The Ascension of Christy Clark - Part 2 - Family First
By Peter Ewart
Wednesday, March 02, 2011 03:40 AM
By Peter Ewart
(Click here to read “Part 1” of this series)
"Family" is another word that Christy Clark throws around repeatedly in her policy documents and interviews. Indeed, her four part political platform is called her "Families first agenda". Listening to her, just about everything in politics and life comes down to what she terms "family".
To reinforce this idea, Clark often weaves in details from her own family life, whether listening to political discussion at the knee of her father when she was a child, or looking after her dying mother in her home, or ferrying around her nine year old son to soccer games and hockey.
When one of the television stations in Vancouver conducted a series of interviews on each of the four candidates, Clark's interview took place while she just so happened to be watching her son play hockey at a community rink. Thus, her interview was repeatedly punctuated with episodes where she turned away from the camera to cheer him on in the hockey game. The message was clear: Here is a woman who prioritizes "family" and, by extension, is just an ordinary person who is no different from the many thousands of "hockey parents" and "soccer moms" across the province. The populist message is implicit: "Aw shucks, vote for me, ordinary people of BC, because I am just like you!"
In that respect, she is no different than other establishment politicians like Brian Mulroney who hid the slick lawyer and politician he was, behind the image of the "boy from Baie Comeau". Or Jean Chretien, who pushed the "little guy from Shawinigan" image. A more contemporary version, of course, is the U.S. political "personality" Sarah Palin, who, like Clark, also punctuates her political "message" with scenes and images of herself fishing, hunting and spending time with her family.
A few years ago we had the "down home boy" image of Chretien, Mulroney, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Today, it's the "down home girl" image of Clark and Palin touting "family" and "family values".
However, as the old saying goes, "What glitters is not always gold." Populist trappings are often used to hide reactionary, anti-people policies. Indeed, behind all of the above politicians have been powerful big business and banking interests with definite agendas.
And they are assisted in this by the "spin doctors", "image consultants", and political "hired guns", such as the late Lee Atwater in the U.S. and Patrick Kinsella in Canada (who just so happens to have been involved in Christy Clark's leadership campaign). Given the time (and the money), such individuals will transform "sow's ears" into silk purses right before our very eyes.
One notable example in British Columbia was the scandalous sale of BC Rail, which, interestingly enough, Patrick Kinsella himself was deeply involved in. Of course, the selling off of the railway was never presented as a "sale", but rather it was "spun" by Kinsella and the Campbell government as "a lease" and "a partnership".
In light of all this, Christy Clark and her "family" politics certainly deserve a closer look. Now, "Families first" as a slogan appears hard to disagree with. It's like "motherhood" or "apple pie". And Clark slaps the "family" tag onto just about anything that's moving. "Just as families are anchored by a set of moral values and a sense of history," she claims in her political platform, "my policies as premier will be based on core principles that will guide the decisions my government makes to take B.C.'s families forward."
However, Clark's repetition of the "families first" and "family values" analogy has an ominous echo. She is not saying "society first" or even "British Columbians first". No, it is "families first" again and again. In that respect, it is useful to recall former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's famous statement that "there is no such thing [as society]! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first."
Following the slogan that "there is no society, only individuals and families", Thatcher and her Conservative Party took an axe to public health, education and other social programs throughout England, which she contemptuously referred to as "entitlements". People did not really need public programs and services. Instead, as Thatcher put it, individuals and families should "take responsibility" for themselves, as well as provide "volunteer services" either as individuals or through charities. Government and public institutions should have little, if any, role.
Since Thatcher, the concept has been incorporated into the "family values" and "small government" politics of various political forces in the U.S., which in some quarters are driving policies to not only eliminate any form of public health whatsoever, but also public social security, education and other aspects of the "social safety net". What will take up the slack? It is to be corporations (through massive privatization) and religious charities, a situation that resembles in an eerie way, the pre-modern dark ages of the Medieval period when feudal barons ruled and there was no public sector.
Behind all the sweet talk and smiles, is that the direction in which Clark is heading? It is true that she talks about "raising the minimum wage" and "eliminating the training wage", as well other undeniably needed measures. But it is hard to believe that somehow she is now on the "left" side of the political spectrum or even "progressive", as some seem to be suggesting.
Let’s look into this further. For example, in her platform, Clark states: "Putting families first means addressing the pressure on families to secure quality caregivers for sick or aging relatives, or giving them the freedom to do it themselves." Many people would agree quite rightly with such a policy. Why shouldn't families receive support from government to look after sick or aging relatives?
But they may be less likely to agree, if "giving them the freedom to do it themselves" really means that there is a long range plan for government to dump and download care for the sick and elderly onto families and friends, without adequate supports in place and with no option for publicly-funded institutional care when needed.
Such a prospect is not at all farfetched. Remember a few decades ago, where the plan was put forward across North America to "de-institutionalize" people with mental illness and developmental disabilities and get them living in the community. At the time, it sounded very empowering and progressive, but the end result was a huge increase in the number of homeless, mentally-ill people, with little or no support.
In that respect, one of Clark's key advisors and financial backers is Gwynn Morgan, the former head of Encana Corp., a giant natural gas multinational. He has made statements to the effect that the health care system needs to be "overhauled" and that privately run companies should be allowed to break the "monopoly" of "government-run hospitals and clinics". Indeed, privatization of almost every kind of public service or facility was one of Margaret Thatcher's main policies consistent with her belief that "there was no such thing as society".
In her nineteen page political platform, Clark puts a big emphasis on "bringing health care costs down" and paying "greater attention to health spending", which, given her own track record a few years ago as Minister of Children and Families and Minister of Education, probably means more cuts and more user fees downloaded onto individuals and families.
While promising to be a penny-pincher on public health, her platform regarding windfalls to the corporate sector is quite different and downright generous. Among other things, it involves providing a range of tax breaks and tax credits to corporations, as well as subsidies to various corporate sectors and business start-ups. In that regard, she devotes considerable attention to providing government assistance to the "natural gas" sector, which, just so happens to be the very industry Gwynn Morgan, a key backer, has been heavily involved with in the past.
In her platform, Clark has an entire four page section titled "Empowering People". Now, it is a sad fact of modern life that when politicians start talking about "empowering" people, it often means just downloading costs and programs onto them. However, that issue aside, this is another section in her platform that echoes very much of "Margaret Thatcherism". In it, she talks about how "non-profits, charities and volunteer groups" form the "bedrock" of our communities, and how her government will "look at strengthening the role of non-profit organizations and volunteers in delivering services to British Columbians."
In her platform, the phrases "public health" or "public services" are removed, and replaced with "non-profit", "charities" and "volunteers". Indeed, if the word "public" is used at all, it is in the context of "public partnerships", which can mean different things, including partnership with the private sector, "P-3s", offloading government programs and services onto non-profits and charities, and so on.
It is true that non-profits, charities, and volunteer organizations in British Columbia do excellent work. But it is also true that not a few governments in the world would like to use them as a lever to dismantle the public sector and even eliminate the very concept of "public domain" and public right to services. On the one hand, the most potentially profitable sections of the public sector are being handed over to private corporations; while, on the other hand, the remaining parts are converted into a non-profit, charity and volunteering sector that is at arms-length from government, is no longer classified as "public" and can easily be starved for funding (as the recent arbitrary cuts to gaming funding in BC demonstrate). More public dollars can then be used for corporate tax credits, subsidies, and giveaways.
There is a great irony that just at a time when we are hearing the loudest wailing about "public health costs" from politicians and big business leaders, these same politicians in North America and elsewhere have handed over unprecedented trillions of dollars to the banks and big corporations in the form of "bailouts", "stimulus packages" and tax advantages, including the recently-granted "royalty credits" to the BC oil and natural gas sector and the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST).
Such is the backdrop for Christy Clark’s warm and fuzzy “family values” and “family first agenda”. Gordon Campbell is gone and now we are presented with a bright new smiling face that promises “change” and a commitment to “family values”. But it’s the same old agenda, the same old spin doctors, and the same old big business. British Columbians need to remain vigilant.
Stay tuned for Part 3 of “The ascension of Christy Clark – Part 3.
Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
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Posted by: votemike on March 2 2011 10:11 AM