What the #!&?

Writing from the Levant (in Istanbul en route to Tel Aviv), trying to understand what happened in the BC provincial election.

Did the pollsters just get the numbers terribly wrong, or did Christy Clark's relentlessly negative campaign work on a gullible electorate?

Four more years of that woman and her Cheshire grin: it makes one despair for the arts, for education, for the environment, for everything I thought I was supporting in casting my ballot early.

P.

London Calling, Part 1

I'm currently in London, and in between my own lecture commitments and rushing about madly to take in as many art shows and theatrical performances as possible (the subject of my next post), I've been looking for visible signs of the economic downturn on the country Gordon Brown and the Labour Party seem daily to be ceding more and more control of. The latest scandal--which crosses party lines, admittedly--is MPs' gross abuses of their parliamentary expense plans, paying down private mortgages, purchasing flats for their university-age daughters, adorning their bathrooms with gold-plated toilet seats, and the like. And all courtesy of taxpayers' hard-earned quid, as the daily UK tabloids like to remind us. Not the most endearing headlines during a recession.

A recent editorial in the Times actually laid much of the blame for the expenses scandal at the feet of Margaret Thatcher, who instead of raising MPs' quite meager salaries in the recessionary 80s (fearing a similar public outcry), encouraged them to supplement their incomes through Parliament's generous claim process. Indeed, part of the feeding frenzy around the current scandal does seem to be tied to a certain amount of collective, and retrospective, soul-searching on the part of Britons of all political stripes and social classes concerning the 30th anniversary of the Iron Lady's historic ascent to power in 1979. Everyone is assessing her legacy, not least in terms of New Labour's own current crisis of identity as it appears to face imminent defeat in the next general election, and as the internal finger-pointing begins regarding the sacrifice of core Labour principles and policies in the party's adaptation of Thatcher's neo-conservative, winner-takes-all economics into the softer balm of neo-liberalism, where the trickle down effect would seem to have more measurable (and visible) indices. Not that that's much consolation to the millions of unemployed across the UK, and one wonders what the Baroness, in her lucid moments, thinks of Brown--the person who absorbed her lessons only too well--nationalizing the country's banking system. She may not be for turning, but the economic and social revolution she inaugurated sure seems to be.

On this trip I've also been thinking a lot about Thatcher's legacy in relation to local politics in British Columbia. This in part stems from my desolation at the election results this past Tuesday, which saw Campbell and the Liberals being returned to a third consecutive majority. Needless to say, there were no Greens elected, and our own riding of Vancouver-Fairview, having been represented by the NDP since the last election (first by Gregor Robertson, and then by Jenn McGinn, who recently won a by-election following Robertson's departure to run for Mayor of Vancouver), went back to the Liberals this time around. The referendum on the proposed switch to a proportional voting system was also soundly rejected. In other words, same old, same old. While defections from the NDP to the Greens from core voters angry over their stance on the carbon tax (like me) may have had some role to play in key ridings where the Liberals were able to capitalize on a split vote on the left, I see in the maintenance of the status quo of BC's current right-wing agenda, a connection to UK politics past and present via the bloody Olympics.

The historical connection concerns the former Social Credit Party of BC, who modeled their vast privitization of provincial lands in the 1980s directly on the blueprint established by Thatcher. The key moment here was of course the selling of the Expo 86 lands to Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing's Concord Pacific development corporation, which has resulted in a massive change to Vancouver's skyline, and a form of property enclosure that has contributed directly to the social and economic woes of the Downtown East Side. In the wake of the Social Credit's political self-immolation (much like the UK Tories following their forcing of Thatcher to step down as leader), the once negligible Liberals of BC stepped in to fill the void on the province's political right, and with Campbell renewed for a third term as Premier, the province is poised to repeat the mistakes of Expo 86 in relation to the upcoming 2010 Olympics. 

In this context, I won't go on about the beleaguered Athletes' Village yet again--except to say that it provides a further connection to current UK politics. For in The Telegraph the other day (all that was available at the breakfast table where we're staying, I swear) it was announced that the Brown government was poised to raid its contingency coffers yet again to bail out the similarly over-budget and behind schedule Athletes' Village for the 2012 London Summer Olympics. This because, as in Vancouver, the Olympic Development Corporation's private partner was unable to secure further financing in the current economic climate. Moreover, as with Vancouver this past winter, talk was of the British government assuming full control of the project, leaving London taxpayers' on the hook for the whole of the billion-dollar mega-project. 

Despite this, London Mayor Boris Johnson ("a total twat," as our friend Cathy calls him) remains upbeat, stating in a recent Time Out London interview assessing his first year in office that the Olympics will be a success, and that now more than ever the city needs the spin-off projects, development energy, and general goodwill and pride of place that the Games will no doubt bring. 

I wonder if out-of-work punters from Shoreditch feel the same way? I wonder, too, if BC's citizens know what they've gotten themselves in to in re-electing Campbell and cronies? As with the fall-out from the Thatcher years, it may take several decades to answer such questions.

P.

Whither BC

Premier Gordo issued the BC provincial election writ this past Tuesday, and as the first week of campaigning draws to a lackluster close, your humble PPP scribe is herewith issuing his first and only intervention into the political debate about who should form the next government. In fact, my intervention is largely aimed at explaining why, after 17 years in the province, four general elections, and various by-elections, I will be withdrawing my once loyal support from the NDP.

Very simply, it has to do with their promise to revoke the carbon tax instituted by the Liberals this past summer. No matter the relative merits of the NDP’s plan to institute instead a cap and trade system on industry, my position largely has to do with the cynical sop to northern and rural voters that leader Carole James is engaging in with this kind of old-school politicking. That’s the same kind of thinking that has led to the situation we’re currently in with the North American automotive sector. For years, when governments should have been pouring money into electric and alternative fuel cars, to rebuilding cities and expanding public transit, and to retraining workers for the new post-industrial economy, they kept shilling for votes in the easiest way possible: by promising to safeguard obcelesent jobs. Except that now we’re past the point even of obcelesence. I’m no fan of the BC Liberals, who have managed to pick up where the Social Credit Party left off very nicely; however, by whatever route it has come into place, I do support BC’s carbon tax, and I think, with the clock ticking down on meaningful action to combat climate change, it is politically and morally irresponsible for a party and a leader to declare that, if elected, they would repeal any form of pro-environmental legislation. Moreover, at a time when most pundits are saying that Canada needs to get its act together and get on side (quite literally, in terms of our shared border) with the aggressive environmental policies President Obama is championing, to jettison unilaterally the country’s only existing carbon tax just looks plain stupid.

And it’s not just me who is saying this. A host of prominent BC environmentalists, from David Suzuki onwards, has condemned the NDP policy. Just yesterday the doyenne of Clayoquot herself, Tzeporah Berman, sent an open letter to Carole James deploring the move, and withdrawing her support from the party. Like Berman, my own position should by no means be read as an endorsement of the Liberals. In fact, I will be voting Green this election. The Greens support both local carbon taxes and a global cap and trade system on petroleum emissions; as they say, one can have both rather than either or! The Greens have also taken a stronger position than either of the other parties on protecting the Agricultural Land Reserve, and to providing legislative encouragement to local food production and processing. Finally, leader Jane Sterk has made a somewhat provocative and controversial (others have said loony) pledge to replace the RCMP in the province with a new provincial force, and to ban outright the use of tasers. Given what we’ve been hearing at the Braidwood Inquiry looking into the death of Robert Dziekanski these past few months, I’m inclined to support anyone who seeks to muzzle the trigger-happy Mounties with selective memory recall who police our airports.

However, if I want my vote to count at all (even if only in a future election), I guess that means I should also vote Yes to the referendum recommending implementation of a new Single Transferable Voting system. Not sure how I feel about that exactly, and must study the issue a bit more carefully, I think.

One novel thing this time around in terms of the practicalities of casting my vote is that, as I will be away for both election day and all three advance voting days, I shall have to cast my vote by mail, or else visit my local district electoral office and present some credible id. In an election where the outcome is already pretty much a foregone conclusion (it looks like another four years of old “DUI-Paul Kinsella-back slapping-I-just-want-to-wave-that-Olympic-flag” Campbell, I’m afraid), this will likely be my only excitement.

Finally, a clarification regarding a previous post from this month: in the course description I included along with my discussion of ECT's Studies in Motion, I implied that Robert Lepage was coming to town with his latest theatrical creation, The Blue Dragon, this fall. In fact, it will be February 2010, an event that will coincide with the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, and that will inaugurate the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at the new SFU Contemporary Arts Woodward's site. This was officially announced this past Wednesday by the President of SFU, Michael Stevenson, and by the Director of the School for the Contemporary Arts, Martin Gotfrit, at a morning press conference/celebration in Gastown to which I was invited. Lots of back-slapping and promises about how SFU's presence at Woodward's is going to help revitalize the area, and about the cultural and community partnerships the University and School are committed to realizing. Let's hope there's follow-through on that. At the very least, judging by the animated 3-D tour we were provided of the new facilities, the venue itself looks impressive.

P.