PALMER ON BLAME GAME

Who caused Liberals’ fall?

With the start of the leadership vote just one week away, the B.C. Liberals have erupted in a round of fingerpointing over who and what cost them their majority in the last election.

Former cabinet minister Bill Bennett is the latest entrant into the blameplacing sweepstakes, putting the loss squarely on Mike de Jong, the former finance minister and now leadership candidate.

He accused de Jong of deliberately concealing a more than $2-billion provincial surplus in advance of the election, thereby depriving the governing party of some spending leeway it could have used to finance its election promises.

“I don’t trust Mike de Jong,” the outspoken Bennett declared in an email circulated to party members Wednesday. “He knew about the much larger surplus and simply did not tell any of the rest of cabinet or caucus.

“Had we used even a portion of that extra money to help with stronger social supports, I don’t believe we’d be having this leadership campaign today. Remember, we needed one more seat to prevent the NDP from taking power. The 2017 election loss is on Mike de Jong.”

Bennett’s scornful blast followed one from the candidate he is supporting, Andrew Wilkinson. During the party leadership debate Tuesday, Wilkinson attributed the loss of 10 seats in Metro Vancouver to Todd Stone’s multiple fumbles as minister of transportation.

Dianne Watts, the former Surrey mayor and Conservative MP, said the Liberals forgot the larger purpose of balanced budgets and triple-A credit ratings: “That purpose has to be people . ... We have that fiscal foundation because we want to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Michael Lee, the rookie MLA from Vancouver, agreed the party put so much emphasis on balanced budgets, it lost sight of other concerns: “Our focus became so narrow in the eyes of the voters that we lost our balance.”

Sam Sullivan, the former Vancouver mayor and now MLA, argued the Liberals leaned right when they should have leaned left.

“In 2013 we had the B.C. Conservatives breathing down our neck and we fought very well and we fought to the right. In 2017 we still campaigned on the right (but) our challenge came from the left. And it was really the people who defected from the B.C. Liberal Party to the Green party.”

De Jong, for his part, blamed “an element of arrogance that began to creep into our party and our organization.”

As an example, he cited former premier Christy Clark’s occasional practice of appointing hand-picked candidates in selected ridings.

“I pledge you this,” the former finance minister told Liberals who gathered in a Vancouver hotel for the debate broadcast on Global TV Tuesday: “As your leader I will not appoint the candidate, you will select them as members of the B.C. Liberal Party.”

Much as the practice might irk some of the more hidebound elements of the party membership, I doubt it had any impact on the Liberals’ electoral fortunes.

Three of the strongest members elected — new MLAs Tracy Redies (SurreyWhite Rock), Ellis Ross (Skeena) and Jas Johal (Richmond-Queensborough) were all Clark appointees who could have been overlooked by de Jong’s leave-it-to-thelocals rule. But I do think that Bennett overreached in putting all of the blame for the loss of seats on de Jong.

The finance minister did indeed leave a lot of money unspent before the election. His last budget included almost $2.3 billion in contingencies, forecast allowances and surpluses for the year ending March 31, 2017 and a further $1 billion in leeway for the year starting April 1.

Some of that money could have been put to additional program spending without sacrificing fiscal prudence or risking deficits. For $300 million (less than 10 per cent of the cash squirrelled away in the two budgets), the Liberals could have addressed some crying needs and upstaged the NDP on the social spending side.

But in choosing not to go that route — and pay down debt rather than increase spending — de Jong enjoyed the support of Clark first and foremost.

By the same token, it was Clark, not Stone, who insisted on the botched TransLink referendum that cost the Liberals support and respect in Metro Vancouver.

Likewise it was Clark who went into Election 2017 with a stand-pat platform and much the same campaign strategy as carried her to victory in 2013.

She and her inner circle of advisers ran the show, chose the spots and collectively dropped the ball.

They also concocted the preposterous strategy that failed to persuade the lieutenant-governor to order a second election in June.

In which regard, it is passing ironic that in rejecting de Jong as a candidate, Bennett endorsed Michael Lee as second choice after Wilkinson in the Feb. 1-3 preferential balloting.

Lee has run a good campaign and earned serious consideration.

As a newcomer, he has the advantage of not having been among the elected Liberals for some of the more controversial decisions of the past few years.

But in one respect Lee is not an outsider.

The key strategist for his campaign, Mark Marissen, was also a key adviser to Clark and left his fingerprints over any number of her decisions.

With Marissen lurking in the background, Lee has as strong a link to the Clark record as those who were sitting at her cabinet table.

It was Clark, not Stone, who insisted on the botched TransLink referendum that cost the Liberals support and respect in Metro Vancouver.