By Rick Hiebert. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
John Cummins is a veteran politician, so you think he would be wiser than this.
The name might be familiar to you as he was a B.C. MP for 18 years under the various small-c conservative parties. In 2011, he became the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party and you may remember the flap when he tried to apply his belief that homosexuality is a choice to his politics.
Cummins is getting some increased attention because of a recurring trend in B.C. politics. There is an idea that right of center votes may go to his party at the expense of the B.C. Liberals, which would result in the first Tory MLAs in over 30 years.
So, it’s understandable that on Friday August 31, the Vancouver Sun ran a story on its front page, explaining that a member of the B.C. Tory governing board has called for a leadership review.
Cummins argued in the Sun article that you can’t please everybody. But it is the way that he did it that I found a bit dismaying.
The Vancouver Sun, in the second half of the story, quotes Cummins this way. Emphasis mine:
“There’s always somebody that is going to disagree. He’s the one, I guess. I don’t perceive it as a huge threat by any stretch of the imagination,” said Cummins, adding it is unreasonable to believe that any leader could enjoy unanimous support.
“I hate to use a biblical reference but Christ had 12 apostles and one turned him in,” Cummins said.
“We share the same initials but I can’t rise from the dead and I can’t get unanimity on the board. I wouldn’t expect to be able to. He couldn’t. I can’t.”
The phrase “I hate to use a Biblical reference, but…” was Cummins’ brain warning him that the bridge was out and he needed to stop the car.
The Bible certainly does apply to politics, but it strikes me as a bit of hubris to compare oneself to Christ. Christ was perfect and I expect that any politician is not.
It’s also unwise in the sense that the critic calling for the leadership review is complaining that Cummins doesn’t listen and such. So, appearing lordly, if you will, is a bad idea. [I wonder if that's why the Sun reported used these direct quotes. I think so, as they may prove a point nicely.]
I don’t think that comparing yourself to Christ when you’re a politician can work. But I wanted to make a note of it to open this up for discussion.
Cummins might be the second federal Tory to find that you can’t drop down to B.C. politics and just walk into the premier’s office. Davie Fulton, the Diefenbaker cabinet minister, quit to lead B.C.’s Tories, only to lead them to 4th place in the 1963 provincial election, with no seats.
It doesn’t seem messianic; he could have phased it better-”Even Jesus had a backbencher turn on Him, so no one’s immune.” might have worked a bit better.
At the time, if my BC political memory is correct; Social Credit was the main party of the right in the 60 and 70s; they had some sort of meltdown shortly thereafter and a Liberal-NDP duopoly has marked BC politics for the last quarter-century.
Since the provincials Liberals are more Joe Clark centrist (“Red Tory” is the descriptive that comes to mind, something of an less-nasty analogue to the US “RINO” if I’m reading it right) as a whole, a right-of-center alternative does have some political ecology to work with; the federal Conservatives have a healthy three-way fight with the Liberals and NDP in federal BC races, so that could wind up being duplicated in the provincial race.
However, you need someone more Harper than McVety if you’re going to pull that off.
Well, you’d have to be deft in making the allusion in order to not sound too bad.
I’d like to briefly expand on what Mark Byron says. As a BCer, I’ve naturally studied our politics a little.
Politics here has had a socialist non-socialist split since the 1930s and the rise of what was then the CCF. At first the Liberals and Tories formed a formal Coalition to retain power. After World War Two, there was unease as both the Tories and Liberals thought they could go on their own. WAC Bennett, then a Tory MLA, was attracted to the generic anti-socialist part that the Alberta Social Credit Party had become so he started to go that route.
The Liberals and Tories, wanting to be sneaky, came up with a “preferential ballot” voting system for the 1952election. Instead of marking an X, you’d rank all your choices. The idea was that Liberals would vote for Tories second and vice versa. But what would up happening was that enough people picked the Socreds as their second choice to allow them to get a minority government when all the calculating was done. In 1953, preferential balloting gave the Socreds a majority, and then they went back to the normal mark with an X system.
Under WAC Bennett, there was enough Liberal support, mostly in Vancouver, to allow them to elect up a handful of MLAs, but the Tory vote and most of the Liberal vote went to the Socreds. Then, in 1972, the “free enterprise vote” splintered a little which, combined with a desire for change, allowed the NDP one term in power.
The Socreds in the 1970s were lucky as neither the Tories or Liberals were able to build on what they had done. WAC’s son, Bill Bennett, became the new Socred leader and basically united all the right of center vote behind him. It was the era of the “60 second Socred” where fashionable people disliked the Socreds, but inevitably vote for them.
Bill Bennett retired in 1986, and the social conservative wing of the Socreds was very helpful in helping Bill Vander Zalm to succeed him. Vander Zalm won the 1986 election but was plagued by controversy and scandal.
So, in 1991, Vander Zalm retired and was replaced by Rita Johnston, who also appealed to so-cons. Then, the Liberals had a stroke of luck. Bowing to the threat of a legal challenge, the networks allowed Liberal leader Gordon Wilson into the leader’s debate. I remember Harcout and Johnston yelling at each other like fishwives and then Wilson turning to the camera and saying something like “and this is why nothing ever gets done in the province of British Columbia.”
Wilson seemed like a good choice if you disliked the NDP, so in that election, the Liberals surged to second place. The fate of the Socreds was sealed a year or so later when Grace McCarthy, a Bill Bennett cabinet minister was unable to win a byelection. Wilson had his own issues, and was replaced by Gordon Campbell, former mayor of Vancouver, who seemed more “premier-like”. After 2 NDP terms, one in which the Reform BC conservative splinter party allowed the NDP to eke out a narrow win in 1996, Campbell and the BC Liberals won handily in 2001.
So, Cummins is newsworthy as a possible Gordon Wilson 2.0, someone who can came out of nowhere and cause the rise of “Generic BC anti-socialist party 4.0″.
BC politics can seem a bit confusing, so thanks for indulging me with the chance to explain.
And now you’re up to date in the world of sports.
I would take what any BC politician, or any politician says, with a grain of salt.
Their top 3 goals are to get elected, to get re-elected, and to ‘take care’ of the people who worked hard to get them nominated/elected. The luckless taxpayer comes well down on the list of priorites…..most especially during our 20 odd years in BC.
To follow up, Mr. Cummins handily passed through with 71 per cent opposing a leadership review. Columnists in the Vancou7ver papers, though, think that this has damaged the party’s chances in the election that must be called next spring…