4 ~ Friday, December 18, 1692 - North Shore News A good example of a downsized politician JEREMY DALTON has a tegret or two. Once is that he wasn’t in the B.C. legislature last week when the New Democrats, joined by Social Crediters, piously protected renegade ex-Liberal David Mit- chell’s membership on three legislative committees, over the protests of his old party chums. ‘These guys, it’s disgraceful,” fumed Dalton, Liberal member for West Vancouver-Capilano. ‘*L was just sorry { wasn’t in the house ... I told Gordon (Wilson) this morning, ! would have killed somebody. I wouldn’t have put up with this garbage.”” Dalton, a small, sandy man with a small, sandy moustache, doesn’t look like the sort of man who would maybe seize the legislative mace and bludgeon some unsuspecting socialist or Socred to death. But he is evi- dently a man of deep political passion. He is also what might be called @ post-modernist politician. In an age when people are sup- posedly fed up with real or fake charismatic politicians, images, slickness, and photo opportunities managed by expensive aides and communications advisers, Dalton is almost aggressively ordinary. For example, he shares the West Coast people’s broad dislike of Ottawa politics. He’s hardly warmer toward federai Liberal leader Jean Chre- tien’s party than to any other in Ottawa. Dropped out of the party altogether in the late Pierre Trudeau years. Has run in only two elections — North Vancouver District 44 School Board, 1986 (lost), and successfully for his Present job, though he’d previous- ly worked in other Liberal cam- paigns. Dalton is a firm loyalist of par- ty leader Gordon Wilson. But he also spoke graciously of the past service of wandering sheep Mit- chell, whose constituency touches his at 22nd Street in West Van- couver. He was ‘‘very happy’? when Mitchell, who had some practical experience in the Saskatchewan legislature, was chosen Liberal house leader. f “And | did write to David when he resigned, and I said ‘Thank you for all you did for us in the spring session’ —— we didn’t even have a clue where the washroom was ... David was very helpful. But obviously he had his own agenda at some point. ... He rode off in God knows how many dif- ferent directions, none of them helpful to the party.” Everyone has been so distracted by Mitchell’s party border-jump- ings and eventual resignation from the Liberal caucus that not much attention has been paid to the perhaps more enduringly danger- ous issue: his riding executive has stuck with him. A renegade MLA is one thing. A renegade party association is something else. “*Ecan tell you,”’ Dalton said, “*David Mitchell could no more get re-elected in that riding than a donkey could, not right now, and he’s hurt the Liberal chances in that riding terribly.” Dalton hears a lot of angry Liberal talk from this next-door riding and said that many Liberals think that if recall were in place, Mitchell would be dumped now. Dalton is firmly, almost truculently, anti-socialist and an- ti-NDP. Definition: the people who put the collectivity ahead of the indi- vidual and free enterprise. And he wants Mike Harcourt out of office swiftly. Holding these two views in- evitably leads to the classic B.C. anyone-but-the-NDP dilemma. With only 40% of the popular vote but the other 60% split, the NDP shall reign for ever and ever, amen. This dilemma was solved — for some 15 years — in the mids- 1970s, when Bill Bennett waved every Liberal MLA except leader Gordon Gibson into the Social Credit tent. That required real or perceived strong leadership, plus the some- what shame-faced spectacle of MLAs shifting their affiliations to ancient rivals. Not pretty. Not easy. . But Dalton, though in the vest of Libera) wortds obviously preferring a massive electoral em- brace of the Liberal party under Gordon Wilson, joins other real- GARDEN OF BIASES ists in recognizing that this may not happen by, say, suppertime tomorrow. In fact he puts a stale-date stamp on when the non-NDP forces must find a dominant ex- isting leader or coalesce: Christmas next year. That would be about half-way through the probable NDP man- date of four years. But Dalton reasons that Har- court will call an election sooner than that — the timing to be determined precisely by the for- mation of a single free-enterprise (awkward term, but it'll do) party. ‘Why? Because Harcourt knows that right now there is no true sense of a common theme as to who’s going to lead the opposi- tion forces in the next election,’” said Dalton. “Obviously, the Liberal party is going to be led by Gordon Wilson. It may not necessarily be called the Liberal party, and if someone comes up with a better title — as long as we coalesce on one viewpoint -—- Harcourt is out. “But ic will have to be within the next year, because Harcourt will seize on any lack of cohesion (among the opposition ranks) and go to the polls early.”” There’s been some fairly fever- ish ‘‘scouting around’’ for leaders other than Wilson and Socred in- terim leader Jack Weisgerber, Daiton conceded. Grace MeCarthy’s name sur- faces perennially. “John Reynolds’ name came up in conversation the other day,”’ Dalton chuckled, as if not too impressed by the former Socred MLA’s chances. Dalton, who has both arts and law deprees and is on leave from 19 years of teaching business ad- ministration and law courses at the Langara campus of Vancouver Community College, has some pungent views on NDP mishandl- ing of the recent strike of Langara faculty — he’d have been on the picket lines himself if he’d still been working at that job. The underlying problem is that the college board dispropor- tionately gives funds to the other two campuses, King Edward and the dawntown one, for — are you listening, Doug Collins? — adult basic education and English as a second language courses. Langara is starved. Thus the pressure for an independent Langara beard. Dalton, his party's education critic, flunks NDP Advanced Education Minister Tom Perry, author of many strange and con- fused actions in his portfolio. “ET predict Tom Perry will be the first minister to lose his job,” Dalton declared, adding that two other likely casualties in a cabinet shuffle — not too far off, he thinks —— will be David Zirnhelt and Darlene (The Ghost) Marzar. That’s my sub-literary licence, calling her The Ghost, but it was Dalton’s idea. His overriding approach to government is tipped by his an- swer to: What would he do about the government dispute with the doctors? “They aren’t the problem,” Dalton replied. ‘‘The doctors are being picked on because they're the fat cats. “Socialists don’t like people with money — other than Bob Williams, who's a phoney socialist because he’s the biggest capitalist of them all. ‘“There’s a better way to deliver health services, and it really comes out of the Seaton Report: Close to home. Get into the community. ... We're looking at government not to be bigger and better — ha, that’s a joke — but to downsize it, to get it down to the communi- ty level."” Lo Dalton himself is a pretty good example of the lighter, more manoeuvrable downsized politi- 2] from a bankrupt fur manufacturer. NEVER -> 4 AGAIN SAVINGS on these, plus thousands of other in-store specials, whille they last! | + Fox Collers/Lamb Trim Rain Parkas . Unsurpassed Value. Limited Quantities! 88/08 ‘Fox Stoles/Mink Stoles 988/688 Very Fashionable. Whie They Last! 308 | i Biue Fox Jackets Tres Chicl Huge Savings! cron *478 | 9768-2988 | Sheared Muskrat Parkes Heodad, Fox Trim, Assorted Colours Natural Canadian Sable Jacket Awe Inspiring! vom “4,188 4,388 Montana Lynx Belly Cost Word Fest Quy Sunpus & Es This Christmas give her something she vill .£, enjoy throughout the year. A lovely pair of gold earrings from Swedish Jeweler. Very Styish, Rabbit Lined Femaie Mink Jackets Meticulously Handcrafted. 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