British Columbia New Democratic Party - The Clark Years

The Clark Years

Glen Clark, who entered the 1996 election far back in the polls, proved an excellent campaigner who succeeded, at least for the duration of the election, in re-unifying the party's traditional coalition with the slogan "On Your Side". He effectively portrayed the BC Liberals' new leader, former Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell, as a pawn of big business and a dangerous right-wing extremist. Clark was aided in delivering this message by Jack Weisgerber, leader of the BC Reform Party (the name under which the majority of the Social Credit caucus had rebranded itself), and Wilson, now leader of the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) after being deposed by Campbell as leader of the BC Liberals. Although the BC NDP won only 39% of the vote to Campbell's 42%, it managed to secure 39 seats to Campbell's 33.

Although largely continuing Harcourt's policy agenda, Clark's government appeared rudderless with the campaign behind it and the Premier's scrappy style began to further alienate parts of the BC NDP coalition outside of the core group of labour activists who had masterminded Clark's campaign. It was also discovered, shortly after the election, that the balanced budgets for the 1995-96 and 1996-97 fiscal years on which Clark had campaigned were not, in fact, balanced but actually small deficits of approximately $100 million. This was termed the "fudge-it" budget fiasco. Further, large debt was shifted onto Crown Corporations so as to create a perception of "surpluses".

During these years, the BC NDP began to bleed support and activists to the Greens who reached 5% in the polls in the fall of 1997 and 11% by the fall of 1998; however, by far the majority of the BC NDP's former voters deserted the party for the centre-right BC Liberals. New scandals also surfaced, this time appearing to implicate Clark in using his influence to win a casino licence for a neighbour who had helped him with some home renovations. Another blunder was the botched construction of the PacifiCat BC Ferries, which would later become part of the FastCat Fiasco; the project, designed to speed transportation between Vancouver and Nanaimo, was plagued by cost over-runs and poor technical decisions. By mid-1999, an obvious rift had appeared in the administration as Attorney-General Dosanjh and Finance Minister Joy MacPhail challenged Clark's legitimacy. The party and province endured a few chaotic months of government with frequent cabinet shuffles, following a police raid on Clark's home before the premier stepped aside.

Dan Miller, the longest-serving member of the legislature stepped-in as premier and interim-party leader during an acrimonious leadership race between Dosanjh, maverick West Kootenay MLA Corky Evans and Wilson, who had been persuaded to fold his stalled PDA in 1998 and join Clark's cabinet. Despite clear favouritism from Clark, Wilson finished last with Dosanjh winning a majority of votes at the convention, despite Evans winning the support of over two thirds of the party's constituency associations.

Having bottomed out at 15 percent in the polls, the Dosanjh government attempted to capitalize on the new Premier's high personal approval rating with their remaining year in power. The government made a number of concessions to the party's anti-poverty and environmental wings in an attempt to reforge the coalition but the party would not budge in the polls. Halfway through his mandate, Dosanjh seemed to lose interest in governing and left for a lengthy tour of his native Punjab.

Dosanjh waited as long as possible to call the next election, finally doing so in May 2001. By this time, the party had risen to 21 percent in opinion polling—a slight improvement from the nadir of a year earlier. Nonetheless, it was obvious that the BC NDP would not be reelected. Midway through the campaign, Dosanjh conceded defeat in a pre-recorded message and asked the electorate to give the BC NDP a chance as a strong opposition party. De facto leadership passed to MacPhail, who managed to reinvigorate the campaign. The BC NDP's popular vote dropped to 22 percent, while its seat count dropped to only two — MacPhail and neighbouring Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan. They were also the only surviving members of the previous Cabinet; even Dosanjh lost his seat. All 77 other seats were captured by the BC Liberals who won 58 percent of the vote. It was the second-worst defeat of a sitting provincial government in Canada. Despite the severe defeat, MacPhail was credited for saving the party from being completely wiped off the map.

Shortly after the election, Dosanjh resigned as leader and Joy MacPhail was appointed interim leader.