The B.C. election seemed to be orbiting the Sunshine Coast last week, and the trajectory was downward for the Liberals.
It started last Thursday with a chance encounter between Leader Christy Clark and Linda Higgins of Gibsons at a meet and greet in a North Vancouver grocery store. Captured on TV cameras, the seven-minute exchange blew up into a national story.
The two women shook hands and Higgins started to say, “I would never vote for you because of what …” but Clark cut her off. “You don’t have to – that’s why we live in a democracy,” Clark said, and walked away with her entourage in tow.
It was the kind of pithy arrogance that used to win points for Pierre Trudeau, but the episode was presented as a major gaffe by Clark after the #IamLinda hashtag became a rallying point on Twitter for thousands of her party’s detractors.
Rather than let it die, Clark’s own people gave the story legs, her campaign manager and ex-husband postulating that the whole thing was an NDP setup and Higgins was “a plant.” This brilliant deduction was apparently based on a Facebook photo of Higgins with Powell River-Sunshine Coast NDP incumbent Nicholas Simons, which turned out to have been taken after the incident. Five days after the story broke, the Liberals admitted there was no evidence to back their suspicions and said they were “happy to stand corrected.”
By then, B.C. media was picking up on a New York Times report on B.C.’s International Business Assistance program, which was expanded under the Liberals, offers tax breaks to multinational corporations with meagre returns to B.C.’s economy, and operates “under a cloak of secrecy.” The story links the program to PacNet Services Ltd., listed last year by the U.S. government as “a significant transnational criminal organization.”
Taking up the “criminal” theme, a Vancouver daily reported late Wednesday: “The mother of a fentanyl victim is questioning why a B.C. politician brought a relative facing a serious fentanyl-related criminal charge onto the campaign trail.”
The “B.C. politician” turned out to be Powell River-Sunshine Coast Liberal candidate Mathew Wilson. The relative, who he “has been spotted campaigning with,” is his stepbrother, Kasimir (Kaz) Tyabji-Sandana.
Tyabji-Sandana was charged in 2015 in Calgary with importing a controlled substance, was freed on bail later that year, and his trial has been set for Sept. 11. Although the charge has not been proven in court, the story quotes a Lower Mainland woman whose 20-year-old son died last year of a fentanyl overdose at a private treatment centre in Powell River. She calls it “a slap in the face” that Tyabji-Sandana has been supporting Wilson on Facebook and has attended campaign events with his stepbrother. Wilson’s campaign office reportedly responded with a statement of sympathy for the woman and notes the stepbrother is “of course” supporting Wilson, as is the rest of the family “and hundreds of other members of the community.” The legal matter is before the courts, the statement concludes.
It was the end of a tough week for Wilson. His attempt to put Simons on the spot over a missed vote in the Legislature – raised by Green leader Andrew Weaver during the televised leaders’ debate – fizzled out when Simons explained that he had missed a number of votes while recovering for seven weeks from major ear surgery.
Wilson’s latest assurances regarding long-term care in Sechelt triggered an avalanche of local indignation, with experienced health care workers being among his most derisive critics.
Whether all this bad publicity hurts the Liberals on election day, or has no effect because voters have already made up their minds, or even gives rise to an anti-media-hit-job sympathy vote – those are the questions.
