In our efforts to adequately cover the recent federal election, and keep up with foreign events from the Middle East to Latin America, we at Seven Oaks have had to temporarily let one particular world politician off the hook somewhat. And that’s Gordon Campbell, premier of beautiful British Columbia, who has carried out an ugly three-year attack on this province’s labour movement and social fabric.

We have, in our first 21 weeks, worked to document the impact of Campbell’s B.C. Liberal government and its regressive class war agenda, covering:

• Child labour laws that allow 12 year-olds to work almost without restriction
• This year’s anti-Campbell themed International Women’s Day
• The cutting of Women’s Centers’ funding
• Social housing advocates, targeting the provincial government for the homelessness crisis
• Community activists taking on Translink, for affordable public transit
• HEU workers and their allies fighting Bill 37
• The criminalizing of poverty on the streets of Vancouver
• And, the criminalizing of dissent and resistance, as seen in the ‘Britannia 9’ case

But this, of course, represents only a fraction of the wide-ranging offensive of the Liberal regime in Victoria, begun three years ago after decimating the NDP (and ineffectual premier turned new federal Liberal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh) in the May 2001 provincial election. With a 77-2 super-majority, Campbell’s crew set out to, in the words of a gleeful advisor, “squash” the labour movement “like a bug.”

A very partial list of this legislative squashing has included:

• Deregulation of tuition fees leading to 30% and higher annual hikes.
• Implementation of a $2/hour cut to the minimum wage, under the guise of a “training wage” for first-time workers.
• Back-to-work legislation for teachers, nurses and ferry workers, and imposed contracts and thousands of layoffs for hospital workers.
• The murky $1 billion sell-off of B.C. Rail to CN.
• A racist referendum on Native rights; no referendum on the 2010 Olympics, to be held on unceded land.
• The ham-fisted imposition of the public-private-partnership RAV rapid-transit line.

But somewhere along this neo-Liberal joyride –perhaps in Maui –the government started to go off the newly privatized rails. Unexpected opposition sprang up to reject Campbell’s agenda. The potential strength of this resistance became apparent in late April of this year, as massive, province-wide solidarity joined the struggle of hospital workers against wage cuts and privatization. The last-minute settlement of the strike exposed some of the tensions between strategies of electoral politics and mass mobilization, which needn’t necessarily be counter-posed. Many HEU members expressed anger at the leadership of the B.C. Federation of Labour over the deal, while simmering anger against the Campbell government became even hotter.

And so today, with less than a year left in the B.C. Liberal mandate, there is blood in the water, and not just from the destructive side effects of corporate fish farms. Polls have consistently shown the B.C. NDP resurrected, and leading the Liberals in popularity. A Mustel group poll done in early July showed the NDP leading the government by a staggering 12-point margin, with Gordo himself suffering from a 60% disapproval rate.

With the real poll looming a mere 301 days away on May 17, 2005, and with labour struggles with the BCTF and others coming in the meantime, Seven Oaks will be working hard to cover the movement against Gordon Campbell, from street protests to the ballot box. We will look at the impact of Liberal cuts on British Columbians; cover the debate over strategies for defeating Campbell; and, most importantly, strive to be part of a growing network working to provide the information and analysis sorely lacking in the pages of the Vancouver Sun and Province and the rest of the monopolized media.

Despite the cheap shot photo this week, it’s really not about blood alcohol –we wouldn’t have wanted to hear Fred and Kathy in the morning either. The premier’s reckless endangerment of lives in B.C. has been far more comprehensive than his little “personal mistake” in Hawaii. In the not-too-distant future, the people of British Columbia may well deliver to Gordon Campbell the verdict that really matters.

In the meantime, Seven Oaks will be keeping a very close eye on provincial politics.

July 20, 2004

Seven Oaks Editorial Board

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