Follow the Harperites to Victoria

This poster, which dates back to 1937, contains a slogan which most coastal British Columbians would remember well into the 1980s. Oddly, it had something of a foundation as anyone travelling from the mainland to Vancouver Island could note the perpetual flocks of gulls following the ferries on their scheduled runs. There was a good reason they were there - easy pickings from the garbage tossed over the side.

Today, there is a different breed flying into Victoria - Larus harperus. And this bunch is shovelling money off the back of trucks all over Conservative ridings in BC. (Emphasis mine)

Against a backdrop of precipitous job losses in British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell will launch the provincial election campaign Tuesday.

If he wins his third term on May 12, he may take a few moments to compose a nice thank-you note to Stephen Harper's federal Conservative government – in the three weeks leading up to the campaign, his B.C. Liberal government members have shared the podium with Tory MPs and cabinet ministers to hand out money at least 46 times.

That's just the in-person appearances. Funding announcements have flooded in at a much faster rate.

Together, the two levels of government have distributed roughly $1-billion in “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects designed to backstop job losses that have hit the province's construction industry the hardest.

There's a good reason for that: Of the 36 federal House of Commons seats occupied by British Columbians, the Harper party holds 22.

In the perpetual election campaign that is the Harper Party of Canada, British Columbia is an inexplicable landfill of votes.

To anyone from outside BC, the politics of the province would look more than a little strange. The BC Liberals, just to start off, aren't. It's just a name and they have no affiliation whatsoever with the federal political party of the same taxonomic name. In fact, the BC Liberal Party is a coalition of the former Bennett/Vanderzalm Social Credit, social conservatives and a further assortment of right-wingers. They are political conservatives. The name is mere camouflage. It is a government known for deliberate union busting, privatization of anything that isn't nailed down, and excessive salary increases to deputy ministers accompanied by the worn excuse that you have to pay big bucks to get and keep good people. (Not that there is anywhere else for them to go.)

Then there is the BC NDP which does have a loose affiliation with it's federal cousin. Good or bad, right or wrong, the behaviour of the federal NDP has an effect on the electability of the provincial party. That aside, the party has its own ghosts which crawl out of the muck and an unenviable record of disasterous fiscal management. If you want to start a British Columbian's eye's rolling you only have to mention the name Glen Clark, who, after maneouvering himself into a position to oust premier (and fellow NDPer) Mike Harcourt became the 31st premier of BC and led a government responsible for the fast ferry fiasco, the infamous fudge-it budget and a scandal known as casinogate.

Unfortunately, it tends to end there. The political spectrum is polarized to each extreme with little, if anything, being offered from anywhere close to the political centre. There are other parties, but they have such minimal impact on the provincial political carpet that they qualify as nothing more than an irritating stain.

That brings us back to the Harperites finding their way back to BC just in time for a provincial election.

“Yes, the Conservative government is being helpful,” said B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen.

That would be more than a small understatement. The Harper government is slobbering all over themselves to get in there and help buy votes for Campbell's Liberals. And it's not like there won't be a price to pay. Harper will expect Campbell to deliver British Columbia at the next federal election - and if Campbell wins on May 12, he will be forced to follow through for Harper.

All of the spending promised British Columbians during those joint photo ops depends on not just one election, but two: For most of the "promises" to actually come to fruition the BC Liberals will have to form the next government. Worse though, is that virtually all of the money offered by the Harperites has not yet been allocated. It will take another federal budget to see any of the promised funding and even Harper isn't arrogant enough to believe his minority government will survive long enough to make such a delivery.

The message: You need to re-elect us, both of us, or this could all go in the crapper.

The obvious: The BC Liberals and the Harper conservatives are now in bed together.

It should be interesting to watch and see if the Harperites withdraw to Ottawa after April 14 or if they continue to mix paste and meddle in BC provincial politics. In any case, as most coastal British Columbians are aware, whether the bird is Larus pacificus or Larus harperus, they will eventually steal your food and shit on you.