How much should history matter in the provincial election May 14? It seems it depends on which slice of history you want to bring forward.
NDP leader Adrian Dix says he doesn't want his campaign or that of his party to get personal and he has taken swipes at the B.C. Liberals for their attack ads.
It's about moving forward for all British Columbians and . . . insert standard political verbiage here.
Clearly, Dix wants to distance himself from one of the issues raised in the Liberal ads. As most of you astute electors know, Dix resigned as Premier Glen Clark's chief of staff after it was revealed he back-dated a memo, which became a serious issue during an RCMP investigation related to the awarding of casino licences.
That's a big-time trust issue, and we suggest it's fair game to raise it in a campaign where the back-dater wants to become premier of the province.
If that's just dredging up history and irrelevant today, like so many NDP supporters would have you believe, then one would think the NDP would follow that mantra and leave history alone when criticising the Liberals. Not so much. Or perhaps local candidates Barry Avis and Scott Fraser didn't get the memo from Dix about leaving history well enough alone.
The B.C. Liberals have no credibility when it comes to pre-election budgets because of the erroneous, misleading one they produced before the last election in 2009, Avis and Fraser said after the latest budget was delivered last week.
So, let's not drag up Dix's history in the premier's office but a budget from four years ago is fair game? Both the Dix malfeasance and the so-called fudge-it Liberal budget are relevant to this election. One could argue the Dix issue is even more relevant — we're talking about the same person, and the people involved in the fudge-it budget from 2009 are mostly long gone.
If you are trying to take the high road, Adrian Dix, it might be good to give your team members a map. We suspect it's a matter of the NDP only wanting its favourite parts of history and its favourite personalities in play during this election. Fortunately, voters see through this stuff easily and, unfortunately, games like this just add to the cynicism regarding party politics.
— Editorial by John Harding