(The following story by Glenn Bohn appeared on the Vancouver Sun website on November 27.)
VANCOUVER — B.C. New Democratic Party leader Carol James challenged Premier Gordon Campbell Wednesday to call an immediate election and “campaign on a broken promise” not to privatize BC Rail.
James, a child-care worker and former school board trustee, noted former NDP leader Joy MacPhail was ejected from the legislature earlier this month after saying Campbell must have been “lying” during the 2001 election campaign when he promised not to sell or privatize the Crown-owned railway.
Tuesday, just one week later, Campbell announced a $1-billion deal that gives the operations of the provincially owned railway to Canadian National Railway for the next 60 to 90 years.
“Politics is upside down in the province,” James told 1,400 delegates and several hundred more guests at this year’s B.C. Federation of Labour policy convention in Vancouver.
“Every day, Gordon Campbell lives a lie and Joy MacPhail is thrown out for telling the truth.”
During the last provincial election, James said, Campbell promised he would not privatize BC Rail.
“In 2001, he didn’t tell the voters the truth about his plans for BC Rail and he won,” she said.
“Mr. Campbell, you do not have a mandate to sell off BC Rail. If he wants to campaign on a sell-off of BC Rail, if he wants to campaign on a broken promise, I say let’s go. Call the election today, Mr. Premier.”
Cheers, whistles and a standing ovation greeted the challenge from the new NDP leader, whose party gets financial and political support from trade unions.
Campbell said Tuesday he would gladly run for re-election in 2005 on the Liberal government’s agreement with CN. Campbell said CN intends to cut BC Rail’s work force by 430 employees in the next three years, but also said planned CN investments in the north will lead to the creation of hundreds of new jobs there.
Despite James’s taunt about an immediate election, she referred at another point in her speech to her previously stated plans to wait until the May 2005 general election before seeking a seat in the legislature.
James has already rejected Campbell’s offer to call a byelection if either MacPhail or Jenny Kwan, the only other NDP MLA in the 79-seat assembly, steps down. And James predicted the NDP, not the reigning Liberals, will form the next government.
“When I do go to the legislature in 538 days, Mr. Campbell’s seat, if he has one, will be on the other side of the chamber,” she declared, referring to the seats occupied by Opposition MLAs.