Dead Man Walking, Gordon Campbell Shuffles Toward the Chamber

He should'a stuck with
drinking in Maui

All that's missing are the prison utilities and the shackles.   British Columbia il-Liberal premier Gordon Campbell is a condemned man as far as his political career is concerned.  He's had a few reprieves along the way but his high crimes and misdemeanours have caught up with him at last.

Campbell is now the least popular premier in the land, scoring a heart-stopping 12% in the polls.  The good people of the most beautiful province in the country have had it with Campbell and his harmonized sales tax scam.   During the election he denied it was even on his radar.   No sooner had he bagged another majority than he dropped the HST bomb on a betrayed electorate.  

The public's fury was palpable.   Petitions were signed around the province demanding the Campbell government reconsider what, by then, they could no longer scrap, at least not without Ottawa's unlikely consent.   Campbell's big business backers tried to derail the petition only to be summarily kicked to the curb by the BC Supreme Court.

Shortly after failing in court, a FOI application netted government documents that show BC bureaucrats were kicking the HST thing around with their counterparts in Ottawa months before the election.   There was even a 'smoking gun' memo sent to the BC MinFin, Colin Hansen.  A long simmering public boiled over.

Campbell and his MinFin denied there was anything underhanded in their electoral denials.  Perhaps because this government has lied to the public time after time they calculated they could get away with it one more time.  Perhaps because this government has lied to the public time after time, the public, this time, wasn't buying it.

Campbell wasted no time throwing gasoline on the fire burning at his feet.   He brazenly announced that he'll ride this one out.   He won't consider resigning.   He said he was staying on to lead his provincial il-Libs in the next election.  In so doing Campbell merely fixed the date for his and his party's mass execution.

But I'm thinking that a lot of Campbell's caucus colleagues figure this is a walk the Boss should be taking all on his own.  I just don't think many of them want to see their political careers end this way.  Campbell isn't the Pharoah.   The attendants don't have to die with him.   That sound you hear may be the scraping noise of knives being sharpened.   Campbell is no Pharoah but he may well go the way of Caesar.

Suddenly British Columbia politics are interesting again.