On the surface, BC politics appears to be relatively calm these days. Sure, there’s a ruffle here and there. But for BC politics, it’s still pretty low key.

 

Indeed, a recent poll showed the opposition NDP far ahead of the Christy Clark Liberals (39% to 26%). Even the recently re-constituted provincial Conservatives, led by John Cummins, appear poised to match or overtake the Liberals, polling 22% of voters. But not much noise about it all.

 

The provincial election is only a little more than a year away. Will the BC Liberals, after more than a decade, be removed from office so easily and so quietly? I don’t think so. In fact, I believe that this upcoming election could be one of the most bitterly fought in BC history. And we are already seeing some of the signs that a major storm is brewing.

 

Why do I think that? Mainly because of the powerful forces, both usual and not-so-usual, that will be making it their business to get involved in this pivotal election. It is true that the big business establishment will, on certain occasions, “allow” a social democratic party to take the reins of government, as has happened before in British Columbia, and which frequently happens in Europe. This may be because the traditional establishment party has lost credibility or, not infrequently, because big business wants to use the social democrats to bring in an austerity program of some kind, as happened recently in Greece, Spain and other countries. 

 

However, the upcoming provincial election in BC is not one of those times. It seems clear that BC’s big business establishment does not want a change in government this time around, and will fight hard to maintain the status quo. So far, this would just mean another normal election by BC standards.

 

But there are additional factors that ramp up the usual array of forces in this election. One of these is the keen interest that the federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper has in propping up and maintaining the Clark Liberals in power in BC at all costs.

 

On the surface, it seems a bit strange. After all, Christy Clark has longstanding connections with the federal Liberals who are opposed to Harper. And, for his part, John Cummins, leader of the provincial Conservatives, was until recently an MP in Harper’s government and is much more closely aligned ideologically and politically with the prime minister.

 

Nonetheless, when Harper came to BC recently, he made it a point to sit with Clark through an entire hockey game in which her son, Hamish, was playing. Many interpreted this “photo op” as a message to conservatives in BC to get behind Clark, not Cummins. Prominent federal Conservatives, including Stockwell Day, Chuck Strahl, and Jay Hill, have spoken out to reinforce the Prime Minister’s message, calling for “unity” under the “big tent” of the BC Liberal Party, which traditionally has been a coalition that includes both federal Conservatives and Liberals.

 

In addition, Ken Boessenkool, senior policy adviser and strategist for Prime Minister Harper, has joined Christy Clark’s Liberal team as “chief of staff”, a secondment that surely would not have happened without the assent, if not the bidding, of Harper. Boessenkool claims to have been born “out of the womb” as a “right-winger”, and, according to a confidential memo, is supporting Clark to keep the NDP away “from the reins of power in B.C.” (Vancouver Sun, Jan. 14).   Thus, in the upcoming provincial election, it will not be surprising to see the same kind of “hard ball” tactics that the Harperites used against their opponents in recent federal campaigns.

 

But much more will be going on behind the scenes than listed above. The B.C. provincial election promises to be a crucial one for the federal Conservative government. To ram through his agenda, Harper wants to make sure that the provincial governments in place are compliant and will not resist in any serious sort of way. A key part of that agenda is Enbridge’s “Northern Gateway pipeline”, which the NDP has made clear that it “strongly opposes”.

 

Besides the Harperites, there are other powerful forces behind the building of this pipeline, not the least of which is the Alberta government, various Asian interests, and, of course, the multinational oil sector. In that regard, not a few big oil companies are known for interfering in elections around the world, and some are even connected with the overthrow of governments. All of these forces will be at work behind the scenes in the lead up to the provincial election.

 

Of course, these days the Clark government is saying that, for the time being, it is taking a neutral attitude towards the pipeline, and will “wait and see” until the Review Board completes its hearings and makes its recommendations in late 2013.

 

But the Clark government’s “neutral attitude” is hard to swallow. For one thing, Ken Boessenkool, Clark’s new chief of staff, was a lobbyist for Enbridge back in 2008 and 2009. For another, Clark is indebted to Harper for not pulling the rug out of her “coalition” by swinging his support to John Cummins. Indeed, the continued existence of her governing coalition is dependent on the good will of Harper.

 

In addition, the Harper government has given the Clark government some slack in paying back the federal HST funding, as well as other “favours” such as granting a portion of the recent multi-billion dollar federal shipbuilding contracts to Vancouver Shipyards.   There are those in the establishment press who tried to float the idea that the federal government had a “hands off” policy in choosing the various shipyard locations across the country. But that seems like a fairy tale, especially given that Harper’s office is notorious for the extreme control it exerts over even minor decisions of the various branches of the federal government. 

 

One thing for sure – Harper wouldn’t be doing all of this for Clark unless there was something in return, such as, for example, an eventual full endorsement of the pipeline, as well as other key components of his federal agenda. Make no mistake - like Rumpelstiltskin, the gnarled imp in that old tale by the brothers Grimm - the prime minister will return to collect his due from Premier Clark.