There must be an election in BC...

Political party leaders have discovered a new place in the province.

That would be anywhere in Canada's third-largest province that isn't Greater Vancouver or Greater Victoria.

Lo and behold, BC Liberal leader (and incumbent premier) Gordon Campbell and BC NDP leader Carole James both parachuted into the same southern BC interior city... on the same day. The only time Kamloops sees that much concentration of political power, outside an election, is when a political party times an annual strategy planning and massage retreat to coincide with the greening up of golf courses dotting the South Thompson River.

What's so important about Kamloops? Bellwether ridings. The members elected from Kamloops usually take their seats on the government benches of the legislature.

So, Gordo reaches into his pocket and pulls out a reminder of the "gift" he gave to the BC southern interior last fall.

At a rally in Kamloops Thursday night, Campbell used his government's recent move to cancel tolls on the Coquihalla highway as a way to garner support.

"There are truckers, there are families, there are communities that are really pleased we have taken the toll off the Coquihalla," Campbell said to a cheering crowd.

The cheering crowd would be the party faithful, such as they are. Kamloopsians in general, however, probably view the removal of tolls on the Coquihalla highway (one of two super-highways in BC) somewhat differently.

The highway is a legacy of Expo 86 and had tolls slapped on it by the government of Bill Bennett. The tolls were never intended to finance ordinary construction of the highway, nor were they levied to recover the cost of ordinary maintenance. The promise associated with the construction and accompanying tolls was that once the cost of accelerated construction was recovered, the tolls would be removed.

Thanks to Campbell, however, that never happened.

At about the same time the Coquihalla was removed from the province's list of contingent liabilities, instead of removing the tolls, Campbell offered the highway up for lease to the private sector in a convoluted private-public partnership. The deal was that any private operator would invest in the necessary rehabilitation to upgrade the highway and in return receive the revenue - from perpetual tolls. Worse, the private operator would be permitted to set the rate for tolls and conduct its operations removed from government oversight. In true conservative "the market will sort everything out" fashion, Campbell was actually intending to sell the primary link to the southern interior leaving residents and commercial traffic at the mercy of a for-profit private operator.

That caused an outroar from Tete Jaune Cache to Sicamous. When polled, an overwhelming 97 percent of respondents viewed the sale/lease of the Coquihalla as a betrayal by the Campbell government and rejected the plan with loud protests.

Proving just how out of touch he was with the population outside the Vancouver-area lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island, Campbell pressed ahead with his plan espousing all kinds of future benefits for southern interior residents to be gained by continuing to pay the only road tax in the province - at increased private rates.

Kamloopsians weren't buying it. In fact, Kamloopsians won't buy anything without a guarantee. It has been called one of the toughest markets in Canada, something Campbell was about to find out.

As the Campbell "Privatize it!" plan continued so too did the protests, and something became quite clear to BC Liberal Kamloops MLAs Claude Richmond and Kevin Kruger: The sell-off of the Coquihalla would cost them their seats in the next election. It wasn't just a possibility; it was fully assured. And more often than not, where goes Kamloops goes the fortunes of a provincial political party.

Campbell, very begrudgingly, backed-off claiming he had "listened" to the people, but not without firing a shot of sour grapes along with the announcement.

Campbell said British Columbians have made it clear that they do not see the benefits of this particular partnership. While there was a strong business case for the proposal, evident in the 28 expressions of interest received from the private sector, the public did not see or accept the new improvements that the proposed partnership would provide in this case.

[...]

The public request to maintain the status quo on the Coquihalla means that taxpayers will not receive the resources for new infrastructure that the partnership would have provided.

In short, you people are too stupid to understand how good this is and now you're not getting any dessert.

Most southern interior residents ignored the petulance, satisfied that they had won more of the fight than they had lost. The fact that there were still tolls on the Coquihalla, in violation of the compact which had been reached with a previous government, survived as an undercurrent of discontent. The Campbell government gave every indication that it was intransigent. The tolls would remain... indefinitely.

When the southern interior MLAs complained to Campbell that the lingering effects of the assault were still giving them the election willies the BC Liberals came up with a corny slogan borrowed from a Chevy commercial and started calling the interior of BC "The Heartland". Most southern BC interior residents saw that for what it was: lipstick on a pig. In fact, the "Heartland" moniker became a symbol of the remoteness of a Vancouver-centric government.

So, when Campbell made a sudden announcement in September, 2008, that the tolls would be removed from the Coquihalla people may have indeed been pleased, but they weren't cheering. In fact, most southern interior residents felt the removal of tolls was more than long overdue. It wasn't that Campbell had just provided a surprize gift to the southern BC interior; it was that Campbell had continued to milk cash out of the southern interior highway link, and taxed the people who lived in the interior, far beyond what was considered fair or equitable. There are a good many people who feel they are owed a rebate for five years of tolls they should never have been paying.

And everyone who was willing to look at a calendar knew what brought it about: An election date now risen above the horizon.

Now that it's here, sure enough, Campbell is trying to capitalize on his supposed generosity. If his candidates are returned to Victoria however, it won't be because of him; it will be despite him.

-------

Now, as a matter of interest, the Times-Colonist article to which I linked stated that both Campbell and James were in Kamloops. Strangely, James got one line of text while Campbell got spotlit.

Perhaps James' activities weren't quite as exciting as the crowd of business people Campbell gathered but the TC's coverage in such critical ridings is rather - skewed.

I disagree with James' on a couple of issues, no less than I do with Campbell, but we may never know what she's saying given the coverage by the BC capital city's Canwest-owned newspaper.