Terry Lake like a deer caught in the crosshairs

Armchair Mayor column for The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, June 5, 2010

Though he’s been described as a deer in the headlights, Terry Lake is beginning to look more like a deer in the crosshairs.

His colossal boo-boo on the anti-HST petition last week served to solidify a growing wisdom, especially among the Big City Media, that Lake is prime fodder for recall.

A week ago Thursday, Province columnist Michael Smyth published a column headlined Liberals Look for Loopholes to Beat Anti-HST Petition. Star of the show was Lake, who told Smith a legislative committee might rule the petition null and void.

“The committee could look at that initiative and say that it’s invalid,” said Lake, who heads up the committee that will figure out what to do when the successful petition is presented. Besides which, he said, he’s “not a fan of direct democracy.”

As it happened, I was in Vancouver attending the B.C. Chamber of Commerce annual meeting and convention at the time, listening to Premier Gordon Campbell defend the HST as “not an easy thing to do, but the right thing to do.”

I’m guessing that, earlier in the day — like within five minutes of the Province landing on his desk — the premier was having a word or two with Lake, for when the Daily News contacted the MLA the same day, he was already backtracking, big time. He misspoke, he acknowledged — his committee has absolutely no authority to question the validity of the petition.

Friday, still at the convention, a trio of media types — Vaughn Palmer of the Sun, Bill Good of CKNW, and Keith Baldrey of Global — dissected the calamity that is the Liberal government’s handling of HST, and it was not pretty.

At one point, Baldrey suggested several Liberal newbies are “like deer caught in headlights,” adding that Lake is “panicking” over the prospect of recall.

And 24 Hours columnist Bill Tieleman, who helped defeat the STV referendum, wrote that day that Lake’s misunderstanding of his committee’s authority “demonstrated his unfitness for the job.”

That wasn’t all. Next morning’s Globe and Mail ran a big article headlined Will The HST Be The Liberals’ Waterloo?, which included a sidebar called Eight At Risk. Among those judged by the Globe as most vulnerable to recall were Donna Barnett of Cariboo-Chilcotin, George Abbott of Shuswap, and Lake.

Basis for the paper’s assessment was the strength of the anti-HST campaigns in their ridings. Kamloops-North Thompson was one of the first ridings to get enough signatures on the petition, and the number is still climbing. It’s been pointed out more people have now signed the petition than voted for Lake in the election.

Recall isn’t imminent — the Recall and Initiative Act says an application can’t be made until 18 months after an election, which means Nov. 15 is the earliest anyone can start a campaign.

Chad Moats of the local Fight HST campaign has said Lake will be a candidate for recall if the Liberals don’t bail on the HST. I suspect Moats’ name might well be on the recall application, which would cost him 50 bucks and give him 60 days to gather 40 per cent support among the riding’s electorate.

That is a daunting task, so daunting that the recall provision has long been regarded as designed to fail. And, that’s exactly what it has done every time it’s been tried.

It was attempted after the 1996 election when the NDP were in hot water over a claim that the budget was balanced even though finance officials had quietly warned them it was in deficit. A budget in trouble — déjà vu all over again.

In one bizarre situation, a Terrace resident decided to make fun of the recall law by filing an application to unseat MLA Helmut Giesbrecht “because we can’t blame everything on El Nino.”

He was drawing attention to the fact the recall legislation requires that an application state a reason, but it doesn’t matter what the reason is.

However, it backfired. The act also sets no limits on the number of applications against any one MLA. And, the MLA is allowed to treat them as separate campaigns and can spend the full amount allowed on each one. That meant Giesbrecht was technically allowed to spend twice as much money defending himself. (He wisely chose not to do it, and won anyway.)

If Lake is challenged, it would trigger what would amount to a mini-election campaign, followed by a by-election, in which he could run again.

The Liberals hold a comfortable majority in the legislature, so more than a half dozen seats would have to change hands through recall to defeat the government. (Back in 1997, the NDP had only a two-seat edge over the Liberals, who warned Premier Glen Clark to not even think about his proposed “review” of the recall act.)

There’s one other very important point about recall, relating to the Giesbrecht example. Some, including the NDP, have said over the years it’s intended to deal with how MLAs do their jobs, not how governments do theirs.

In other words, it shouldn’t be used to challenge government policy. But, since the act provides no guidelines on reasons for launching a recall petition, anything goes.

Which is why Lake, whether or not he’s doing a good constituency job, is in the crosshairs.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca