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BC’s unelected Premier, Christy Clark, has really only done one thing since she began her run for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party: campaign.

She hasn’t stopped.  She’s transformed the Premier’s Office website into a grand spectacle promoting, not British Columbia, but herself.

Someone gave me a copy of the Chilliwack Progress published on December 22nd, 2011 because they thought it would be amusing to hear my response to the cover story of that edition.

The lead article’s title under a picture of the Unelected and Unaccountable One said:

“Conservatives could be ‘spoilers': Clark”.

Christy Clark was in Chilliwack complaining about how hard-done-by she is in the wake of the resignation of longtime Chilliwack MLA Barry Penner.

“Governments almost always lose by-elections,” she whined on the front page.

She then went on to snivel about how “shocked” she would be if the staunchly conservative community sent an NDP MLA to Victoria after this by-election is over.  Clark shouldn’t be concerned about the NDP candidate, whoever that turns out to be, however.

She ought to be concerned about Chilliwack sending a Conservative MLA to Victoria to replace Barry Penner, because that’s who she is really up against in that riding.

While the British Columbia Conservative Party hasn’t been a big mover and shaker in provincial politics, that all appears to be changing this time around.  The Provincial NDP is seemingly in disarray and the Liberals… well, the folks here in BC haven’t been too thrilled with them for quite some time now.

Adding to Christy Clark’s much-anticipated demise is the fact that well-known and well-respected criminologist John Martin announced in early December that he will be seeking the Conservative Party nomination for the upcoming by-election.

"The BC Liberals absolutely don't deserve a fourth term to be re-elected," John Martin said in a Chilliwack Times article dated December 6, 2011.

"I'm a small 'c' conservative and the Liberals don't represent me anymore.  And I can't vote NDP.  The by-election in Chilliwack-Hope is the first opportunity for the BC Conservatives to get on the map and get a seat in the legislature.  That's why I'm doing this, I want to help make that happen."

Clark is clearly worried that John Martin’s announcement could send her own candidate’s chances plummeting to earth.  Her reasons for speaking about an NDP MLA seem clear… she feels that John Martin could do so well that he would “split the conservative vote”, causing an NDP MLA to win the riding.

Apparently nobody has clued The Unelected One in to the fact that she is NOT a conservative politician in either word or deed, because she clearly believes she is.  Well,  she believed it long enough to spew her rhetoric to the local Chilliwack newspapers, anyway.

I must admit I got a very good chuckle from one of the lines she was quoted as saying.

I’m really hopeful that the voters of Chilliwack will honor Barry Penner’s legacy and support his party in the by-election.”

That Barry Penner was good for Chilliwack is not in doubt.  He’s done a lot of great work on behalf of the area, but that great work often came in spite of the party he belonged to, not because of it.

Unless the voters in the riding of Chilliwack-Hope are complete morons, they will vote for the candidate who is actually on the ballot, not the one who retired.

John Cummins, the leader of the BC Conservative Party put it quite well, saying that his candidate didn’t need to “split the vote” in order to win, he only needed to get out all the voters who stayed home during the last election because they refused to vote Liberal.

Well said, Mr. Cummins!

Under the heading of “Liberal Candidates Abandon Premier Clark” the BC Conservative Party website had this to say:

December 5, 2011 – VANCOUVER – Yesterday, Diane Janzen, the only declared candidate for the Liberal nomination in the Chilliwack-Hope by-election dropped out of the race. This comes on the heels of the preferred Liberal candidate for the Port Moody-Coquitlam by-election deciding to run for the NDP.

“Candidates are abandoning Christy Clark’s Liberal party in key ridings,” said John Cummins, Leader of British Columbia’s Conservatives.

“Why is the governing party having such a hard time finding qualified people willing to run in seats they won easily in the last election?”

Why indeed?  Could it be the BC Liberal Party is well past its “Best Before” date?

Naturally, the Unelected One made another pronouncement from on high, decreeing that she is the saviour of the province and that the only way to stop the NDP from forming the next BC Government is to “come together and get behind a single candidate”, namely HER candidate.

Yeah, whatever.

A recent poll quoted by Clark showed the BC NDP 11% ahead of both the BC Liberals and BC Conservatives. Both are tied at 23%.

Maybe she ought to instruct her pollsters to talk to folks outside her own party.  Just a thought…

That’s an interesting poll, and shows that the BC Conservatives have finally come into their own and are a viable alternative to the corrupt political pandering of the past 30 years.

Clark of course disagreed with that outside poll, stating confidently that her party’s internal polling has the Liberals and NDP in a dead heat.

“Our internal polling shows a very different picture. It’s a two-way race between the BC Liberals and the NDP.  The difference between the BC Liberals and the NDP is much narrower than recent public polls.  The BC Conservatives can only act as a spoiler.”

Well, I for one am very much looking forward to seeing John Martin trounce whoever the BC Liberals run in that by-election, and to seeing the rest of the BC Conservatives “spoiling” Christy Clark’s chance at becoming an actual elected Premier.

She didn’t earn the job she currently has and she’s not equipped to do the job either, and it will be quite fun to watch the voters of British Columbia toss her butt back out onto the street where it belongs.

The Chilliwack by-election is simply the first step of that inevitable process.