NDP Leader John Horgan recently spent an hour chatting with several Times Colonist editors and reporters, and at one point he raised the topic of the fast ferries.
Discussing whether people mistrust NDP economic management based on the party’s terms in power in the 1990s, Horgan was chatting about history and how people might recall specific moments but don’t always remember the full history. His opponents have done an “absolutely” good job of demonizing the party over that record, he said.
“And ‘fast ferry fiasco’ is alliterative, so it’s easy to remember. I knock on the door and someone says: ‘I remember the fast ferries.’ I say: ‘What do you remember about them exactly?’
“There’s a blank stare. No one remembers what the issues were. They don’t remember what the initial budget was, the final budget, what was thrown into the soup when they did the report on what the final budget was. They don’t remember that the guy [Gordon Campbell] who made it a political football sold them for less than scrap. That’s the scandal in my mind, but that’s not the story in the public mind.
“Is the mythology on the question of the NDP managing finances strong? Yes. But the actual reality … ”
He cut himself off at that point and said he didn’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the 1990s, because the Liberals will be doing that.
Conversation moved on. I thought Horgan’s “actual reality” version would have to wait for another day. And it would likely be a long wait, since it was about 20 years ago, and the story is almost ancient history.
But in the daily release of responses to freedom-of-information requests last Wednesday, there were 68 pages of documentation pertaining to the fast ferries. Someone requested cabinet documents from 1995 to 2001 relating to the ferries. Requesters don’t have to identify themselves; they’re only categorized as belonging to one of nine groups — individual, lawyer, media, political party, etc.
This one was from a “researcher.” Who or what the researcher is working for isn’t known. But I wouldn’t collapse in shock if he or she were doing some research for the B.C. Liberals, given the season, the narrow focus of the request and the general tone of the pre-campaign period so far.
The response was unusually comprehensive, with no blacked-out portions. That’s for a particular reason. The cabinet-confidentiality clauses that commonly allow for redactions generally don’t apply after 15 years. So if someone happens to be doing political research, this is the first campaign during which cabinet documents right up to 2002 are no longer covered by confidentiality restrictions.
That means Liberals now have access to all the paperwork right through the gruesome, dying days of the Glen Clark-Dan Miller-Ujjal Dosanjh governments. In other words, a free peek at any number of colourful dilemmas with which those cabinets were occupied.
Conversely, if NDP researchers are doing the same thing, they would be entitled to their first full glimpse of the opening 18 months of the Liberals’ first term.
As for the fast-ferries documents, they bring back many painful and morbidly hilarious memories.
There was NDP minister for ferries Gordon Wilson — yes, that Gordon Wilson — presenting the auditor general’s report on the lemons (incompetent management, political interference) to a cabinet meeting at Crown Isle resort, in Courtenay.
There was consideration of the idea of stripping cabinet of any authority over B.C. Ferries, which is pretty much what the Liberals did three years later.
There were detailed reports about the utter hopelessness of expecting the fast ferries to do the job they were supposed to do — run between Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay.
“Analysis has concluded that this option is not viable.”
So the NDP cabinet moved $1 billion in ferries debt, including about $400 million for the fast-ferry fiasco, on to the government books, concluded the catamarans were worth less than $20 million apiece and eventually decided to put them on the market. There were no takers over two years, and the subsequent Liberal government eventually put them up for auction, where someone bid $19 million for all three and won.
So the story from the NDP days is now free on demand. Whether anyone still cares about it is yet to be determined.
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