Hot Tub Time Machine, B.C. politics-style

Join me, as I hop into my Hot Tub Time Machine and go back to a time when life was simpler.

Winter was turning to spring in 2001. Phones weren't smart yet. The world didn't know what a Bieber was. The Canucks wore ugly uniforms. The Vancouver Olympics were only an idea. U2 was on tour with P.J. Harvey. Joey Ramone was dying of cancer. Paul Martin was Canada's Prime Minister. Al Gore should've been President of the United States. The World Trade Center stood tall in New York City. 

In British Columbia, the exhausted, drunk-on-power ruling party of the day was facing a throw-the-bums out election. On that year’s Pi Day, the last Legislative session under the second NDP era (1991-2001) began. The BC Liberals were on a roll, they could taste victory in the upcoming election. It was time for a new era. 

Officially known as the "5th Session of the 36th Parliament of British Columbia," it commenced with pomp and circumstance on March 14, 2001 with the Throne Speech read by Lt. Gov. Garde Gardom. 

It was the year after a Summer Olympics (B.C. wrestler Daniel Igali and triathlete Simon Whitfield came home with gold medals from Sydney 2000). The Premier had been in office a short time (Ujjal Dosanjh, just over a year). The government was claiming a balanced budget. Its themes were similar: Jobs, tourism, trade, apprenticeship training, prosperity for families.

The session wrapped up on April 11, 2001, before Easter weekend. Jenny Kwan, Harry Lali, Mike Farnworth and Sue Hammell were on the NDP government side. Today they're in the opposition benches. 

The opposition ranks in 2001 included such members of Today’s BC Liberals as Ida Chong, Linda Reid, Mike de Jong, Christy Clark, Rich Coleman, Kevin Krueger, Murray Coell, George Abbott, Colin Hansen, Gordon Hogg and Bill Barisoff.

Clark is now, of course, the Premier. Barisoff the speaker. John van Dongen was in the Liberal caucus back then. He split on March 26, 2012 to become an independent and has done yeoman's work to seek the truth in the BC Rail scandal.

Only two topics were included in Question Period on April 11, 2001. SkyTrain expansion costs and school district funding. 

De Jong and Geoff Plant grilled Farnworth, who was the Minister of Social Development and Economic Security (whey wasn't it economic development and social security?), about Millennium Line cost overruns. 

de Jong: In November the government received its project management report from Gannett Fleming and that report says that each additional month beyond the current completion date would add approximately $6 million in accumulated interest during construction costs. The report from February says that date is now five months behind.Since it's five months behind, that would add at least $30 million to the cost of the project. Will the minister responsible confirm that estimate, based on the NDP government's own documentation? 

Hon. M. Farnworth: One of the interesting things I think the opposition needs to realize is that when you have reports done and you have the project monitored in the way we are monitoring it and in the way it's being monitored by an outside independent agency on a quarterly basis, you're in a position to take measures to ensure that if there are unanticipated costs going to occur, you can mitigate those costs. You make decisions to ensure that they don't happen. 

The real question is: what would that side of the House do if they were on this side of the House? Would they continue with SkyTrain? Would they extend it to Coquitlam Centre? Those are the questions that Port Coquitlam, Port Moody and Coquitlam have been asking, and they don't get any answers from that side of the House when they're asked. 

G. Plant: There are still a few more questions that we'd like to ask. 

As of the end of December the SkyTrain expansion project had just over $44 million left in its contingency fund. But according to the February quarterly review prepared by the Gannett Fleming firm, all but $200,000 of that $44 million is already expected to be allocated. That means that with 40 percent of the project left to complete, there's only $200,000 left for non-forecasted items. 

Will the minister responsible tell us how on earth he expects anyone to believe that there won't be cost overruns for the project when they've already maxed out on the contingency fund, and they're barely halfway finished? 

Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess it's appropriate for that member, being from Richmond, to ask that question, because clearly he doesn't go to that part of the lower mainland. If he did, he'd see that it's nearly built. He'd know that most of the costs in the budget have already been committed, that it's there in concrete and cement. It's there going all the way into Vancouver. It's there going to Lougheed Mall. The costs have been allocated.He'd also know that the reason why -- and I'll repeat the answer for him again -- is that we have quarterly updates that are posted on the Internet. If he doesn't know how to use it, it's www.skytrain.com, and he can find them there. He'll know that the project is being built. It's being built to Lougheed Mall, and it's going to go to Coquitlam Centre.

The last question asked to the NDP government? It was by future education minister and premier Clark. 

Clark

C. Clark: On to more commitments that the government doesn't intend to keep, and maybe on to more questions that the government doesn't intend to answer -- well, let's try it anyway. The School Act requires that this government give its budgets to school boards by February 1 of the fiscal year. And guess what. They missed the deadline. So they extended it by two months. And guess what. They missed the deadline again. And so now they're in contravention of the law. The minister says, when she's asked by school boards: "Oh, don't worry about it. The budget's in the mail." Yeah, right. And the dog ate your briefing notes -- right? 

MacPhail 

My question for the minister is this: why does the government even bother making statutory rules about deadlines when it has absolutely no intention of keeping them? 

Hon. Joy MacPhail: Well, let me begin by saying that I hope the red light doesn't go on, so the hon. member can ask another question. 

Actually, the letter to the school boards telling them the allocation for funds went out on March 30. So the school boards are well aware. And later this week there will be another letter going out, detailing the increases that school boards will receive. 

It will be the tenth year in a row that each and every school district in this province gets more money for education. It will be the tenth year in a row that our government will continue to build a school once every 19 days. It will continue the funding for the fourth year to reduce class sizes so that our youngest kids have the best possible success. It will be the ninth year in a row that we make a commitment to teach our children in languages other than the English language. It will be the fourth year in a row that we make a commitment to put 700 more teachers in classrooms in this province. And it will be about the sixth year that we make a commitment to fund education for aboriginal children in this province, who deserve the best possible chance. 

What I fear is that if there is a year when this government is not in charge, there will be a dramatic tax cut and a cut in education funding. 

The Speaker: The bell ends question period.

And so it ended. The NDP was turfed out of office on May 16, 2001. Gone was the party of the Nanaimo bingo scandal, North Burnaby Inn casino scandal and Fast Ferries. Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals won 100% of the power with a landslide 77 of 79 seats, although they garnered almost 58% of the popular vote. Only MacPhail and Kwan made it from the government side to the opposition side -- just two NDP members from a party that got almost 22% of the popular vote. 

Back to 2013. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The government hired scandal-plagued SNC-Lavalin to build the SkyTrain Evergreen Line to the Tri-Cities. Education funding remains a hot-button, as Clark made a futile attempt to sign the NDP-allied B.C. Teachers’ Federation to a decade-long contract. 

The voters are angry and impatient again. This time (in no particular order) it's the HST, BC Rail scandal mystery, B.C. Place Stadium cost overruns, "Quick Wins" Multicultural Outreach Strategy scandal, Jobs Plan advertising campaign, Times of India Film Awards, Prince George plyscraper tendering, BC Hydro Smart Meters... All polls point to the NDP returning to power in the May 14, 2013 election. 

Will the pattern repeat in a decade? 

Regime change: T-minus 104 days?

A desperate governing party is looking at the calendar and the opinion polls and just might be realizing its stranglehold on power is running out. Better do something, anything. Quick! 

The Christy Clark BC Liberals are where the Bill Vander Zalm (and Rita Johnston) Social Credit was in 1991 and the Ujjal Dosanjh NDP was in 2001. Running out of ideas, detached from voters, hungry for just one more election win. 

Despite what the deluded pom-pom wearers and hired spinners will tell you, the Liberals could wake up on May 15 as a spent political force. 

Oh, they’re spending millions of dollars to tell you Canada Starts Here, when Cape Spear, Nfld. actually gets the first sun rays every day and Charlottetown in 1864 was where historians say the Dominion of Canada was conceived. And the B.C. Jobs Plan means B.C. is standing tall, like a big, old, white iPod that cannot be toppled by many smaller, old black iPods. Even if the jobs statistics don't stand up to scrutiny.

Then there’s the Concerned Citizens for B.C., the political action committee otherwise known as Jim Shepard’s Christy Clark Fan Club. Shepard and his flock want to remind you NDP leader Adrian Dix backdated a memo in 1999 when he was Premier Glen Clark’s stepandfetchit and that the NDP ordered the three-vessel fast ferry fleet that cost more than $200 million higher than the original budget and didn’t have a proper business plan. 

Shepard is blind to the fact the Liberals have bigger, newer skeletons in their closet. Such as the memos to file by Dave Basi which seem to implicate Clark in the leaking of confidential cabinet documents to a bidder for BC Rail. Clark is under investigation after a conflict of interest complaint by ex-Liberal MLA John van Dongen. The saga of B.C. Place Stadium is like a bookend. The Liberals were pondering a $100 million pre-Olympic spruce-up and roof replacement in January 2008. The final cost was $514 million and included a German-engineered retractable roof that is rarely opened. Taxpayers weren't consulted and they weren't even shown a business plan. Roof contractors are inching their way to a 100-day B.C. Supreme Court trial scheduled to begin Oct. 21. On Jan. 30, a lawyer for Canam disclosed before a judge that the company's claim against Freyssinet would be increased by $13 million to $39 million. 

Remember the infamous NDP fudge-it budget of 1996, when an $87 million surplus became a $350 million deficit after Glen Clark won election? The Liberals don’t want you to remember their 2009 faux pas when they promised a $495 million deficit during the election but delivered a $2 billion deficit budget just months after Gordon Campbell won his hat-trick. Lest you think dirty thoughts that the Liberals are going to fudge the numbers in their Feb. 19 pre-election budget, Finance Minister Mike de Jong has found another "independent" Maritimer for hire. 

Remember Stanley Cup riot investigator Doug Keefe, the former Nova Scotia mandarin who collaborated with ex-Olympics boss John Furlong and got paid $174,000? Meet Dr. Tim O’Neill, a Prince Edward Island economic consultant who is being paid at least $25,000 to look over de Jong's shoulder until budget time and give a passing grade. 

Message to Premier Clark: save money, call the Office of the Auditor General. 

But all is not lost. There are actually tiny rays of light showing through the fog that suggest someone in the Liberal party has realized the writing is on the wall. 

But is it too little too late? Just for show? 

On Jan. 30, BC Hydro announced it won't force smart meters on those customers who are holdouts, the thousands of people who are refusing to allow Corix crews on their property to install the iTron devices. 

On Jan. 31 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Bill Bennett will announce the creation of a new agency for B.C.'s film, arts and creative industries -- a merger of the B.C. Film Commission, B.C. Film + Media and the B.C. Arts Council. They'll combine to form a new body similar to the Ontario Media Development Corporation. A one-stop shop for the creative industries. 

Bennett was at North Shore Studios for the #SaveBCFilm rally that drew 4,000 people on Jan. 22 and heard one of the many suggestions to revitalize an industry purposely left out of Clark's B.C. Jobs Plan.

William F. White's Vancouver general manager Garin Josey was spotted at the Canada Place Starbucks preparing for a Jan. 30 meeting in the Premier's Vancouver Office. Josey boosted the We Create B.C. social media campaign during the Jan. 22 North Shore Studios rally. He didn't tell me who he was meeting, but I confirmed independently that it was Bennett and Citizens’ Services Minister Ben Stewart.  

The Liberals are trying to looking kinder and gentler, but it’ll take more action to convince me of their sincerity. Here is my five-point, modest proposal for the Liberals to prove they're worthy of staying in office beyond May 14.

1. Notwithstanding Chief Justice Robert Bauman's Jan. 29 verdict, how about waiving the solicitor-client privilege and delivering the Basi-Virk indemnity agreement to John Doyle so he can finish his audit? 
2. Why not hire a retired judge and give him or her a one-year mandate and reasonable budget for a BC Rail public inquiry? 
3. Perhaps publish the B.C. Place renovation business plan and ask the Auditor General to launch a full-blown value-for-money audit? 
4. Possibly reveal the real reasons for the cancellation of the Liquor Distribution Branch logistics privatization? 
5. Maybe rescind all those the Freedom of Information delay letters that everyone’s getting these days?