Has Michael Smyth Gone Pink?

NightlineBC
LeftyVille

We dunno for sure, but tonight on the Vancouver Province Political Columnist's little radio show it was pretty much all commie-pinko all the time.

Well, at least the NDP version of the beast, starting with house leader Mike Farnsworth who talked about the upcoming budget and was OK.

Farnsworth was followed by the former Children's Commissioner, Cynthia Morton, who was very solid and mostly took the high road, even when it came to the tragic number 713. You may recall that the Campbell Government got rid of the Commissioner in 2002. Morton pointed out that it takes courage for a government to have an independent body looking over its shoulder, reporting directly to the legislature instead of cow-towing to a Minister (eg. see: Morley, Jane; ed.). Because she was on the highroad Ms. Morton didn't say it, but we will:

"If the Campbell Government does not reinstate an independent Children's Commissioner immediately it is gutless because it will be choosing to put more children at risk uneccessarily in the name of political expediency."

Last up on Mr. Smyth's pinko-fest was former B.C. Premier David Barrett. Dave is aging now, and you can here it in his voice. But heckfire, he can still rise to the occasion. Tonight he was talking about the Campbell Government's shameless developer-assisted destruction of the agricultural land reserve and I listened to this segment with my oldest kid who was glueing pictures of carnivourous plants on her school Science Fair poster.....

'Who's that?' she asked

'The Premier,' I answered.

I went back to loading the dishwasher and she went back to her glueing. A couple of minutes later she looked up and said, 'That's not Gordon Campbell; he's actually saying something.'


I smiled a little and then I told her a few Barrett stories from days gone by, including how one of the first things he did, in 1972, when I was the same age as she is now, thirteen, was to pass the Land Reserve Legislation.

What I've always liked about Barrett is that he is a guy who says what he means and means what he says, regardless who he's speaking to.

And that is one of the things I despise most about all this Straussian-like bloviating from the Mr Campbell and his chain gang who say one thing for the masses in front of the cameras and say quite another thing in the backrooms and the boardrooms. A recent, and most egregious, example of this is Forest and Range Minister's Rich Coleman's refusal to come clean on the 'Welfare For Landlords' scheme in the public prints after he has been off telling all the pertinent lobby groups who will benefit most exactly what they want to hear.

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We have to admit, after initially being very skeptical we are finding that, on a lot of issues Smyth is starting to do a pretty good job. In fact, he even appears to listen to what his guests have to say and then asks solid follow-up questions (compare this to the one-off and drop-it questioning from the water carrying morning man, Mr. Good). But the callers, well, that's another thing entirely. One gets the feeling that Smyth views them as an icky, necessary evil of the format.

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