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Will Clark bring change?

East Kootenay MLA Bennett has announced that B.C.’s new premier will ‘…have to put a new, fresh face on her government’ which she will do ‘through some new policies.’ (‘New Premier welcomes Bennett’, The Free Press, March 3.)

Change is in the air.

Some may scoff at Ms. Clark’s ability to effect this change, but she certainly has the experience.

As a member of the 2001-2005 Campbell government, for instance, she was responsible for the social and economic legislation that changed the achievements of the 1991 - 2001 NDP government (which, after 10 years, according to Tim O’Neil, the Bank of Montreal’s Chief Economist, had, among other things, ‘the most transparent and comprehensive financial reporting of any province’) to those of the present B.C. Liberal government (which, after 10 years has become a byword for corruption, secrecy, mendacity and inefficiency.)

As a Campbell enthusiast she helped to change the B.C. minimum wage from a Canadian first to last, to usher in the era of 25 per cent child poverty and to change a relatively egalitarian tax system to one which shifted the burden of tax from the rich to the rest of us.

There is little doubt, therefore, that in the past Ms. Clark has been capable of creating change.

However, it will take more than political hype or Mr. Bennett’s say-so to effect a similar change in her philosophy and legislative history.

It may take a blinding light on the road to Damascus.

 

J.C. Vallance

Fernie