So, I don't know what the heck is going on in British Columbia. I don't know who's going to be Premier two weeks from now or what the seat breakdown will be. I don't know why Christy Clark declared victory, why John Horgan told his faithful to wait out the vote counting, and why there have been so many articles Andrew Weaver "holding the balance of power".
I do know this, however: unless the NDP wind up with a crushing majority which they probably won't Patrick Brown needs to start realizing how screwed he is.
Why? Because the NDP should have won a crushing majority in this election. This election should not have been too close to call, and it should not still be being decided. The BC Liberals ran a horrific campaign that included their leader getting ambushed at a grocery store by an angry voter. Throughout the campaign a narrative of the virtuous plucky union underdogs taking on a bunch of corrupt corporate lackeys who were Liberal in name only was allowed to develop. News stories calling the BC Liberals out on their spin were published unanswered.
As a smug Ontarian watching all of this, my reaction was the same as it usually is watching a provincial election in a province other than my own: one of bemusement. How delightfully quaint and precious, I thought.
If you are from BC or another province, you might be surprised to learn that no news organization would dare publish a story calling out the Ontario Liberals on their crap in the middle of an election. The de facto response from the Ontario Liberals if this happens is to openly question that organization's integrity and professionalism and announce that if it happens again there will be no further access to cabinet ministers or the Premier.
If a voter would be so presumptuous as to actually tell the Premier of Ontario to his or her face that they think the government is doing a lousy job, Liberal campaign staffers would immediately as they did one time in Strathroy, Ontario during Election 2011 put their personal safety at risk to create a human shield around the Premier.
And let me be quite clear the very idea of a narrative developing during election time where a party is seen to have the government on the defensive is out of the question here in Upper Canada. Sure, there are lots of embarrassing stories about Wynne now, but as soon the writ drops you won't be able to find a single column inch that doesn't list two Liberal positives to every one PC or NDP positive.
My point is don't talk to an Ontarian about BC's so called corporate media that favours the Liberals above all else and against all reasons. Here, the powerful interests make sure ALL parties bend to their will, not just one.
This is a province where, in 2018, no party will campaign to ease restrictions on the beer monopoly. Where no party will dare to offend the mighty teacher's unions or green energy lobbyists. Where if either of the two opposition parties stray out of the narrowly defined message box even for a microsecond the entirety of #onpoli will rise up in righteous indignation and punish the offending party until that party's partisans will be afraid to even speak privately of whatever it was that caused the social media firestorm.
(If you doubt this, find a PC Party of Ontario staffer who kept their job after the last election and whisper "10,000 jobs!" when they don't expect it, and watch them spontaneously drop into a fetal position.)
Which brings me back to why our old friend P-Bizzle should be very, very concerned if a bunch of left coast socialists couldn't take down Christy Clark.
In his heart of hearts, Patrick no doubt wishes for a campaign like the BC NDP had, where they got lots of opportunities to get their message out and there were lots of own-goals by the government. But it will not happen, and he knows it.
How do I know this?
Because a poorly kept secret is that Patrick's people are Christy Clark's people, and Christy Clark's people are Patrick's people. The PC Party of Ontario and the Ontario Liberals too contract their services out to the BC Liberals at election time, just like they did during the 2014 election.
Yes, when an election call goes out in BC, the OLP and PCPO stop trying to kill each other and take a nice vacation to the West Coast together so they can clobber the NDP for a few weeks. And while they are there, they talk.
Once those votes are counted out West, there aren't going to be too many surprises left for one party to spring on the other when they return. Both likely know exactly what the others are really thinking, and when they resume the charade of pretending like one party wants to unseat the other, it'll be as clear as ever that it's all for show.
Written by Josh Lieblein
