“The Darkest Places in Hell are reserved for those who maintain their Neutrality in Times of Moral Crisis.” – Dante Alighieri

The citizens of BC had a front row seat to an election outcome that remains almost impossible to comprehend. After a determined push back of the much reviled HST, it appeared very probable that the Liberal Party would go down to a well earned defeat. It would have been a defeat, not so much because a better option was thought to be on offer, but more because enough voters had lost their trust in those who seemed divorced from contemporary economic realities and who were not serving the public’s interests.

Standard & Poor’s issued a public report dated 15 April, 2011, titled “Canadian Provinces Face Tough Choices in Restoring Fiscal Balance”. The report directed provinces to curb rising debt levels and to correct the practices of deficit budgeting. It also recommended operating expense savings to be found in the budgets for health care and education. “Rising debt service burdens further limit financial flexibility because as these burdens increase as a share of total spending, they crowd out other program spending,” claimed the report. “Debt service expenditures are contractually bound and as such cannot be easily cut.”

This was an unambiguous disclosure that provincial credit ratings were under negative scrutiny, over two years ago.

So what did the BC government appear to do, knowing this was like a warning shot across the bow? They did screw down on the budgets for education and health care. They did not seriously attempt to find more revenues but rather promoted the fiction that a natural gas industry would provide fiscal salvation, which it did not – nor is this likely to happen, despite election rhetoric. The government certainly did not curb its appetite for ever more debt.

At the end of fiscal 2012 (one year ago), total provincial liabilities reported by the provincial government were $70.358 billion, or 100% greater than when the Liberal government first came into power. What was even more distressing was the government’s deliberate non-disclosure of “Contingencies and Contractual Obligations”, which the BC Auditor General publicly reported to be $96.374 billion. This liability amount was separate from the $70 billion, as confirmed directly with the Auditor General’s office. These provincial liability values were directly supplied to the four party leaders just following the writ being dropped, so they all knew – but for what ever their reasons, they remained silent.

In a few words, BC voters were clueless about the province’s financial condition prior to voting because virtually all politicians and the mainstream media wanted to practice willful ignorance. It is not hard to understand why Premier Clark avoided this topic, but for the others to do so is a big mystery. A few people have suggested that the NDP avoided this issue because they did not wish to win the election and have to address the province’s financial mess.

Incoming MLAs will now be forced to confront BC’s fiscal and debt reality. There is no escape from the fact that global economic circumstances are not set to improve any time soon. More tax revenues will need to be found, along with a freeze on further borrowing, either directly or indirectly, via contracting (Public, Private, Partnerships). It is almost a certainty that BC is in for credit downgrades, which will add further to the difficulty of crafting budgets. Of course, selling public assets is another option the Liberals already have spoken of and doing that is, in effect, an admission of past poor management judgment.

Good luck, BC.

BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix issued a statement Tuesday, offering an explanation and form of apology for the surprise provincial election loss he presided over recently. In the letter, published below, he accepts responsibility for the loss, acknowledging a common criticism of the campaign – levied often in these pages – that he wasn’t tough enough on his Liberal opponents. “We did not do a good job prosecuting the case against the government, based on their record,” Dix admits. And yet, he appears to remain committed to the “nice guy” approach that to many observers was his undoing: “I don’t believe last week’s results are the end of ‘positive politics’ in BC.”

Dix also addresses his surprise opposition to the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline and oil tanker expansion, claiming it was not the policy but the manner in which he unveiled it that hurt the campaign. “I hold to the policy I set out on that pipeline. But, plainly, I didn’t handle that issue very well,” says Dix.

On this score, he is correct, as I discussed in my post-election analysis of the NDP’s failed campaign.

But in his post-mortem, Dix shows that he still doesn’t recognize the specific failures he committed in framing these issues within an economic context. As I have argued before, the several dozen permanent jobs offered by Kinder Morgan’s expanded tanker terminal pale in comparison to the risks it poses to our $13.4 Billion tourism economy and the “Super, Natural BC” brand upon which it is based.

Even more baffling is Dix’s failure to destroy the Liberals’ perceived economic advantage – the single plank upon which they based and won their campaign. The great, lingering mystery for me is the NDP’s failure to use the numbers Auditor General John Doyle and our resident economist Erik Andersen have provided the public on our real provincial debt, which has ballooned to $171 Billion from $34 Billion under the Liberals’ tenure. Why the NDP chose to ignore this fodder on the principal issue of the election is positively baffling – and Mr. Dix appears to have learned nothing from his mistakes on this front.

The statement below was followed on Wednesday by the revelation that Mr. Dix plans to stay on as the party’s leader, promising a full review of his election loss. Based on these initial reflections on the failed campaign, I’m not holding my breath for any enlightened discoveries from this review.

Dix faces an automatic leadership review at the party’s next convention in November. Pundits within the party, such as David Shrek, are already predicting that Dix will not survive as leader into the next election in 2017. Not should he. He has already amply demonstrated that he is wholly unsuited to beat his Liberal rivals and remains committed to his losing “Mr. Nice Guy” strategy.

“If you look at the history of the NDP, it doesn’t tolerate people who blow a 20-point lead. Leaders in the NDP are not given a second chance,”says former MLA and NDP media commentator Shrek. “(Dix is) a political realist. The only ball in the air is whether he will be the interim leader until the 2016 replacement, or whether somebody else will be.”

Adrian Dix’s complete May 22 statement:

Shortly before the election we’ve just had, I met a hearing-impaired young man.

He stopped me, asked for my notebook and wrote me a note. “Are you going to win?” he asked.

I wrote back: “I think we can, if we work hard.”

He wrote me back: “You have to win.” And proceeded to write out why it was so important to him.

We didn’t win. And “disappointment” doesn’t begin to describe how that feels.

Disappointment for the people who needed change, like that young man.

Disappointment for what this may mean for our province.

Disappointment for so many who put their heart and soul into our campaign.

Since May 14th, I have taken some time to reflect, and to consult with my colleagues.

I have spoken to most of our candidates and to many others.

Here are some thoughts:

As leader of the BC NDP, I take full responsibility for this defeat.

Clearly, our campaign was not good enough.

We did not do a good job prosecuting the case against the government, based on their record.

And we did not make a clear enough case to British Columbians about what the consequences would be of re-electing the Liberals.

I don’t believe last week’s results are the end of “positive politics” in BC.

The answer to the Liberals’ populist right-wing playbook is not to simply adopt it.

But voters expect opposition leaders, in particular, to hold sitting Premiers accountable for their records.

You have to define the problem before you can persuade people of the solution.

I should have done a much better job of this than I did during the campaign.

Second, we did not effectively communicate our platform to voters.

Our party offered a substantive, fully-costed platform that offered real solutions to real problems faced by British Columbians.

I called this the “hard road to victory”—and I still believe politicians owe it to voters to tell them honestly what they propose to do if elected.

We committed to a modest and focused agenda. But we put out detailed proposals in considerable volume and length in a way that didn’t resonate with enough voters.

We therefore failed to demonstrate a clear choice between our vision for the economy, the environment and a more caring society, and Premier Clark, her record, her plan and her team.

Finally, my announcement about our position on the Kinder Morgan pipeline on Earth Day hurt our campaign.

The way I made it raised a number of process issues that stuck with us.

I hold to the policy I set out on that pipeline.

But, plainly, I didn’t handle that issue very well.

On all these points, I take full responsibility. No ifs, ands or buts.

So what do we do now?

First, we will undertake a comprehensive review of this election, to learn and act on the painful lessons it has taught us.

I can assure you this review will spare nothing and no one, least of all me.

This will not be a simple internal review.

It must give voice to party members, and listen to those from outside our ranks.

It must address the strategy and tactics we employed in the election. And it must examine the fundamental questions of who we are as a party, and our relationship with the people of BC.

We therefore need to take an unflinching look at our strengths and weaknesses, and what we need to do to improve.

Successful political parties constantly evolve to meet the challenges they face.

And that’s what we must do.

Second, we will prepare for the upcoming legislative session and we will do the job we were elected to do.

The NDP caucus is a strong, experienced team with some remarkable new additions.

We will hold the government to account.

The Liberals committed in this election to balanced budgets, to lower public debt, to high levels of job creation, and to protecting services—in particular health care and education, and supports for seniors and for children.

That’s the contract they signed with British Columbians on election day.

And that’s the contract they must honour.

We will hold them to it – with passion. British Columbians will hold them to it.

I will stay on as leader to ensure that our obligations to our members and the public are met over the next few months.

That our review of what went wrong in the election ensures that lessons are learned.

That the Official Opposition does the job that hundreds of thousands of British Columbians elected us to do, and that we are organized to hold the government to account.

There are some important meetings ahead for our party: caucus meetings, a provincial council meeting in June, and a party convention in November that must craft the blueprint for renewal.

As for the long term, the caucus, the party executive and members of the NDP must start immediately to map out how we win the next election.

I will do whatever is required to see that this happens. I will be guided by the discussion and direction given.

I will put the public interest and the long-term success of the BC NDP ahead of any personal ambitions.

For now, together, we fight for shared prosperity, to reduce inequality, for jobs and a safe environment.

Working closely and in concert with our entire team, I will do just that.

I will do what is right for that young hearing-impaired man and the thousands like him who were counting on us.

Lastly, I want to say a few words of thanks.

To all the candidates who put their heart and soul into this election.

To all the party members and volunteers who worked so hard and gave up so much on the campaign, whether for an individual candidate or for the campaign as a whole.

And to every one of the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who voted for us.

We will carry on.

We will learn and get better.

And we will succeed next time.

Thank you.

Christy Clark has pulled off the sort of miracle the Boston Bruins managed when coming back from a 4-1 deficit to the Leafs recently. One would be ungracious not to extend congratulations.

The story is more than a matter of manners, for the truth is that Adrian Dix blew the election – big time.

I warned the NDP over and over about how their campaign was letting the Liberals get back into the fight after the NDP had a 20 point advantage in the private polls.

With over two weeks to go in the election, I wrote in thetyee.ca and on this website:

It surprises me that Adrian Dix is playing softball with these issues. This is looking like ’09 all over again.

Mr. Dix, your position on the Kinder Morgan tanker port proposal was nice but marred by the delay. I told you many months ago that if you were opposed to Enbridge that logic should make you opposed to Kinder Morgan as the issues are the same.

Your position favouring LNG plants is puzzling, if only because you seem to be following Clark’s pied piper’s seductive path to supporting a dream that is almost certain never to come true.

To you, Mr. Dix, there is no way this government can win on its merits – you have to give it to them and you seem to be trying your best to do just this. What is truly troublesome is your amiable Adrian approach, with an endless stream of small policy announcements – sort of a fart a day.

I realize that people tell you that they want a politer politics in B.C. That’s what Bob Skelly tried in the ’80s and you know what happened to him.

Politics is a blood sport and your nicely, nicely approach is letting Premier Clark get away with murder. Despite a fivefold increase in the provincial debt, she’s painting you as wastrels and her government as careful money managers!

Your best issue, the appalling fiscal policy of the Campbell/Clark government, is being used as a positive thing for them and you are responding rather than attacking. We’re seeing a tactic similar to when agents acting for George W. Bush, a draft dodger, denigrated the much-decorated John Kerry’s war record so that he could lay claim to being strong on national defence. You’re becoming the essence of John Kerry, reacting weakly on issues that should have you on the attack!

On environmental issues you seem to be passive and non-threatening! These issues, along with the dismal Liberal record on money matters, ought to have you leading firmly, not cowering behind a cloud of good manners.

Mr. Dix, it’s yours to win and to quote the Baseball manager Lou Durocher: “Nice guys finish last.”

About 30 % of BC voters could not ever vote NDP. Never! And about 30% of voters are hard core NDPers and won’t budge. Overall, the balance must be persuaded to be part of one side or the other in the election being fought. To achieve this, the appeal must be led by a tough, well-informed leader who hits hardest and captures enough of the “swing” votes to win. That job is not for Goody Two Shoes.

The NDP are lousy campaigners. They should know that they really have only won one election – 1996 when Glen Clark, carrying the Raiwind-BC Hydro scandal, fought hard, out-campaigned Gordon Campbell and won in the trenches. The Barrett and Harcourt victories were as a result of the Socreds crashing. In 1996, the NDP had in the person of Glen Clark a leader who found the core issues and hammered them home.

How come the huge Campbell/Clark debt – 5 times higher than that left by the NDP – was not an issue?

Same with the scandalous private power scheme that has sent BC Hydro into virtual bankruptcy?

Same re: the pipelines and tanker issue?

How come Clark was able to portray the message that the Liberals, for God’s sake, were more to be trusted with fiscal issues than the NDP?

Where was the BC Rail fiasco?

By 9:30 on election night, champagne corks were popping in the corporations’ meeting rooms. The fish farmers won, big time! So did the pipeline/tanker gang.

If your eyes are young and steady you maybe able to see a faint, distant star. The Green Party elected a man who will bring a voice, if faint, for the environment. Vicki Huntington, a gallant fighter, will be there. So will be a man with good environmental genes and experience – George Heyman, who will likely be the next NDP leader. (You read it here first!)

I’m truly sad to say that the industrial/government coalition brings clearly into focus civil disobedience.

In the shorter term the environmentalists must gird up their loins, get back on their chargers and fight the bastards any way we can.

The annals of contemporary political history make one thing clear: Elections are invariably won and lost on a single issue – and that issue is most often the economy. To borrow a slogan coined by Bill Clinton’s enigmatic campaign strategist, James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.” You can win issues two through ten, but if you screw up the first one, you’re toast.

The NDP lost this election for three reasons – all of which relate back to that one central point: 1. Despite compelling evidence in their favour, the NDP failed to destroy the Liberals’ economic credibility; 2. Mr. Dix failed to understand the difference between being fair and being nice;3. Unlike their opponents, the NDP have no sense of storytelling, no simple narrative arc to which they can attach their myriad policy points.

Plainly put, the NDP and leader Adrian Dix lost this election by running a terrible campaign. The out-to-lunch polls and the mainstream media that allowed Clark a free pass on the Liberals’ true economic record didn’t help matters, but this was Dix’s to lose, and lose he did.

There is one invaluable lesson I gleaned years ago from Karl Rove, the mastermind strategist behind George W. Bush’s victories. His candidate bears some striking resemblances to Christy Clark, in fact – both highly unpopular at times, neither one the most cerebral of leaders, yet eminently personable, and both able to win elections they probably shouldn’t have.

Rove’s most important insight was this: You don’t attack your opponent’s weakness; you attack their greatest strength, because if you take that leg out from under them, they have nothing left to stand on.

For Bush in 2004, that wasn’t the economy but rather national security. As his campaign quickly understood, you can’t win on national security as a draft dodger running against a decorated war hero. Enter the “Swift Boat Veterans”.

Rove also understood – as does Team Obama – the importance of crafting a simple, clear, overarching narrative, to which every press release, photo-op, position paper, soundbite, and campaign ad links back. Christy Clark’s campaign did this very well – everything came back to how voters could trust her to run the economy while they couldn’t trust “Risky Dix” and the NDP.

This is where Dix fell down. Not only did he choose the wrong issues on which to attack his opponents – he didn’t attack, period. The HST, BC Rail, rip-off private power contracts, boondoggle projects like the convention centre, stadium roof and “world’s tallest wood building”, and, most significantly, the Liberals’ abysmal fiscal record. Any and all of these issues – which encompass other things like corruption and incompetence – can be linked back to a master narrative that demonstrates the NDP are really the best choice to lead BC’s economy into the future.

But Dix seized on none of these opportunities, preferring instead to run a nice, safe, “no mistakes” campaign. If Ms. Clark and the mainstream media that fawned over her proved anything, it’s that it’s better to look nice and act tough than look tough and act nice. Why Mr. Dix – not known as a “nice guy” politically prior to this campaign – mistakenly equated being tough on the Liberals’ truly appalling record with being a jackass is a mystery to me. Christy Clark, like Danny Williams, Bill Clinton, Pierre Trudeau and many other successful, charismatic leaders before her, demonstrated you can wield a sledge hammer with a smile on your face.

I joined others in pressuring the NDP to take a stronger stand against Kinder Morgan. There are those within the party who will blame this decision for their loss, cursing what they see as succumbing to the unreliable environmental vote. Bollocks. A Justason poll revealed that Dix’s Earth Day announcement was positively received by voters. But even if you want to discard that finding based on the wholesale discrediting of the polling profession last night, the decision itself is not the problem. The problem is, again, failing to frame it properly.

Kinder Morgan would bring a few dozen permanent jobs to its updated tanker terminal in Burnaby, and truly paltry revenues to the province. Compare that with our “Super, Natural BC” brand and the $13.4 Billion a year tourism economy and 127,000 jobs it supports – all of which would be put at grave risk by an oil tanker spill. With a proposed 400 tankers a year through Vancouver Harbour, compared with just 20 before Texas energy giant Kinder Morgan bought the existing Trans Mountain line in 2005, we’re talking an exponential increase in risk. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows this is a terrible proposition for BC.

Other leaders like Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, and former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan get this and are able to articulate the Kinder Morgan issue effectively in an economic context. Not so with the provincial NDP.

Dix’s failure to attack the Liberals’ claims of overall economic superiority is even more puzzling. As we’ve stated in these pages, time and time again – based on information from the Auditor General and the research of independent economist Erik Andersen – the Liberals have raised our real provincial debt from $34 Billion to $171 Billion since they came to power. The NDP, by contrast, raised it by $17 Billion over a similar period.

About $100 Billion of that new Liberal debt is hidden in another category called “contractual taxpayer obligations”. This is where they hide the estimated (because they’re secret, even though you pay for them) $55 Billion in sweetheart, rip-off private power contracts that are causing your power bills to soar; this is where they stash the real costs of public-private partnership contracts for multi-billion dollar bridges, highways and Olympic infrastructure.

This story contains everything the NDP needed to beat the Liberals: corruption, deception, secrecy, gross fiscal mismanagement, controversial IPPs, boondoggle bridges that don’t work properly and pile on costs to drivers through tolls…In short, everything they needed to take that one leg out from under their Liberal rivals.

By contrast, they could have offered a bold vision of a stronger, greener economic future for BC – one built on innovation, clean technology, public transit, rebuilding local, value-added manufacturing, supporting our vital film industry and creative sectors, harnessing the true potential of “Super, Natural BC”…Alas, they did some of these things, but in piecemeal fashion – detatched from any central narrative. And they failed todistinguish clearly their own record and vision from those of their opponents.

It’s a frustrating feeling sitting on the sidelines, uncomfortable with the NDP but viewing them as the only viable alternative – in our broken, first-past-the-post, parliamentary system – to the worst government in BC history. It’s awful feeling so powerless, watching the NDP fuck it up yet again. This isn’t their loss alone. This is a travesty for the people and environment of BC. Their incompetence impacts us all.

We need electoral reform. We also need better than the second worst voter turnout in the country – even more pathetic by the standards of most of our fellow western nations. It is a great societal failing that we can’t manage to get out more than half our eligible citizenry for half an hour to vote, once every four years. Something needs to change on this front.

While we’re at it, we could use an honest mainstream media that digs up the facts and looks out for the public interest – though we can expect to wait about as long for that as the characters in Samuel Beckett’s famous play. That’s why people like Rafe Mair and I are trying so hard to build an alternate media.

For now, I’d settle for someone taking a fire hose to the backrooms of the NDP and flushing them clean. There are many quality people within the NDP – Adrian Dix included (though not as a candidate for Premier). They’ve staked out some strong positions that are in line, I would still argue, with the public will on many key environmental and social issues. There are some exceptions, granted – salmon farms, Site C Dam, and a need for more clarity on their position regarding fracking and LNG. My complaints here are less about their policies than about the way they sell them.

There are also some small but heartening positives which progressives can draw from last night. For the NDP, George Heyman and David Eby’s victories in Vancouver come to mind – two of the NDP’s brightest new prospects, both very strong on environmental and social issues, both worked their asses off running good, tough campaigns and were rewarded for their efforts.

I was also happy to see Independent Vicki Huntington win re-election in Delta South, though sorry to see sitting Independent MLA Bob Simpson from Cariboo North narrowly miss out on another term. Both did a great service to British Columbians as hard-working, competent Independents in the Legislature.

Meanwhile, the Green Party ran a solid campaign and it’s encouraging to see them break through with their first provincial MLA in Andrew Weaver. Any NDP’er who dares blame the Green Party for their loss needs to examine both the facts and their own head. The Greens did a smart and noble thing choosing to target their efforts on a few select ridings, rather than feeling the need to run a full slate.

At the end of the day, if the NDP can’t look inward and recognize the deep flaws in its brand, its personnel, and the way it campaigns; if there isn’t some serious bloodletting following this inexcusable failure, then maybe British Columbians are ready for a new progressive party.

Premier Christy Clark was right when she told the Canadian Press it’s“the people of British Columbia that choose the government.” For months polls indicated the BC NDP was winning the hearts and minds of British Columbians. Then a couple of weeks prior to the election, the gap narrowed as the news media rushed to publish poll after poll suggesting this.

But the polls did not all agree on how close that gap really was – some said nine points while others suggested a much closer “horse race.” Politicians have known for a long time that the news media makes a lot of money during political campaigns and elections, and they make even more when elections are close. While Clark doesn’t come out and say this word for word, there are hints of this idea within her words. And she’s right, it’s a good thing Canadians don’t listen to the polls, or else we’d just all give in, or give up.

As most Canadians are aware, the legacy news outlets in general are not doing so hot these days, which means the pressure to profit from elections is heightened. The few that are doing well are innovating – such as the Hearst Corporation, a media company with a long and storied history, that has taken to the tablet industry with great success.

While it’s undoubtedly a shocking time for many of our readers at The Common Sense Canadian, what’s more important to ask at this point is who benefited from a 20-point NDP margin that became a four-point margin in a few short weeks. These are not easy questions to ask as a voter living in a democratic country such as Canada – questions many Canadians shy away from asking because they sound conspiratorial in nature. At the end of the day, however, it was a poll conducted by Toronto-based Oraclepoll Research Ltd. that proved closest to the truth by suggesting a four-point margin. The actual difference was 4.9 per cent for the Liberals, not the NDP. So even the closest poll was wrong by 8.9 per cent. At worst, early predictions of a 20-point advantage for the NDP were off by a staggering 25%.

There are voter turnout issues to consider, since much of the NDP base consists of younger people who may not have turned out to cast their ballot. Perhaps pollsters should be asking citizens not only who they support, but whether they actually intend to vote for them. As reported earlier in these pages, the condition of the polling industry which is represented as a whole by the Marketing and Research Intelligence Association, is not so good. While most news organizations are pointing out that polls conducted by Angus Reid were perhaps the most wrong in this election, despite the venerable pollster’s solid reputation, Reid did say on the record about nine years ago that the polling industry was “shaky” to say the least.

So nine years ago a leading polling expert raised the red flag, but did our collective Canadian consciousness listen? Maybe, maybe not. But recent elections here in Western Canada should cause concern. There are many good points being made in the news media the morning after the B.C. election about how the 2012 Alberta election differed from our just-concluded 2013 election here. That being said, there are also many similarities.

As suggested by several good Canadian Press articles published in the last 12 hours, in Alberta it is thought polling was correct and that a last-minute shift occurred. As Canadian Press reporter Tyler Harbottle points out, there is no reason to believe that’s the case with the B.C. election. In the Edmonton Journal, the Alberta leaders weighed in on the B.C. election outcome, pondering how the same thing could happen here in B.C. as it did in Alberta not so long ago.

In the final days of the campaign, the mainstream media laid its cards on the table with a series of editorials backing Clark, praising her economic credentials. Despite their declining revenues, these newspapers still enjoy large readerships and are therefore able to wield influence. The impact they had on the BC election outcome is difficult to quantify, but it’s there nonetheless.

John King was a reporter and editor at a number of newspapers in Western Canada. Today he runs a design firm.

BC and Alberta Elections Raise Serious Questions about Political Polls and the Corporate Media who Publish them

Good thing most people don’t listen to the polls. If they did, they just might throw in their cards and give up. The clearest indication yet that pollsters don’t know what they’re doing – or are driven by motives other than the accurate prediction of election outcomes – was the 2012 Alberta election. Polls indicated the young, upstart Wildrose Party (a.k.a. Wildrose Alliance Political Association) was ahead by a wide and startling margin. While the party is little known to many Canadians, it is clear that it derives its support from Alberta energy companies. Go figure.

Of course we all know what happened. The other party won, to everyone’s apparent surprise. The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta has retained power in Alberta since 1971, and continued to do so in 2012 by defying the odds set against it by the pollsters who claimed their surveys showed voting Albertans no longer backed the venerable party.

Who knew, right? Wrong. Canadians now live in a political environment so illusionary that unknown pollsters are able to come from out of nowhere to try and persuade the public into believing any unsubstantiated claim. But do Canadians bite? Generally, no.

Heading into the 2013 B.C. election, voters are seeing this same theme. Suddenly, obscure pollsters often funded by unknown sources are constructing the narrative that the ailing B.C. Liberal Party checked itself into the ER, bandaged itself up, and is making a contest out of what was anything but.

Leading into the final weeks of the election, the provincial NDP showed strength and endurance – outpacing their dogged counterparts. Then came the paid advertisement featuring none other than the “Comeback Kid” herself, Premier Christy Clark, on the front page of the Sun Media-published 24 Hours newspaper – the Vancouver edition that is. It’s probably worth mentioning this is a company owned by that monolith back East known as Quebecor Inc., which in case you haven’t been following, wants its conservative-slanted news channel on the docket of must-see TV for Canadians.

The headline reads, “Poll: Christy Clark stands tall in debate,” and shows our glowing leader all smiles, arm raised in a triumphant pose. Critical and discerning B.C. voters might ask, “How can a poll say Clark stood tall in the recent televised debate?” Did the people who were polled unanimously suggest this by using these exact words? Mysterious to say the least.

Back in 2004, respected pollster Angus Reid suggested there was a problem in the way polls were conducted. While it’s now 2013, Reid’s concerns should raise the hairs on any honest voter’s neck.

In two Tyee articles, Reid suggests there are too many non-media funded polls being conducted. In addition to this, he says many polling firms don’t say how many people refused to participate in the survey, whether conducted by phone or online. He goes on to explain that polls conducted in provincial elections, which are more regional in nature and see a smaller sample size, allow for as much as a 20-point margin of error.

While Reid toots his own horn in the Tyee articles, saying his method has allowed for his polls to be more accurate than his competitors, if this is a fact then what’s the problem? And the facts do demonstrate that Reid, now an executive director at Vision Critical, is much more right more of the time than many other pollsters out there. So what he has to say matters. And it resonates no less today than it did eight or nine years ago.

Case in point: polls closing out the last working week leading into the BC election show wide discrepancies. An Angus Reid poll has the NDP out in front by a nine-point margin after going from 20 points ahead down to six, then back to nine. Meanwhile, a poll commissioned by the Victoria Times-Colonist says the NDP lead has “narrowed to just four percentage points.”

It’s worth highlighting the fact that the current publisher of the Times-Colonist is none other than ex-Hollinger executive David Radler. For those who thought he was locked up somewhere in jail for participating in fraud along with his former pal and partner, Conrad Black, Radler actually now enjoys a leadership role at Glacier Newspaper Group. Radler tattled on Black and got off. And now he’s busy commissioning polls from unknown firms (in this case it’s Oraclepoll Research Ltd. – check out their website and decide for yourself if you’d trust them), suggesting the Liberals are in the midst of a miraculous comeback. Huh? Did we British Columbians miss something?

The B.C. election supposedly became a “horse race” when Adrian Dix said he opposed a B.C. Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, which would see a dramatic increase in Alberta bitumen departing from the Lower Mainland where tankers park in the waters off Georgia Straight one after another to fuel up. In a laughable article from the Edmonton Journal (where we see a good example of journo-speak, i.e. the word “some”, as in “some pundits,” is used to somehow create credibility), the writer indicates that Dix’s flip-flop might cost him the election. Yet, a poll from Justason Market Intelligence says the exact opposite, using hard facts rather than the term, “some pundits.” Who are these pundits anyway?

According to Justason, 35 per cent of B.C. voters polled supported Dix more after his opposition to the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. This is compared to just 24 per cent who were less supportive. Many large newspapers would have B.C. voters believe otherwise. It’s a good thing voters aren’t as stupid as pollsters apparently believe they are.

You’d think the media and the polling firms would take a hint and start serving the public they say they serve, rather than corporate interests that only work to their shareholders’ benefit. It’s time newspapers and polling firms do proper investigative work to show the truth to voters, and not deceive them. Newspaper people bemoan their industry as dying because of the Internet. This couldn’t be more wrong. Newspapers, and legacy news outlets in general, are losing ground to more innovative online news agencies because they no longer serve the public’s best interest.

It remains to be seen what happens in Tuesday’s provincial election, but if it’s anything more than a close finish between the NDP and Liberals, then our pollsters and corporate media will have some serious explaining to do.

John King was a reporter and editor at a number of newspapers in Western Canada. Today he runs a design firm.

Conventional wisdom would suggest there’s little an Independent MLA can do make an impact on government. Throughout the past term, BC’s three sitting Independents – Bob Simpson from Cariboo North, Vicki Huntington from Delta South, and Abbotsford South’s John van Dongen – have proven the pundits wrong, injecting new energy and ideas into a Legislature ordinarily dominated by caucus discipline.

All three are running again in Tuesday’s provincial election. Joined by a few other Independents with “long – not impossible – odds,” as Martyn Brown put it recently in The Vancouver Sun – this unprecedented batch of serious candidates without a political party promises a more interesting contest and intriguing possibilities should their campaigns lead them into office.

With polls tightening in the final days of the campaign, it’s not unthinkable that a handful of Independents could hold the balance of power in a minority government.

Among the 38 candidates running as Independents around the province, Arthur Hadland, from Peace River North, is of particular note, posing a serious challenge to incumbent Liberal MLA Pat Pimm. Hadland ran in 2009, losing by just nine points – the next best showing by an Independent to Delta’s Huntington. A lifelong resident of the Peace Valley, Hadland is a respected multi-term director of the Peace River Regional District and has been a strong voice against the proposed Site C Dam.

The three sitting Independents have shaken up the Legislature in surprising ways in recent years. From confronting important energy issues in ways neither party would, to torpedoing a recent forestry bill – making effective use of social media – and raising electoral reform in the lead-up to the provincial election, they are showing the power Independents can wield.

Being an Independent poses its challenges, without the benefit of caucus resources for researching and interpreting the avalanche of legislation that comes their way. “You have to look at every bill yourself,” Simpson explained a recent all-candidates debate on environmental issues in Vancouver, noting that he doesn’t have the luxury of voting along party lines.

Huntington became just the second MLA elected as an Independent in the history of BC’s legislature (and first woman to do so) when she narrowly defeated former Attorney-General Wally Opal in Delta South in 2009. Simpson, after being booted from the NDP caucus over mild public criticism of then-leader Carole James, decided to strike out on his own, rather than apologize. The incident would prove the straw that broke the camel’s back for James’ leadership, paving the way for the party’s resurrection under Adrian Dix.

Van Dongen is easily the most controversial of the bunch. The longest-serving BC Liberal MLA in the Legislature until his resignation from the party in March of 2012, he made more turbulent an already rough patch for the Liberals. His path to independence included a pit stop with John Cummins’ BC Conservative Party, becoming its only sitting MLA, until a very public falling out six months later that saw him go Independent. His departure and the manner in which it occurred seriously hampered Cummins’ efforts to breathe new life into the party – the effects of which linger to this day.

Huntington and Simpson have teamed up to bring issues like natural gas fracking to the fore in the Legislature. Their call for a science-based investigation into the controversial practice appears to have yielded results, as the NDP have committed to such a program if elected.

Van Dongen has been a wild card, bringing plenty of palace intrigue to the Legislature. It wasn’t just his two defections and the embarrassment of a suspended driver’s licence while Solicitor General that produced tabloid headlines. In hiring a private lawyer to investigate the Campbell Government’s paying off the lawyers of convicted bribers Dave Basi and Bobby Virk, Van Dongen proved he could still kick up a fuss.

The three sitting Independents would also join forces to push for electoral reform. The six-point platform they announced in February includes some laudable suggestions like campaign finance reform, giving bi-partisan legislative committees real power, moving the fixed election date to the Fall so as to not interfere with the Budget, and free votes in the Legislature, to minimize the stifling effects of caucus discipline.

The fact that high-profile, effective politicians like these folks are choosing the independent path reflects growing discontent with the current party system.

Though few of the province’s 38 Independent candidates stand a real chance, any one of these four serious contenders – Huntington, Simpson, Van Dongen, Hadland – could well pull off a surprise victory on May 14. And with what is shaping up to be a tighter-than-expected race between the Liberals and NDP, even a few Independents could wind up holding the balance of power in Victoria.

In any event, their presence enriches this election campaign and an otherwise predictable, often undemocratic Legislature.