Editor:
When I read the Coast Reporter headline for Sept. 25 (“Simons says premier made ‘a good case’ for early election call”), I immediately thought of that famous quote by Mandy Rice-Davies, “Well he would [say that], wouldn’t he?” She was addressing the disingenuous statement of a politician at the height of the Profumo scandal in the U.K. in the 1960s and her quip helped bring down a government.
Premier Horgan made no rational case at all for calling this unwanted and unnecessary election in the middle of a pandemic. He did, however, break a commitment to the people of British Columbia to abide by the fixed election dates established in law, and he broke another commitment he made in the confidence and supply agreement with the B.C. Greens to continue to govern until the next fixed date election to provide political and governance stability, something we need now more than ever. Instead, he unscrupulously broke his commitments in his unprincipled pursuit of political gain.
Sadly, Horgan may very well get away with it. People are distracted and the strong urge to “rally round” in a crisis seems to be working in his favour, though I do wonder if there will be a backlash. Will people be as quick to blame our political leaders as the COVID-19 numbers now rise exponentially as they were to give them credit early in the pandemic? Time will tell.
Democracy in this country and in too much of the western world is in decline. This sort of self-serving opportunism by our political leadership tells us why that is so.
Keith Maxwell, Sechelt
