Sorry, Clark doesn’t ‘deserve’ to be handed a free seat

I’m not one of those who gets all sentimental about Christy Clark “deserving” a seat in the B.C. Legislature.

Clark announced Wednesday she will run in a by-election in Westside-Kelowna, and some people think the other parties should step aside and let her win by acclamation.

Such a grand gesture would save the taxpayers some money but, democratically speaking, it would be foolish.

According to Todd Stone, the decision of Liberal Ben Stewart to resign the seat he just handily won, in order to give Clark a safe shot at election, is the “honorable thing” to do.

Any of the Liberals elected May 14 would do the same thing, he said.

Well, not quite. Ralph Sultan, who won re-election in West Vancouver-Capilano by the biggest margin of any Liberal, was quoted by CBC shortly after election night that he would not voluntarily give up his seat for Clark. It will be interesting to see if Sultan’s name comes up on the list of cabinet ministers that will be announced Friday.

Westside-Kelowna is a strange choice for Clark. She’s from the Coast, after all.

According to Clark, though, Kelowna is her “natural political home.” Apparently, she’s had an epiphany after all these years. Clark, who lives in Vancouver-Fairview, lost in Vancouver-Point Grey. She is a Lower Mainlander through and through, but suddenly her political heart is in the Interior.

Oh, well, Adrian Dix has decided to put up a candidate and fight the good fight in the by-election, and the Liberals will, no doubt, complain about it. For Dix, though, it’s a no-brainer — he’ll get to fight the general election all over again, at least in miniature, and try to avoid the total screw-up he committed in May.

This being a democracy, the people should have a say, and she should have to earn her seat.

Clark will win, of course, because she’s the premier and because the Liberals won Westside-Kelowna by 28 points and nothing’s going to change that. Of course, that’s pretty much what the New Democrats thought about the general election they just blew.