STRICTLY PERSONAL CLAYOQUOT SOUND is the B.C. NDP’s Rubicon. I say this as a guy who was writing a column when Pierre Trudeau, a so-called “tiberal,’’ turned all of Canada into a police state in order to solve a political problem in Quebec, At the time, | was one of three — count 'em! — English- newspaper columnists who came out opposing the imposition of the War Measures Act. The other 99% of editorial writers, including the geniuses at the Sun, where | was working at the time, were totally behind the Sashly self-minted dictator. ‘It was disgusting to watch how quickly the media gave in to total- itarianism. 1 wrote a column welcoming everyone to the ‘Police State of Canada,"’ which is what we had beconie, thanks to an order-in- council. I said at the time that Trudeau had shown the ‘‘fuehrer-like”’ side of his personality, a revelation that would haunt his place in his- tory. _And to Sun publisher Stu Keate's credit, they ran it, even though it was totality contrary to © editorial policy. I still think Trudeau will go down in history for his fascist tendencies, not his progressiv- eness. Which brings me to Clayoquot. And Harcourt. My thesis is that Mike Harcourt has reached the same juncture in his career as Trudeau reached dur- ing the October crisis. This is the Clayoquot Crisis. There is almost no way out for Harcourt now, any more than there was for Trudeau, after he had shown the world his bad side. Harcourt has, of course, left ’ himself subject to the worst con- demnations of all future genera- tions of not just British Colum- bians, but Canadians everywhere, and a sizable percentage of the rest of the human race — those who will never have the cption of visiting a place such as Clayoquot 44 The resources are Still here to be abused. Let’s abuse them. Screw the future. 99 Sound, as it now exists. Historical footnote-wise, Mikey has shot himself not just in the foot but through the family jewels. The NDP's one area of growth over the last couple of decades has been through the green consti- tuency. Certainly no conservatives have been convinced by any brilliant new hits of socialist rhetoric. Where else could the growth have come from, what with the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc.? Clayoquot has rightfully been seen as a watershed in every respect you could ask for. We're not just talking an ecological reality, we're talking a metaphorical watershed, an alle- gory, something enormously sym- bolic. We're talking Mike Harcourt's Waterloo, if you ask me. What do | know of these things? Nothing more than any- body else. Just the memory of how Dave Barrett Sell from godhood to talk show host ina couple of months. . ' Near the end, his staff were calling up people in the en- vironmental movement, wanting | to know where the cheering crowds were to applaud the green initiatives he-had dutifully launch- ed, a development Sreeze on agri- cultural lasid, a ban on uranium drilling, the no-more-Orca-cap- ture rule. But it was too late. ‘A tide had turned, I remember feeling sorry for Barfett, isolated as he was in the premier’s goldfish bow! in Vic- toria. 1 don't know how it is now, but a few years back, there were at least two antechambers before one reached the inner sanctum. Power swizzles the brain. It happened to Barrett fairly quickly. It has happened to Mike Harcourt. 1 listen to fairly elaborate ob- jective political interpretations of why Harcourt has stumbled down the Yellow Brick Road through the clearcuts, while still desper- ately trying to present himself as a kine of Eco-Dorothy of Oz. I can just see Harcourt behind a screen, yelling through a microphone: ‘‘! am the fierce and mighty Eco-Wizard of Oz, who can destroy an old-growth rain forest while appearing to save it!” Mikey is bashing the eco- freaks. He's doing it in the name of jobs in B.C., which is like the song One Tin Soldier, with the lyrics: “Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end.”' Of course, what he is doing is acting out the role of every bad commissar or laird of the castle, waving a sword and saying ‘this shall be thus, this shall be this...’ “In all of these great debates, the only thing that matters is which side are you on? The B.C. NDP was careful not to paint itself into a totally green corner, so it may have been (this is the best I can say for them) that expectations were unreasonably high, Harcourt's betrayal of the great trees aside, there is an element of “End Age’’ decadence involved. The resources are still here to be abused, Let’s abuse them. Screw the future. In fact, the Clayoquot Sound land-use decision amounts to a licence to gut the remains of Van- couver Island’s western underbel- ly, where the winds and the sea create a unique planctary ecosystem, something so obviously of greater long-term, multi-user value compared with the jobs that ‘will be sustained for another cou- ple of years, that there is no serious philosophical arguinent about saving it. All there is, otherwise, is pro- paganda and power politics. And trees have few friends | in Victoria. 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