It’s positively dizzying, the amount of political manoeuvring going on in the run-up to the election campaign.
The routine business of the legislature at this point consists of a budget and a handful of mundane bills, with a couple designed more for public appeal thrown in. But that doesn’t begin to cover the gamesmanship, oneupmanship and pandering that’s underway. If Machiavelli were alive today, he’d be admiring all the scheming that’s going on.
The E&N Railway non-announcement was an outstanding example.
The B.C. Liberals wanted to be seen to be doing something — anything! — with the line. Next week is the sixth anniversary of that black day for trainspotters when the Dayliner was pulled off the derelict old line because it was too risky to run it anymore.
It has been six years during which absolutely nothing has happened.
Come election time, the dormant relic sits there like a big bag of potential, to be dragged out and exploited. At this point in the last election cycle, the government found $765,000 for E&N Rail Trail improvements. This time around, B.C. Liberals are putting together their artisanal, homegrown Vancouver Island platform and it has to have something about the E&N in it.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone would enjoy announcing a new commuter train from downtown right to NDP Leader John Horgan’s front door, two months before an election. Picture how delightful it would be for the Liberals to watch Horgan, duty-bound to criticize everything, find something about a commuter line in his riding to complain about.
But there isn’t enough money. So Stone went only partway up the line, to Esquimalt — where Mayor Barb Desjardins happens to be running for the Liberals — and announced next to nothing. They rounded up a trainload of mayors to watch him not announce an actual train. It’s a working group about a train, instead.
Why use half-measures, when you can use 16ths?
Meanwhile, the government is defending in the house its crackdown on puppy mills against all critics. Which is easy, because there aren’t any. The one point of unanimity this season is that all MLAs want kittens and puppies to be raised properly.
They took a quick break from that theme to expunge 19 legislative relics from the 19th century that have racist, anti-Asian elements. Four years ago, this kind of thing was cynically contemplated as a “quick win” for ethnic votes that led to a scandal. It was introduced this time around without controversy, although the political rationale looks to be the same.
Elsewhere, the NDP and Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver are in an arms race to see who can file the most private member’s bills, legislation that is strictly for show.
The NDP filed the Get Big Money out of Politics Act. Weaver countered with a bill to move Family Day ahead a week. The NDP filed six more democratic-reform bills, including one to start registering voters at age 16. Weaver raised, with a bill to let 16-year-olds vote. He followed that with a “right to roam” the backcountry act and an endangered species bill.
The NDP matched that with species-at-risk protection and raised with a poverty-reduction bill.
Weaver came back with term limits for MLAs and a law barring employers from making women wear high heels at work. Together they’ve pitched 39 bills so far and there’s no telling where it’s going to end.
Next week, the Liberals will try to catch up with a bill that takes a swipe at financing reform. Counting the private ones, it’s the fourth bill on that topic this session. It will require more immediate disclosure of donations from all parties, something they started doing on their own in January. It’s designed to give the impression a government that is years behind everyone on reform is actually ahead of the curve.
Friday’s news that Elections B.C. has handed over the lobbyist donations to the RCMP will heighten interest in the government’s version of reform. The legislature is expected to shut down Thursday.
The real political manoeuvring begins then, and the parties will go into it with lots of practice.
