Dear editor,
Not uncommonly, one is being one’s own worst enemy.
Such is the case with Don McRae, Comox Valley MLA, elected in large part on false premises.
The issue behind the recall campaign is simple (but must be tediously repeated due to deliberately distributed falsehoods intended to obfuscate).
A witnessed oral contract was entered into between the BC Liberal party and the provincial electorate — that in return for voting Liberal, no Harmonized Sales Tax would be introduced. Many people voted accordingly.
Almost immediately upon winning the election, McRae and his fellow Liberal MLAs voted in favour of legislating the tax.
Had this breach of promise its home amongst industry, commerce, academia, or any other public sector, the matter would be before the courts. A roofer, for example, who outbid competitors before witnesses by using attractive offers afterwards reneged, would likely find himself before a judge.
Why should politics be different? Is the court of public opinion to be dismissed as some peevish scheme of sad-sack malcontents? By the very offenders, at that?
The Liberal party’s deliberate falsehood comprise the equivalent of ballot stuffing. We condemn such tactics in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. In B.C., we should be more strongly armed in honesty. Much more so. Question is, why aren’t we?
Resignation by Don McRae would solve the problem. He could then run again on an honest platform.
Instead, according to a local newspaper, the rookie MLA will fight “tooth and nail to keep his seat.”
“I’ll never apologize for fighting for the Comox Valley,” he is quoted as saying.
Pardon — the Comox Valley? No, for his seat, because locally the main beneficiary of the whole sorry mess is Don McRae himself. Which is patently obvious.
Edmund Burke, the elector of Bristol, besides his more famous political orations, also said, “When bad men conspire, the good must associate.”
Make no mistake — not politics, but a sense of justice imbues most of those good people who sign on for recall.
Finn Schultz-Lorentzen,
Courtenay