Liberals look for scapegoats
Times Colonist
May 9, 2010

These are baffling times in the B.C. Legislative Buildings. Gordon Campbell's Liberals have decided to knock heads. That might sound reasonable enough. Recent polls placed the Liberals almost 20 percentage points behind the New Democrats. It's time some ministers' heads were knocked.

But that's not what is happening. Instead of ministers, or the premier, it is scapegoats who are getting bashed….

There have been other whipping boys. Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid recently dispatched an official to audit the Vancouver school district. The implication is that trustees are exaggerating their financial difficulties to plead poverty.

But like every public school board in B.C., Vancouver's books are open to anyone.

There is nothing to be learned from this display of impatience that the minister couldn't have found out through the normal channels.

However, the board has been an outspoken critic of the government. The chair has called for the minister's resignation. Perhaps that makes the Vancouver board fair game.

The government has also tried to muzzle the Representative for Children and Youth. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond has been told she may no longer release documents that encroach on cabinet confidentiality.

Turpel-Lafond is, by duty, a critic. But the legislation establishing her office voids any claim of confidentiality, other than solicitor-client privilege.

No doubt it's tempting, when the gadflies are biting, to hit back. But the government's ordeal is self-inflicted.

Instead of brooding over the failings of others, ministers should examine their own. An enemies list is no substitute for a policy.