Recently, in mid-April, the local Liberals fought a heroic Court battle against an irksome man who dared suspect the motives of BC Liberals pre-election advertising blitz. He, the heretic, insinuated that the Liberals unduly dipped into he public purse for loot with which to buy themselves re-election.
Mr. Trapp did not understand that the election gains were merely collateral to the Liberal’s central purpose in spending $15 Million in political PRopaganda. They had done it to express the government’s love for the people. Something like sending cards to our mothers on Mother’s day, but on a larger scale.
I did not attend the trial nor have I read the transcript – I go on what was brought to me by the mass media. Having said that, and not being a fan of Party-o-cracy and being an avid advocate for Democracy, I took to heart some clever comments Judge Ward Branch came up with to justify ruling against Obvious Truth – lest we, the people, be irked by injustice seen done and cast aside our “apathy”. The Judge found that “in common law political parties have no legal existence”.
It would be mighty sweet if the Judge could disperse the misconception about political parties being legitimate. If he would make that stick, we should erect a statue of him on the Legislature lawn. For it would be the death knell for Party-o-cracy and the resurfacing of Democracy, the latter now being suppressed by the former.
Evidently the Judge had more reasons to rule against irreverent Mr. Trapp: He observed that if the political party in power had not spent the $15 Million in advertising for their re-election, there is no assurance that they would spend it for a worth while purpose. Figure that out!
The Judge finally firmed up his reasoning by observing the failure of Plaintiff Trapp to specify how the $15 M at issue could be better spent, if the Librals had not spent it to subvert democracy! Right on!
Remember the Hon. Gordon Campbell? He privatized liquor sales, sold out our BC Rail, lured a New Yorker, David Hahn, to sail our Ferries, for only $4,000 per day ... In the eight years Hahn lasted at the helm, he also “earned” a modest 1/3 of a million dollars per year “pension”. This Campbell committed us to pay as punishment to us for having suffered quietly David Hahn ... But I must return to my topic.
Campbell, while fighting the election against the NDP was crying “foul”, because the NDP government was spending public money to make us re-elect them.
I felt this was unfair. Moreover, hope springs eternal and the perennial optimist that I am, I saw in Campbell’s outcry hope for doing away with that recurring crime.
I wrote a letter to Campbell with a suggestion for immediate relief. Instead of crying “foul”, I said, just demand equal space in the public funded ads. People would applaud you for your sense of fair play, instead of accusing you of envy.
This would not result in a presentation of “the other side of the story”, far from it. But it would end the lopsided emission of PRopaganda. The value of spending $15 M of public money on PRopaganda is in the inability of the opposition political parties to match it. Inducing a level playing field would evaporate the payout from the crime of spending public money to subvert democracy.
Campbell did not even acknowledge my suggestion. Evidently, his utterances of righteous indignation were fake, as it became abundantly evident when the “shoe was on the other foot”. Hence the abovementioned Trapp trial.
Politicians would not outlaw a crime when they can commit it with impunity for fun and profit to themseleves. And because political parties are a shortcut to the Bench, Judges would not do it, either. It is us, the people who must do it, because this is a democracy.