It’s that time of year when many of us consider making a few resolutions for self-improvement. Here are suggested resolutions for the province’s MLAs.
• Buy a thesaurus: An online search in the B.C. government’s newsroom turned up 148 results for “highly respected,” 361 for “strong economy” and a mind-boggling 1,610 for “world-class.”
B.C. is home to world-class infrastructure, world-class safety protocols, destinations for world-class sporting events, world-class wineries, and a world-class isotopes research tunnel.
It’s as though there’s a function on the keypads of government flacks for the term or a prize to see how many times it can be worked into a single news release.
Environment Minister Mary Polak may have won in July, with a release that used world-class three times and world-leading once, presumably for creativity’s sake.
• Be more discerning in photo-op mates: In three years, Premier Christy Clark has had photo opportunities with Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto, former chairman and CEO of South Korean-based POSCO, Mr. Joon-Yang Chung, and Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak. Tanoto is the wallet behind the Woodfibre LNG proposal in Squamish, POSCO has coal interests in B.C., and Petronas — majority shareholder in Pacific Northwest LNG — is owned by the Malaysian government.
Either Clark has had a string of incredible bad luck or she’s going to develop a reputation for bringing it with her. Shortly before meeting Clark, Tanoto was fined U.S. $205 million for evading taxes. A few months after his meeting with Clark, POSCO’s chairman was fired after allegations he and other former executives operated a $9-million slush fund. And Malaysia’s prime minister is under investigation over U.S. $700 million that’s missing from a state-owned enterprise and mysteriously seems to be sitting in his personal bank account.
• Can the mantra or live up to it: In 2011, Christy Clark promised to run “the most open and transparent government in Canada,” which is odd because she was part of the cabinet of Gordon Campbell, who had also promised to run “the most open and transparent government in Canada.”
In 2013, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil stood outside the legislative chamber and declared he would run “the most open and transparent government in the country.”
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne promised that hers would be “the most open and transparent government in Canada.” Luckily for Wynne, her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, set the bar low.
Only one government can be the most open and transparent at a time. Work it out amongst yourselves, maybe odd-numbered days for Ontario, even for B.C.
• Fall back on 19th century technology for answering media questions and embrace 21st century innovations for backups: For media inquiries, face-to-face is best; otherwise try the telephone — it’s quaint but it works.
Goes without saying, but delete the delete button and build a firewall to protect political staff from online threats like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo.
Five resolutions for the political class to ponder. Until then, Happy New Year.
--Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.
www.integritybc.ca
@integritybc
