Gordon Campbell looked a bit apprehensive as he waited for his signal to enter the Langley Civic Centre to deliver a speech to 800 members of the British Columbia Liberal Party. Mr. Campbell had good reason to be nervous. The May 2 gathering was his first party convention since last summer's abysmal performance in the Legislature, during which influential columnist Vaughn Palmer called him "the Liberals' biggest handicap." Party leader since 1993, Mr. Campbell already had a major strike against him for blowing the 1996 election; a third disaster might be fatal.

This time, however, Mr. Campbell rose to the occasion. His attacks on the NDP were funny, yet cutting. He brought the house down with his portrayal of Premier Glen Clark as a magician who makes jobs disappear. "Now you see a pay cheque...now you don't," Mr. Campbell said. "Now the NDP has a job and my message is pretty much the same to Glen: you have a job today, but soon you won't."

Far more significant than Mr. Campbell's successful speech was the convention's adoption of a new set of policies that move the party further away from small-l liberalism and closer to the all-important centre-right. Social conservatives still have plenty of questions and concerns, but unless the Reform Party of B.C. can resurrect itself, the Grits appear to have the lock as the one coalition party needed to defeat the NDP.

For fiscal conservatives, the B.C. Liberals have never looked more attractive. In his speech Mr. Campbell promised that, if elected, his party would give British Columbians the lowest personal income taxes in Canada by the end of his first term. "He's addressing the income tax side, which I think relates to the average Joe out there who isn't interested in esoteric things like the corporate capital tax," says Troy Lanigan, provincial director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Other Reform-minded ideas found their way into the Liberal platform as well. Proposals to abolish the provincial sales tax, make deficits illegal, and establish merit-based hiring policies all became party policy with little or no debate.

One new policy stood out. Previously, the party's constitution said only that it was committed to "the principles of Liberalism," which were undefined. But in Langley, delegates voted unanimously to entrench a detailed statement of principles in its constitution. The statement says that B.C. Liberals believe that property rights should be protected by law; that people have a responsibility to "personally provide for themselves, their dependents and their families"; that government must "limit taxation" and operate within a balanced budget to avoid depriving future generations of opportunities; and that a "fair-minded and prosperous society" can be built through free enterprise.

"That has been a very big change, and it will probably bring a lot of [right-of-centre] people together," says new Liberal Joe Leong, a B.C. Reform candidate in the last election who later helped start the B.C. Enterprise Party. Like many provincial and federal Reformers, Mr. Leong was wary of the links between the provincial and federal Liberals, but those fears are gone now. "There's more definition in the B.C. Liberals, separating them from the federal Liberals," he says.

The new constitution played a role almost immediately in a convention debate over a resolution to end the monopoly powers of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. Pointing to the new principles, one supporter of the resolution said, "I have just one question to ask: do we as a Liberal Party believe in free enterprise or not?" The anti-ICBC motion then passed with a strong majority.

"The B.C. Liberal Party has moved back to its historic, free-enterprise roots," says George Gibault, a B.C. Reform organizer in 1996 who was research director of the Social Credit caucus when Bill Bennett was premier. Mr. Gibault believes the Liberals have now become the de facto coalition of the right, just as the Socreds were. "It has happened this year," he said at the convention. "It wasn't there last year. But you can feel it in this room. People who work their guts out against one another in federal elections are one big, happy family here."

Mr. Campbell's newfound popularity is as much a consequence of external events as retooled policy. No event did more to fuel the rise of the B.C. Liberals than the implosion of B.C. Reform under leader Wilf Hanni. From the day he was elected last Labour Day weekend, when he publicly castigated his only two MLAs, Mr. Hanni has shown himself to be a principled man but an amateur politician. Some Reformers are now talking about dumping Mr. Hanni.

Mr. Hanni's fate may have been sealed October 7 when B.C. Reform MLA Richard Neufeld joined the Liberals. Until then Mr. Campbell's grasp of the right seemed tenuous. But by changing sides, Mr. Neufeld—a respected MLA from Peace River country, where Liberals are viewed with suspicion—sent a signal to other conservatives that it was Mr. Campbell or bust. His defection is seen as so significant that when the party auctioned off a framed copy of his Liberal membership application, it sold for more than $500. The Vancouver Island delegate who bought it said it was a piece of history worth preserving.

The sorry state of the provincial economy under the NDP's watch has also made Mr. Campbell look more like a political winner, says Mr. Palmer, a veteran Vancouver Sun columnist. "Glen Clark is a guy who likes to be on the attack, and now he's on the defensive," he says. "But you've still got to ask the question, is the Liberal leader any good? So I think it was important that Campbell start to show basic competence at doing the opposition leader's job before anybody could take him seriously as a potential premier."

Of course, the Clark government has been on the defensive before—particularly after the 1996 election when it was shown they had lied about balancing the budget—and Mr. Campbell has failed to hold the NDP's feet to the fire. But lately the Liberal leader has been removing doubts about his ability, first by dealing decisively with Parksville-Qualicum MLA Paul Reitsma when he was caught lying, then by delivering a solid speech in Langley, and finally last week by focussing Liberal guns on the NDP in the wake of charges being laid in the Bingogate scandal against former Nanaimo MLA and MP Dave Stupich.

In his address to the delegates, Mr. Campbell showed little of the awkwardness that has plagued him in the past, and more of the sense of humour that friends say he exhibits in private. He said the Clark government reminded him of The Wizard of Oz. "If they only had a heart. If they only had a brain. If they only had the courage to call an election." Later, he had party members laughing as he mocked the premier's economic recovery plan. "Wait for it. It's big. It's historic! It's the most exciting day of his life! He's going to build 1,500 new campsites!" Mr. Campbell said. "That's the new NDP—jobs in the woods! New housing for the next millennium!"

"The is the first good speech I've seen Campbell give," says columnist Palmer. "It's remarkable [because] he's been in politics five years provincially, that it has taken him this long, but what can you say? The guy is improving." Former Socred operative Gibault says Mr. Campbell may finally be growing into his job, just as Bill Bennett did in his early years as leader and premier. "I've been talking to people at the convention about the next election, and they all say Gordon Campbell has learned to relax and be natural with people," says Mr. Gibault. "He's had to overcome a natural shyness, I believe, which is another way he reminds me of Bill Bennett."

Despite his performance in Langley, however, Mr. Campbell still has plenty of doubters. The CTF's Mr. Lanigan, while applauding the Liberal commitment to balanced budgets and lower taxes, wonders where the plan is to shrink the size of government. "It's easy for politicians to say we'll have the lowest taxes, but its credibility is matched when you see a believable plan for cutting spending," says Mr. Lanigan. To his credit, Mr. Campbell has promised that ministers whose departments overspend will take a pay cut on the first offence and will be fired on the second.

Of even greater concern to many conservatives is the lack of enthusiasm of many B.C. Liberal MLAs for reform of social policy. Education critic April Sanders, for example, is evasive when asked if she supports charter schools. Similarly, health critic Sindi Hawkins does not favour taking the purse-strings away from regional health monopolies and giving them to consumers in the form of medical savings accounts. Furthermore, a private member's bill on domestic violence, introduced by Liberal MLA Lynn Stephens actually, steers the party to the left of the NDP, not the right (see story, page 11).

Some conservatives question whether fiscal prudence is even possible without socially conservative values. The Grits' stance on the child-protection system is a case in point. In response to the child and youth advocate's recent annual report, which said there are "simply not adequate resources" to deal with the large numbers of children in government care, the Liberals attacked the government for not spending enough, rather than for apprehending too many children. "It once again proves to the people of British Columbia that Gordon Campbell isn't capable of being premier because he just doesn't get the program," says Kari Simpson, director of the Citizens' Research Institute. "Children need families, not services."

Furthermore, the Grits' voting record on moral issues is not encouraging to social conservatives. Last summer, only eight of its 33 MLAs voted against Bills 31 and 32, which made B.C. the first province to change the legal definition of spouse to include homosexuals. Still, Liberal MLA Rich Coleman, who voted no, says social conservatives can feel comfortable in the party because it allows free votes on matters of conscience, just as the Reform Party of Canada does. "It was one of the mainreasons I became a B.C. Liberal," he says.

Abortion is another item that makes social conservatives uncomfortable with the B.C. Liberals. Mr. Campbell says current laws are "totally appropriate," including the bubble-zone law, which makes peaceful protests near abortion clinics illegal. Mr. Campbell voted in favour of it, as did most of his caucus. For that reason many pro-lifers were surprised when John Hof, president of Campaign Life Coalition B.C., suggested that pro-lifers join the party and change it from within. "I personally am comfortable working within the Liberal Party in my constituency," says Mr. Hof, who lives in Mr. Coleman's riding of Fort Langley-Aldergrove. "Am I advocating that everybody join the Liberal Party? I can't do that. But we encourage people to join all political parties because unless we get involved in the process, we're going to continually be on the outside."

Mr. Campbell has little to lose politically by meeting with pro-lifers such as Mr. Hof, as he did in February, because the abortion-rights movement largely supports the NDP. But that did not stop NDP caucus chairman Joan Smallwood from distributing a letter to Liberal convention-goers, citing the February meeting as a sign that Mr. Campbell "courts militant anti-abortionists."

If the Liberals alienate social conservatives, they run a risk of losing support in the Reform bedrock of the North, where the Liberal organization is weak and voters are already suspicious of another Vancouverite running for premier. At present, the B.C. Liberals are gaining strength in northern ridings, but support for Mr. Campbell is still soft, says John Young, a political scientist at the University of Northern B.C. in Prince George. "He just needs to be up here," says the political scientist. "That's the biggest fear people in the North have is the sense of isolation, that everything's controlled from Vancouver."

Of late, Mr. Campbell has been trying to assure people outside the Lower Mainland that he will not sell out their interests. One proof is his stronger position on Indian land claims, a major concern in resource communities whose economies depend on access to crown land. At the Langley convention delegates made it party policy that all settlements include surrender of aboriginal title and must respect existing mineral and forest licences. Aboriginal affairs critic Mike de Jong promises that, if elected, the Grits would hold a referendum on the provincial government's negotiating position.

Another issue with the potential to drive a wedge in the budding Liberal coalition is national unity, since the party is the provincial home of both federal Liberals and Tories (who tend to favour special constitutional status for Quebec) and federal Reformers (who oppose it). To bridge the divide, the B.C. Liberals say they will continue the practice of putting any constitutional change to a referendum. "Absolutely—that's the law of British Columbia," says intergovernmental affairs critic Geoff Plant.

Despite such policies, some observers still question Mr. Campbell's direction. "Coalitions don't work," says former premier Bill Vander Zalm, who presided over the break-up of the Social Credit coalition in the early 1990s. "It may work for a time, but it's not something that can be lasting. With Social Credit it worked fine while it was perceived to be sort of a Bennett movement. The moment 12 people contested the leadership [in 1986], it changed. The factions become evident and the infighting never stops."

Mr. Vander Zalm says he cannot support the B.C. Liberals—he is currently involved with B.C. Reform—because of their voting record on moral issues such as same-sex spouses. "If you don't have one type of moral value, you'll have another," he remarks.

Yet the former premier concedes than many right-wingers will see the B.C. Liberals as the best way to defeat the NDP government. No one represents those voters more than MLA Neufeld. "There was the odd time when there were a few friends of mine who were a bit miffed at me at home, and I might say, 'Gee, maybe I shouldn't have,'" says Mr. Neufeld. "But then I look at the greater good of the whole province, and that's what I should be keeping in mind. If it means I lose my seat in the next election but we get rid of the NDP, I guess I'll have accomplished something."

—Derek DeCloet

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