BC Politics and Economy: Why Can't We Be Friends? SFU Public Square brings together the solitudes

SFU forum on BC economy shows political nemeses can set aside acrimony for harmony and tackle issues together.  

Bill Tieleman‘s 24 Hours Vancouver / The Tyee column

Tuesday October 8, 2013

By Bill TIeleman

"So where are the strong / And who are the trusted? / And where is the harmony? / Sweet harmony."

- Nick Lowe, "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?"

If there's just one thing everyone in British Columbia politics could agree on, it's that we can't be friends.

From business and labour, to environmentalists and natural resource companies, to First Nations, anti-poverty and other groups, it's clear B.C. is definitely not home to sweet harmony.

Confrontation always seems to beat cooperation.

That's why it's so astonishing when something harmonious happens here, and I was fortunate enough to witness it.

On Friday, strong and trusted representatives of all these sectors sat down in the same room to discuss how to improve B.C.'s economy -- to create wealth but also address social equity issues and environmental protection.

Now that's radical! And you know what else is?

Hearing B.C. Business Council CEO Greg D'Avignon state that increasing support for early childhood education is "vital" to the province's success.

Or Vancity Credit Union CEO Tamara Vrooman, a former B.C. deputy minister of finance, telling participants that a business "can have progressive values and prosper" as well.

Or BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong acknowledging in his opening speech the presence of NDP leader Adrian Dix and NDP MLAs Carole James and Bruce Ralston.

It all happened thanks to Simon Fraser University's Public Square forum, an effort "for enlightenment and dialogue on key public issues."

Busting out of the silos

SFU president Andrew Petter, himself an ex-NDP finance minister, said in an interview after the forum that British Columbians need to "take more responsibility as citizens to resolve issues and not just leave it to the politicians."

"There needs to be more space in this province that's 'neutral ground' not governed by partisan politics," Petter explained. "At a high level, there's consensus."

Petter believes business understands economic growth must accompany improved equality and include environmental sustainability, but that requires dialogue.

"So often in this province we gather in groups of like-minded people in our own silos," Petter said. "We need to create a more collaborative environment, to encourage politicians to be more collaborative."

Was there disagreement in the forum as well as cooperation? You bet!

The rules of participation required that I not quote individuals in order to encourage open discussion, but I can say that there was spirited debate.

And pointed commentary, like when Chief Sophie Pierre, head of the B.C. Treaty Commission, remarked in an open-to-media session that "when a First Nation benefits, the whole region benefits -- but it's not necessarily true the other way."

Or when Yuen Pau Woo, CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation, said that Vancouver is the "most Asian city outside of Asia" but then added: "There's not that many Asians in this room, by the way."

Sweet, uncertain harmony

But what was most striking is that it wasn't the strident, confrontational or close-minded bluster that often passes for debate in B.C.

Despite being known as a fiercely partisan left and labour supporter, I value good friendships with people from the right and in business -- because we often agree on many things while adamantly but politely disagreeing on others.

I've worked with previous adversaries like ex-premier Bill Vander Zalm on the same side of issues, such as eliminating the Harmonized Sales Tax, building new ferries in B.C. rather than Germany, and not privatizing BC Rail.

The point isn't the issues themselves or that others hold equally strong opposing views; it's that British Columbians with different perspectives can and do come together in common cause, despite the perception that this is a province of many solitudes.

The challenge is to find more issues where we can agree and make concrete progress, such as the need to improve skills training and provide more work for British Columbians -- and not poison the well over points where we can't reach consensus.

Some of the background discussion material produced by SFU show how important that is, from B.C. having the worst child poverty rate in Canada -- tied with Manitoba at 11.3 per cent -- to having the second highest gap between low and high income earners, to having aggregate labour productivity at 10 per cent below the national average, and much more.

The forum demonstrated that people with dramatically divergent views can talk productively about these issues, if only for a day to start. But will anything come of the temporary, uncertain harmony in the room?

That depends. There was consensus that SFU's public square -- or some other body, dare one suggest the province -- needs to do this again soon.

That's a tall order anytime, and especially after a rancorous election campaign, but the startling fact that so many different leaders who never talk could spend a day together in relative harmony -- and want to do it more -- is a promising sign.

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BC Liberal MLA John Yap Must Go As Parliamentary Secretary to Attorney General Because Of Investigation Into Ethnic Outreach Scandal When Yap Was Minister

Why is former minister John Yap - mired in BC Liberal outreach scandal - still working for BC Attorney General and Justice Minister Suzanne Anton?

BC Liberal MLA John Yap

"An apparent conflict of interest exists when there is a reasonable apprehension, which reasonably well-informed persons could properly have, that a conflict of interest exists."

- former Ontario Supreme Court chief justice William Parker, 1987

Why is BC Liberal MLA John Yap still serving as parliamentary secretary to the attorney general and justice minister while RCMP and a special prosecutor investigate the ethnic outreach scandal?

Yap resigned from cabinet as B.C.'s minister responsible for multiculturalism after it was revealed that activities in his ministry crossed the line from government work to partisan politics at taxpayer expense.

A report by Premier Christy Clark's deputy minister John Dyble concluded "lines between party work and government are clearly crossed" in a meeting Yap attended with ethnic outreach staff.

The staff involved, Dyble wrote, "breached the Standards of Conduct in the blending of coordination of ministry and partisan events."

Yap also admitted his ex-staffers Brian Bonney and Mike Lee used private emails to avoid Freedom of Information requests, violating government legislation.

And for good reason.

An email Yap received from Lee's personal account told him: "It is absolutely critical that we do not leave any evidence" about assistance hiring three ethnic outreach community liaisons that Yap knew, the Dyble report says.

"I made a mistake here, and I'm owning up to it. I've learned the hard way that was not appropriate," Yap said in March.

So why is Yap still in a key position as assistant to Attorney General Suzanne Anton, while the RCMP and special prosecutor David Butcher probe possible Elections Act violations and potentially lay charges?

It's simple: Yap must go

It's called apparent conflict of interest -- and it's obvious that Yap shouldn't hold his position while the investigation takes place.

Indeed a Sept. 26 BC Criminal Justice Branch statement said the appointment of a special prosecutor was made: "as the investigation could include members of government and/or government employees."

Yap may be completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but that's not the point.

What's important is that Yap, someone likely to be questioned about ethnic outreach issues, not be at the same time in a prominent position in the ministry responsible for supervising police and justice.

It's really not complicated. Yap simply has to go.

After all, look at what happened in March 2013:

Yap was out as minister responsible; Premier Christy Clark's deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad and Yap's executive assistant Mike Lee resigned for their roles in those so-called "quick win" activities; and the BC Liberal Party paid the province $70,000 to compensate for the inappropriate partisan work done by government staff.

Later the NDP made allegations that Bonney, as communications director for the multiculturalism ministry, offered a job to a disgruntled staff person involved who had information that "would damage the Premier and the (Liberal) party" -- according to an email sent by Bonney.

B.C. New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix triggered the current investigation by sending a private letter containing new information about the scandal to the RCMP.

That information has not been made public, but it obviously was sufficiently important to warrant the appointment of a special prosecutor.

The BC Criminal Justice Branch statement said that no word about the appointment had been released until then "at the specific request of the RCMP to safeguard the integrity of the investigation in its early stages."

Clark survived the ethnic outreach scandal to win the May election, but she should not put political loyalty to Yap ahead of the integrity of the investigation. Yap must go until it concludes.

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Ben Chin, Communications Director to Premier Christy Clark, testifying live now at Ontario Legislative Inquiry into $585 million cancellation of power plants

Ben Chin, Communications Director to Premier Christy Clark, testifies at Ontario Legislative Inquiry into $500 million cancellation of power plants - Thursday September 26, 2013

It isn't everyday that a senior BC government official in the premier's office testifies before an Ontario Legislative Inquiry into a decision that will cost taxpayers up to $585 million - but today that's what Ben Chin is doing.

You can watch Chin testify under some tough questioning from opposition members live right now - as of 12:30 p.m. BC time - at the Ontario hearing.

Why is Ben Chin testifying?  Because of his role as Vice-President Communications at the Ontario Power Authority, a job he got after running unsuccessfully for the Ontario Liberal Party in the 2006 election.

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Brian Topp Spins BC NDP's Election Loss in "Leaked" Report

Former campaign manager Brian Topp should have never got the job 

Brian Topp

Bill Tieleman’s 24 Hours Vancouver / The Tyee column

Tuesday September 24, 2013

By Bill Tieleman  

"The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."

- Adlai E. Stevenson, two-time U.S. presidential candidate.

The biggest conclusion one can draw from the leaked report of B.C. New Democratic Party election campaign manager Brian Topp is that he never should have got the job.

Last week Topp's 42-page confidential document for the BC NDP was somehow obtained by not one but two major newspapers and an influential Ottawa political blog just after leader Adrian Dix announced his resignation last week.

Reading the report makes it clear that Topp is undertaking the biggest salvage job since the Costa Concordia cruise ship was removed from the rocks off Italy's coast, trying to re-float his damaged political consulting career.

Topp attempts to subtly yet inexorably paint Dix as sinking the campaign almost singlehandedly, but the reality is that Topp -- not Dix -- was actually running it.

And while Dix -- whom I supported for leader -- took responsibility by quitting, the Topp spin merely "deeply" regrets some mistakes in "hindsight."

Yet those errors were fatal, and many of Topp's recommendations are little more than Political Campaigning 101 fundamentals.

For example: "The next campaign must contrast the choices and remind voters of the government's record in clear, compelling and straightforward language from the first day of the campaign."

Or: "Our proposals were framed as spending commitments rather than as outcomes that meant something to the lives of families."

No kidding!

But wasn't Topp hired because he was a veteran campaign manager and strategist who knows all this stuff? Did he need to lose a "can't miss" election to rediscover the basics?

And if Topp disagreed with the premise of the campaign and the leader's approach that were well known months before, why did he take the assignment?

Questionable company

That Topp even was allowed to continue as campaign manager after announcing in February he had formed the public affairs company Kool Topp & Guy with Christy Clark's disgraced former chief of staff Ken Boessenkool and BC Liberal Party advisor Don Guy was the NDP's and Dix's biggest election mistake.

Boessenkool resigned after an "incident of concern" involving a female staffer in a Victoria bar; and Guy, a longtime Ontario Liberal strategist, spoke behind closed doors at the provincial Liberal convention in 2012 on how to defeat the NDP. He later joined Christy Clark's election team.

Boessenkool famously remarked that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's greatest achievement in office was to kill a national child care program, while Guy was embroiled in an Ontario public inquiry into the cancellation of two natural gas power plants at a cost of over $585 million to taxpayers. Interesting company for Topp to keep, let along partner with.

When Guy flew into B.C. to do communications and research for Clark's successful election campaign, it meant that two owners of the same firm were fighting on opposite sides of the ballot, while the third owner cheered on his former boss Clark -- knowing either way one of his partners would win.

But the NDP was apparently too nervous to find another manager without Topp's baggage before the election, even though it should have.

Lazy polling

It was Topp who astonishingly rejected the mainstay of modern political campaigns: polling key swing ridings daily during the election to determine trends. I broke this news in The Tyee after the election.

Since then I've learned the NDP undertook significant swing riding polling during the 2009, 2005 and even the disastrous 2001 election campaigns -- but not in 2013.

Meanwhile, the Liberals were doing daily tracking polls in 25 key ridings, giving them instant feedback on messaging, NDP vulnerability and where to allocate resources.

But the NDP continued believing they were well ahead and bound for glory, until 8:30 p.m. on election night, when the easy victory turned into an historic defeat.

And yet Topp's report doesn't even mention the lack of swing riding polling, let alone why it was rejected as a tool for the first time in over a decade.

Nor does it explain the reasons behind a late campaign switch in pollsters from Environics to Strategic Communications.

Both did province-wide polling similar to public polls conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion and Ipsos that wrongly showed the NDP ahead through the whole campaign, though StratCom's numbers had it a much tighter race and even put the Liberals slightly ahead by a point five days out before the NDP regained the lead.

Topp's report instead obliquely says: "Critics of our campaign have had a lot to say about what they think they know about our tracking polling during the campaign. In hindsight, there were more fundamental issues with the way we researched this campaign that should not be repeated."

(Ironically, the only time Dix got a boost in the party's own polling was after the televised debate -- which not coincidentally was the only time Dix launched a withering attack on Premier Christy Clark. While some retroactively argue Dix lost the debate, several polls, public and the NDP's formerly private poll, show clearly that Dix bested Clark.)

Removed from BC

Topp also picked and directed the "war room" staff of political operatives who prosecuted the campaign, including fellow Jack Layton veterans Brad Lavigne and Anne McGrath from Ontario.

And as campaign manager, Topp also chose Toronto ad agency Open to produce the BC NDP's lacklustre election ads. Open created federal NDP election ads in 2011, when the party vaulted into second place, with Topp a senior advisor to Layton.

Topp also declined to come to B.C. early to get started on the campaign, instead participating remotely from Toronto before flying in a few weeks before the writ dropped.

And again the NDP wrongly acquiesced, presumably thinking British Columbia couldn't be that different from Ontario or a national campaign. It is.

The decision to roll out the NDP platform planks in the hostile territory of senior BC Liberal cabinet ministers -- where there were bad optics and limited supporters -- was another Topp choice, though one that he grudgingly acknowledges in the report, albeit with a dismissive reference.

"We paid a price for our plan to campaign in senior ministers' ridings (my idea, for those who are looking for the specific witch to burn on this issue)," Topp says.

As I've written at length, Dix made plenty of mistakes -- demanding long in advance a campaign that didn't go negative, switching positions mid-election to oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline -- and took ultimate responsibility for it by resigning his leadership last week.

But Dix wasn't driving the campaign bus, writing the ad copy, advancing the tour stops and running the war room!

A tough job, but...

Ultimately in a campaign every leader, no matter how strongly held their views, has to defer to the campaign manager.

That was no different in 1996 when I was communications director to NDP premier Glen Clark in the upset election win over BC Liberal leader Gordon Campbell. Glen Clark had clear ideas about that challenging election but campaign manager Hans Brown called the shots.

So it's admittedly a very tough job filled with difficult decisions and huge consequences where just one mistake can cost an election.

Topp is a talented man who has been around political campaigns for decades, as well as almost becoming leader of the federal New Democrats, coming second to Tom Mulcair in 2012.

And having known Topp for over 35 years, I take no pleasure in drawing my conclusions.

That Topp failed in a critical election for BC New Democrats was tragic; that he take responsibility for certain "errors of strategy" but avoids doing so for other critical decisions avoids is disturbing.

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