Hi,
Sometimes I feel sorry for Glen Clark, the NDP premier of BC. From the
time that his government first squeaked into office (in '96 the NDP
actually polled less of the popular vote than the opposition Liberals but
the distribution was such that they obtained more seats in the
Legislature) he came under steady fire from every right-winger in or out
of the province. If ever Clark appeared to do anything well this only made
newspaper editors and think tank flaks bellow the louder; for if there is
one thing worse than a (nominal) social democrat who's making a botch of
things it's the same person doing a half decent job. After all, one can't
have the electorate thinking that less than unswerving allegiance to
corporate interests will lead to aught but disaster!
In these times of near-universal cutbacks I'm willing to cut some slack
for a fellow who's putting additional monies into social programs and
keeping the freeze on university tuition. So what if he cooked the books
to produce two consecutive balanced budgets? Deficit financing is, in many
instances, sound economic practice (see Unnecessary Debts, a book
co-authored by Pierre Fortin and Lars Osberg; respectively past president
and president-elect of the professional association of Canadian
economists.) Linda McQuaig has shown in her writings (notably Shooting
the Hippo and The Cult of Impotence) that only an unrelenting
and self-interested propaganda campaign by big business lobby groups
enabled the supposed balefulness of deficits to become an idee fixe
of the Globe & Mail and the country's other opinion-setters.
Given the sneaky way in which deficit financing has been avulsed from the
political ambit I wouldn't blame Clark or anyone else for surreptiously
re-importing it (so long as the budgetary shortfall in question was
contracted in funding socially beneficial endeavors.) Nor, as Nova
Scotians can attest, is Clark's administration the only one in recent
memory to win an election based on a false claim to a balanced budget -
but somehow when it's a Liberal government that gets caught the pundits
are less outraged.
Similarly with BC's high-speed ferry boondoggle : where is the equivalent
outrage in Nova Scotia over the government largesse doled out to Michelin,
Irving and other mollycoddled companies? By no means am I defending
pork-barrelling but I submit that Clark and the NDP seem to attract a
great deal more censure for their misfeasance than do more avowedly
right-wing administrations.
However, it's hard to be overly sympathetic when Clark does his darnedest
to alienate progressives, his natural constituency. Consider the treaty
with the Nisga'a, acknowledging their right to self-government. On the
face of it this seems like a decent attempt to redress some of the
terrible injustices that settlers have inflicted on the aboriginal
population - a perspective reinforced by the spectacle of every redneck in
BC screaming blue murder over the agreement.
The trouble is that, upon examination, it transpires that the compact is
actually a nasty blow to indigenous sovereignty. Some Native Americans -
notably the Mohawk Confederacy - have always maintained that they are
sovereign nations on a par with Canada, the United States, etc. The
Canadian constitution is not consentaneous with this position but it does
recognize First Nations as the third element of a ternary division of
powers within Canada (the others, of course, being the federal and
provincial governments.) In other words, Ottawa has jurisdiction over
certain spheres, the provinces over others and First Nations over others
yet - principally a form of autonomy.
The Nisga'a treaty denies even the more limited notion of aboriginal
sovereignty posited by the Canadian constitution. Instead it accords a
status similar to that of municipalities, which are mere adjuncts to the
provinces. Thus the treaty not only unconscionably deprives the Nisga'a of
their full rights even under Canadian law but sets a precedent which will
make it that much harder for other First Nations to hold out for what they
are entitled to. On top of that the process is being funded by the Nisga'a
themselves (through a loan extended to them by the BC government.) So it
looks like Clark is trying to pull a fast one here.
Now word comes of more of the same on the environmental front. After near
a thousand activists were arrested for standing in the way of clearcutting
of the old growth rain forest in Clayoquot Sound the BC government finally
got the message that a significant number of citizens were anxious to see
this extraordinarily diverse and beautiful ecosystem put off limits to the
logging industry. Accordingly - and with very bad grace - the province
belatedly announced that most (but not all) of the area would be
constituted as protected parkland. This sounds like a (qualifiedly) happy
ending but a few days ago word emerged that even this partial success has
a hefty price tag appended.
It has been revealed that the BC government has promised extensive
compensation to Macmillan Bloedel, the transnational corporation which had
logged the Clayoquot, to compensate for the company's loss of cutting
privileges in the Sound. The area for which Macmillan Bloedel's harvesting
license was rescinded amounted to a total of 7,500 hectares, but to
mollify the company BC is preparing to give MacBlo 30,000 hectares of
Crown land outright (i.e., actually cede title to this expanse) whilst
allowing the company to exploit a further 90,000 hectares as it sees fit
(i.e., MacBlo need not adhere to provincial regualtions on these lands.)
For its part MacBlo has agreed to drop the lawsuit against BC which the
company initiated upon being excluded from the aforementioned 7,500
hectares in Clayoquot Sound.
The deal has evoked reactions of horror and outrage; Joe Foy of the
Western Canada Wilderness Committee averred : "I think this is biggest
environmental issue to come down the pike I've seen" ('British
Columbia/Macmillan Bloedel Package Slammed', Lycos Environmental News
Sevice, April 05/99.) In addition to the anticipated derogation of the
tracts being transferred - a considerable worry in itself - opponents fear
that this pact will allow companies to press for similar concessions
should future BC governments limit industrial logging in the public
interest.
Needless to say, this deal was worked out in the absence of citizen input
or even knowledge. Here, too, Clark doesn't need his enemies to make him
look bad.
Sometimes I feel sorry for Glen Clark - but not today.
---Antoni