There was an unmistakable clue in a Friday media advisory from the NDP as to how it鈥檚 going to be for the next three years.
NDP Leader John Horgan鈥檚 first official event was a tour of the Western Stevedoring facility in North 91原创.
The note warned: 鈥淢edia attending this availability must wear steel-toed boots and safety vests.鈥� Not only that, but: 鈥淪teel-toed boots will NOT be provided on site, and must be brought by media attending.鈥�
With a jolt that almost knocked my safety glasses off, I realized where the political discourse is going to take place from now until election day 2017. Horgan is going to try to copy-cat Premier Christy Clark鈥檚 success last year on job sites around B.C. He鈥檚 going to try to out-hardhat her.
Then a secondary shock almost knocked me to the ground: We in the media are going to look like dorks for this entire term of government.
There鈥檚 nothing phonier than someone who clearly hasn鈥檛 done a lick of physical labour in years showing up in a hard hat, safety vest and steel-toed boots. I鈥檝e done hardhat visits with politicians. I could feel the derision from all over the plant as the real workers looked at me in my shiny new hat 鈥� standing around holding a pen, doing nothing.
That鈥檚 going to be the cost of doing business for the next while, but in terms of the contest shaping up, it鈥檚 a price worth paying.
Because the NDP has a lot of catching up and backfilling to do before their leader can stand comfortably with a crowd of hardhats and know the workers are on their side. For all the hard work and intelligence Adrian Dix put into his leadership of the party, he did nothing to stop the party鈥檚 drift away from blue-collar workers. In fact, he intensified it dramatically, by abruptly opposing the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Any number of post mortems pin the party鈥檚 campaign collapse on that Earth Day moment.
Plus, he was weak on hardhat moments. He showed up at the Liberal鈥檚 first throne speech after their victory carrying a hardhat. But it was to make a bitter point, while standing in the legislature鈥檚 rose garden. 鈥淕etting the job done on a jobs plan 鈥� on skills training 鈥� requires more than wearing a hardhat.鈥�
Liberals at that point were still giggling about Dix鈥檚 main hat moment of the campaign. He was photographed in Barkerville wearing a bowler hat. Liberal mirth arose from the fact they were stressing the fact he would destroy the economy and drive people out of B.C., and he showed up in a ghost town.
The NDP鈥檚 drift away from working people has been underway for a while, but it became clear in 2007. The party convention that year became wildly enthused with sustainability as a doctrine. It was an 鈥渁ction agenda鈥� and an 鈥渋nspiring brand.鈥� A sustainability commissioner would check every decision of government and people would have a new environmental bill of rights under which they could sue to stop just about anything. Sustainability was going to 鈥渂ecome a powerful and persuasive central theme of the 2009 campaign.鈥�
It became no such thing, and they lost.
They downplayed the doctrine in 2013, but it鈥檚 still on the party鈥檚 books, and seemed to shape Dix鈥檚 thinking. They lost again.
So starting Horgan off at a work site is a deliberate move, and there will likely be more such visits to come. But he鈥檚 going up against a master of hardhat and safety-vest moments in Clark. She staged one virtually every day of the campaign and still shows up at them every chance she gets.
Horgan鈥檚 job is to start trying to catch up to her 鈥� from a long way back 鈥� while not unduly alienating that chunk of the NDP that is quite happy to forgo the working people鈥檚 vote in favour of standing for some mushy 鈥渟ustainability鈥� doctrine that doesn鈥檛 seem to have much of anything to do with jobs. And he has to conduct that tap dance without leaving room for the Greens to move in.
Hard to do, when you鈥檙e wearing steel-toed boots.
