits of the tax."
To our way of thinking, aside from the vote's outcome, nothing has changed, except that Clark has now backed away from her earlier pronouncements on a key issue - likely more because it suits her political interests than anything else. Interestingly enough, the next election is set to take place only six weeks after the HST expires. We can only hope that B.C. voters will remember whose government was responsible for what the next time they go to the polls.
- David Burke
