Click on video to watch full CKNW BC Election 2013 Leaders’ Debate, broadcast earlier today
As per the heading of today’s VanRamblings post, why was Thursday, April 25th, and why will today both prove to be slow days on the campaign trail?
Easy answer that.
This morning, veteran CKNW broadcaster Bill Good hosted an exclusive BC leadership debate on AM980 (see video above). The much-touted Leaders’ Debate included BC NDP leader Adrian Dix, Liberal leader Christy Clark, Green leader Jane Sterk and Conservative leader John Cummins.
Where were the leaders on Thursday, and where will the leaders be over the weekend? In preparation. Thursday was preparation day for the make-it-or-break-it election opportunity that a leaders’ debate provides to the four hopefuls running to become Premier of British Columbia. For any politico out there worth her or his salt, CKNW 980 was the place to be Friday morning. Full video of the CKNW Leaders’ Debate may be found above.
Monday’s April 29th leaders’ debate, to be broadcast both on the three big television networks (CBC, CTV and Global), as well as on radio across the province, is the real make-it-or-break-it pivot for Decision BC 2013. All one has to do is look back at the impact then Liberal leader Gordon Wilson had on the electorate in 1991, and where many decided to park their vote.
The 1991 leaders’ debate was supposed to be a clash between the NDP’s Mike Harcourt and Social Credit’s Rita Johnston. But Liberal leader Gordon Wilson surprised everyone by getting in the best shots, as he scolded the bickering Harcourt and Johnston. “This reminds me of the legislature and here’s a classic example of why nothing ever gets done in the province of British Columbia,” Wilson told the television home viewing audience.
Although the New Democratic Party went on to win an astounding 51 seats in the house, the Socreds were decimated, finished, done like dinner — winning only 7 seats — while the Liberals went from zero to 17 seats in the legislature. Not winning the debate was one of the few flaws in what was considered a great campaign for NDP leader and new premier Mike Harcourt.
Leadership debates can have a profound effect, as they did in 1991 in BC, or on the national stage, when in 1984 Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney confronted a deer-in-headlights, newly-elected Liberal leader John Turner — Mulroney pouncing on Turner’s patronage appointments and thunderously rejecting Turner’s leadership in a heated exchange — devastating Turner in a one-on-one debate, in the process taking the Conservatives to an unprecedented 211 seat victory in Parliament.
Whether it’s this morning’s leaders’ debate on CKNW, or Monday evening’s televised leaders’ debate, how the four leaders perform could very well emerge as a determining factor in who wins government on May 14th.
Although the ad above is a bit dated (it came out in Nov. 2010, prior to newly-elected Liberal leader Christy Clark announcing a rise in the minimum wage, which now sits at $10.25 an hour), the ad nonetheless speaks to a core constituency of the NDP, in a resolutely non-cynical manner.
In a month of Sundays, the provincial Liberals could never hope to achieve a connection with the youth in our province because, let’s face it, the provincial Liberals — even with the bright, relatively young face of Christy Clark at the helm — are the party of the old fuddy duddies, the party of the corporate elite, a provincial political party that believes in stasis over change.
The New Democratic Party speaks to, and for, most youth who reside in British Columbia. Whereas to the provincial Liberal party youth are just kids, kids who don’t get out to vote, and thus whose interests are unworthy of concern or interest, to be roundly ignored while on the campaign trail and, more particularly, while holding the reins of government.
Take a moment to consider the unemployment rate among youth in British Columbia — an astounding and unforgivable 14.5%, the highest youth unemployment rate in Canada. And just what have the Liberals done to address the problem of unemployment among our province’s young people? The answer is a simple one: BC does not have Canada’s highest youth unemployment rate because the Liberals gave a damn about this British Columbia constituency (or their worried parents, for that matter).
If what VanRamblings has observed while volunteering in the offices of Vancouver Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby offers any indication on where the youth vote will go in Decision BC 2013, and how many of our youth will plug in to this year’s provincial election — as we’ve witnessed an unprecedentedly well-organized, daily outreach campaign to youth, and the many thousands of students at UBC — the BC NDP are set to gain an unprecedented portion of the youth vote come election day, May 14th.
C’mon back to VanRamblings over the weekend, when we’ll continue to provide dense coverage of Decision BC 2013, as we link to reports in the mainstream and alternative press, point you in the direction of interest group involvement in the election, and otherwise attempt to provide you with the information you may have missed while leading your very busy life.
(For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013)
(For those of you who arrived here looking for coverage of last week’s Kitsilano Community Centre AGM — as sorry an example of untoward democratic engagement as you’re ever likely to witness — VanRamblings’ coverage of the KitsCC AGM may be found here. The Vancouver Courier’s Sandra Thomas has written about the KitsCC AGM, as well, her coverage of the delirious, anti-community meeting to be found here.)
