Bennett another victim of the B.C. political disease

Bill Bennett’s fall from grace — or at least cabinet — is partly just a story of bad judgment and bad behaviour.
Bennett is the MLA for East Kootenay and, until this week, was the junior minister for mines. He resigned from cabinet after a constituent went public with a dumb, abusive and offensive e-mail that he’d received from Bennett.
But this isn’t just about Bennett’s lousy manners. The whole exchange highlights a persistent sickness in B.C..
We don’t really talk about policies or how to respond to problems in this province.
We just choose up sides and flail away at each other, like bike gangs or British soccer hooligans. If you’re on a team, you’re expected to support every policy and from your leader and denounce every idea from the other side.
You can’t decide, for example, that the Liberals have a pretty good ideas on encouraging the oil and gas industry, while.the NDP has a better approach to support for children and families.
And you certainly can’t assume that people in both parties are just trying to follow the path they think will lead to a better life for people in the province. The other side have to be seen as the enemies, evil conspirators out to destroy the economy (the Liberals’ view of the NDP) or reward the rich while pushing most of us into poverty and despair (the New Democrats’ view of the Liberals).
Not everyone is so foolish, of course. And in fact, the political leaders have mostly been better behaved since the last election.
But our political life is still dominated by those who trapped in the friends and enemies mindset. Look at the e-mail exchange that led to Bennett’s downfall.
The issue, hunting regulations, isn’t really left-right.
Recreational hunters in Bennett’s riding thought rule changes planned by the Environment Ministry would give commercial guides a larger share of the animals to be killed at their expense.
Bennett is a hunter and was mostly on their side. He said he was in his hotel room, when he thought he should have been downstairs at a mining conference, preparing for a meeting on the issue with Environment Minister Barry Penner.
And in the file was a two-month-old e-mail from a constituent.
Maarten Hart, president of the Fernie Rod and Gun Club, argued commercial guides were getting too large a share. But in the best B.C. fashion, Hart tossed in a pointless insult. “I know that your government bows to the almighty dollar and faces east three times each day (not to Mecca, but to Wall Street),” Hart wrote, an approach hardly likely to win an ally.
Bennett topped him. “It is my understanding that you are an American, so I don't give a shit what your opinion is,” he wrote. Hart was “fool,” maybe an U.S. spy aiming to block coal mines and “a self-inflated, pompous, American know-it-all.”
Obviously, wretched behaviour.
But not so wildly out of character, for Bennett or B.C. People who disagree with our politicians find themselves often considered opponents or enemies, instead of just citizens with a different - and perhaps useful - perspective.
So for Glen Clark, back in his early days as premier, the environmentalists who criticized forest policy weren’t just people with a different policy idea — they were “enemies of B.C.”
Gordon Campbell carried on the tradition in his early days as premier, dismissing people who rallied outside a party convention to express concern about government policies as both stupid and representatives of special interests.
And Bennett had a hard time accepting the fact that people upset about health-care in his riding, for example, had sincere concerns, and might even be right.
Bennett, who had a lot of strengths as an MLA, including a determination to do what was best for his constituents, is the big loser in this case.
But all British Columbians are damaged by our inability to move beyond blind and destructive partisanship.
Footnote: Bennett was named to cabinet after the 2005 election, when he was the sole Liberal survivor in the province’s southeast. His departure comes as health care continues to be an issue and the region faces important debates about expanded coal mining, wildlife conservation issues and the giant Jumbo Glacier Resort ski development.