Sickened by the Liberals' New Era for B.C.? Scared to go back to the NDP? Not feeling very Green?
There might just be an alternative to eating your ballot on May 17, 2005.
A new political party proposed by Cache Creek Mayor John Ranta would take, according to media reports, the best of NDP social policy and the fiscal approach of the B.C. Liberals.
Ranta even hopes to have four sitting MLAs defect from the Liberals for the official launch of the as-yet unnamed new party - enough to automatically qualify it as the Official Opposition in the B.C. Legislature.
While a new force in politics sounds like a great idea considering the current alternatives, we're disappointed by the way Ranta appears to be selling it. Combining the NDP's social policy and the Liberals' fiscal conservatism sounds nice, but it's inherently contradictory. The Liberals have balanced the books on the back of those budget cuts that have left Gordon Campbell looking like a man without a conscience. Where, exactly, would Premier Ranta find the money to balance the budget, if not in those same places?
We think the issue for voters is not so much ideology as competency. Every party wants balanced books and a chicken in every pot. We believe voters want something much rarer - a government they can trust to do what it says it will do.
In 10 years of government, the NDP obliterated that trust - from fudged budgets to fast cats, from Bingogate to Casinogate - to the point where they were nearly wiped off the political map.
The Liberals, meanwhile, have taken only three years to get to roughly the same level of notoriety, from service cuts to fee hikes, to flip-flops on BC Rail and privatizing the Coquihalla, with a Hawaiian mug shot and a police raid on the Legislature thrown in for good measure.
As it stands right now, "none of the above" isn't on the ballot, which means one of these two competency-challenged parties will win the next election.
That party will likely be the Liberals, in large part due to the split in left-leaning votes between the NDP and the Green Party.
But if a centrist or right-wing party like Ranta's can establish itself as credible and competent, both the Liberals and the NDP will have a serious fight on their hands next May.
If that sounds unlikely, remember how many seats the Liberals had in the Legislature before 1991 - zero. They came out of nowhere to break up the two-party Socred-NDP system.
We've tried alternatives before. Who's to say we might not again?
