On his way to the Reform Party of B.C.'s annual convention two weeks ago, Bill Vander Zalm stopped for breakfast at the Coldwater Hotel in Merritt. As his travelling companion, party stalwart Bev Welsh, tells it, what happened next was nothing short of a miniature draft-Zalm movement. One by one, customers interrupted his meal to shake his hand and wish him well. An elderly couple urged him to get back into politics. Another man at a nearby table was more emphatic: "This guy put up his hand and said, 'You have to save our province,'" recalls Mrs. Welsh, a Vander Zalm loyalist through his troubled years as Social Credit premier.

Before he can save B.C., however, Mr. Vander Zalm will have to save B.C. Reform after a disastrous nine months under the leadership of Wilf Hanni. But without question, Mr. Vander Zalm's re-entry into active politics at the party's Prince George convention instantly changed the political landscape in the province. No longer can Gordon Campbell assume that "free enterprise" voters will flock to his Liberals in the next election in order to defeat the NDP. Glen Clark's unpopular government, now halfway through its term, suddenly has new hope that the centre-right vote will split, giving the NDP a shot a re-election. And Mr. Vander Zalm gives social conservatives a credible leader on the provincial stage—a role Liberal leader Campbell has been unwilling or unable to take.

The next six to 12 months are crucial. If Reform catches fire under Mr. Vander Zalm's newly won presidency, it will encourage him to lead the party into the next election. If not, then Mr. Vander Zalm indicates he is prepared to step away from politics yet again and not play the "spoiler."

Mr. Vander Zalm's comeback began with a well-orchestrated series of events in Prince George. First, delegates defeated a proposal to give the party's board of directors the ability to expel dissenters, who Mr. Hanni believes undermined his leadership. That kept power out of the hands of Hanni loyalists. Then, Reform's constitution was amended to force the party leader to step down immediately when a leadership review is called, and to give his public duties to the party president in the meantime. Delegates also scrapped the bylaw that required a new leadership convention to be held within six months. Mr. Vander Zalm ran unopposed for party president and was ratified by a vote of 87 to one. Finally, delegates voted 58 to 30 to get rid of Mr. Hanni.

The net result is that Mr. Vander Zalm became the de facto leader of B.C. Reform without fully committing himself to leading the party. He also has a great deal of time—perhaps as much as a year—to see if voters have forgiven him after conflict-of-interest commissioner Ted Hughes found he used his position as premier to help sell his Fantasy Gardens theme park, a ruling that prompted his resignation in 1991. "Everybody thinks I'm going to run for the leadership," Mr. Vander Zalm says. "I'm not making any commitment of the sort. I've just got my toe in there, but you'd think I'm swimming to Victoria."

Analysts say it will take at least a couple of months to know if the public will support Mr. Vander Zalm as leader again. The first polls to measure his impact are not encouraging. One poll, taken by MarkTrend Research in the days leading up to and during the Prince George convention, found Mr. Vander Zalm had no effect on the popularity of B.C. Reform. Another, conducted immediately after the convention by McIntyre and Mustel Research, contained even worse news for the party: 31% of respondents said they would be less likely to vote Reform with him as leader, just 13% said they would be more likely to, and 51% said it made no difference.

On the other hand, B.C.'s population has grown by about 600,000 since 1991, resulting in many voters who neither remember his past nor have experienced his much-noted charm. "There's a whole generation of young British Columbians and a whole generation of immigrants for whom Vander Zalm is kind of a historic celebrity," says Norman Ruff, professor of political science at the University of Victoria. "There's a whole new audience exposed to his electricity."

That celebrity status has made him appealing to B.C. Reformers, who desperately needed a credible front man after Mr. Hanni. Last August the Cranbrook oil consultant won a three-way race for the leadership of a party that actually held a summer lead in the polls. But then the wheels fell off. Mr. Hanni publicly criticized the party's only two MLAs, Jack Weisgerber and Richard Neufeld, for their support of pro-homosexual legislation. Next, he targeted dissidents and likened their departure from the party as a "cleansing."

A Liberal victory in the September 15 Surrey-White Rock by-election left Reformers in disarray. By the end of November both Reform MLAs had left the party, president David Secord had quit, party executives on Vancouver Island had staged a mass resignation to protest their leader's "high handed, anti-democratic" style, and several former candidates had followed Mr. Neufeld's lead and joined the Liberals. The media portrayed Mr. Hanni as a laughingstock, and B.C. Reform—despite remaining more popular than the governing NDP—was referred to in news stories as a "fringe party."

Party supporters are sure Mr. Vander Zalm's presence will reverse that downward spiral. "It's our way back," says Adrian Wade, the runner-up to Mr. Hanni in last year's leadership vote. "Mr. Vander Zalm has the status to bring back many of the people who left the party in the last few months. There is optimism for the first time in a long while."

It will be a long road back for B.C. Reform, however, even if the charismatic Mr. Vander Zalm is leading it. The party, which at its height in 1994 and 1995 had 17,000 active members, now has about 3,500. Roughly one-third of its constituency associations are moribund, and membership is especially thin in the vote-rich Lower Mainland, says Mr. Wade. The party ended 1997 almost $100,000 in debt, is being sued by its creditors, and recently had to close its head office for lack of money. Mr. Vander Zalm says rebuilding the party at the constituency level will be one of his first priorities, and a province-wide speaking tour will be part of that program.

While Mr. Vander Zalm is being looked upon as a saviour by B.C. Reformers, he will not become leader unless he perceives a strong chance of electoral success. Mr. Vander Zalm will be watching closely to see how many new members are signing up, how much money the party is taking in, and how many are attending his speeches and fund-raisers. "What would have to happen to convince him to run [for the leadership] is if there's a groundswell of support for him," says Mrs. Welsh, who led a small group of people to his Ladner mansion two months ago to persuade him to become more involved in B.C. Reform. (At about the same time, Mrs. Welsh and Mr. Vander Zalm were also involved in organizing a fund-raising dinner and auction for the Christian Coalition of B.C., an event that ended up attracting 400 people.)

Political scientist Ruff says "credible, local community leaders" are going to have to declare themselves to be Reformers; that would persuade Mr. Vander Zalm he would have good candidates to run in an election. A positive reception from the media will also be important if he is to build momentum. So far, cartoonists have had a field day lampooning him, and columnists have been more interested in his smile (still sparkling), his level of fitness (extraordinarily high for a 64-year-old), his tan (a rich brown, credited to his Maui vacation home), and his wealth (considerable), than in his policies. "For him to be convinced, the media have to call him on a regular basis and seek his opinion, and there has to be an upswelling of popular support," says Andrew Lynch, publisher of the Lynch Report on B.C. Politics, a weekly newsletter. "He's a populist and so he rides a wave, and if it's not there he's not going to be able to generate it on its own."

Analysts say three possible scenarios now exist for B.C. Reform. The most optimistic from the party's perspective would see Mr. Vander Zalm inundated with phone calls and letters urging him to come back, not just from Reformers but from non-partisan people who are dissatisfied with the current choice between Mr. Campbell and Premier Clark. As the party rises in the polls—Mr. Vander Zalm has already predicted Reform will be ahead of the Liberals by October or November—a few high-profile people who had been quietly supporting the Liberals publicly endorse Mr. Vander Zalm's return, giving the impression the draft-Zalm movement is wider than just hard-core Reformers. A leadership vote is called for next spring, which he wins easily, and Mr. Vander Zalm immediately sets out to the hustings to persuade voters that he, not Mr. Campbell, is the best choice to defeat the NDP in the next election, which by then will probably be just a year away.

"If the Zalm develops that line and Liberals don't do well, he could seize the initiative," says John Redekop, a professor of political science at Trinity Western University. "I have difficulty thinking of a more persuasive campaigner."

In the second scenario, Mr. Vander Zalm's gains some early momentum but it stalls, thanks to media stories about the Fantasy Gardens affair and persistent attacks from the Liberals. The Grits are already having some success with two themes: splitting the vote will allow the NDP to win again, and Vander Zalm already had his chance. Still, if Mr. Vander Zalm were to bring Reform to above 30% in the polls (the party is now around 24%), the Liberals would have do something more to counteract him, such as promising referendums on important moral issues, taking a new name, or finding a more aggressive leader to replace the uninspiring Mr. Campbell. "There will be pressure concerning a new leader, that's clear," says Prof. Redekop. "Whether that pressure builds up to major proportions depends on what happens in the polls." Policy changes inside the Liberals would be more difficult to achieve; Prof. Ruff says the Liberals will not be able to move farther to the right without alienating the centrist element of their coalition.

In the third scenario, the former premier's return leads to only a modest resurgence for Reform B.C., and Mr. Vander Zalm loses interest. Jim Nielsen, a former Social Credit cabinet minister, sees this as most likely. Mr. Nielsen doubts Mr. Vander Zalm has the energy or the ability to rebuild a party at the constituency level. "It's an entirely different situation [from Social Credit]," says Mr. Nielsen. "He had an organization with 80,000 members, well-organized and well-funded, and he stepped in front of the parade."

In fact, Mr. Nielsen says that far from being a builder of parties, Mr. Vander Zalm caused Social Credit to die of neglect because he failed to look after it at the grass-roots level. "During his time, the constituencies became terribly disillusioned," he says. "My political party was destroyed by the man we're talking about."

For Mr. Vander Zalm to succeed in rebuilding Reform B.C., he will have to earn support from several places. Christian social conservatives will no doubt be attracted to a leader who keeps a well-thumbed directory of Catholic churches in his car, is passionately opposed to abortion, and believes "family" status should be reserved for male-female unions. Moral issues will not necessarily form the basis of his speeches, however. "My views have not changed on some of those issues, but I realize now the priority has to be the economy," says Mr. Vander Zalm.

Indeed, if being a strong social conservative was all that was required, B.C. Reform would have thrived under Mr. Hanni. But it did not, in part because few people had any faith that Mr. Hanni could broaden the party and win an election. Mr. Vander Zalm must show that his followers extend beyond the pro-life, family-values movement if he wants to win over the large number of so-called strategic voters—the people who will back whatever party is best positioned to defeat the NDP. Rita Johnston, his Social Credit successor, is one such voter. "I wouldn't vote for him unless he was part of a coalition," says Mrs. Johnston, who was premier for six months in 1991. "We can't afford to have any more splitting [of the right]."

Reform activist Wade believes any new Vander Zalm coalition will draw its strength from the same regions where federal Reform is strong—outside of Vancouver and Victoria. "There's an attitude out there which is anti-big city, and therefore anti-Campbell," he says. Those same voters also tend to distrust both the Liberal name and the federal government, causing Mr. Campbell further grief because many of his caucus members, such as Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain MLA Christy Clark, are strong supporters of the Liberal government in Ottawa. "Mr. Vander Zalm can certainly stand up for B.C.'s interests far better than Mr. Campbell," says Mr. Wade.

The Liberals' alleged shortcomings are certainly part of Mr. Vander Zalm's motivation for getting back into politics. "I don't want to have a province where the only choice we have is Liberal or NDP," he says. "We do need a Reform presence, preferably a strong presence." But even if he is able to build a coalition based on social conservatism, support from the hinterland, and his personal charisma, many people believe the odds are against Mr. Vander Zalm returning to the premier's office as head of a B.C. Reform government. "It's clear to me that Reform won't be anything more than a spoiler in the next election," says Jack Weisgerber, the party's leader when Reform played just such a spoiler role in the 1996 election.

Mr. Weisgerber, a cabinet minister in the Vander Zalm government, says B.C. Reform's situation is far different than the one he inherited as leader in 1994. Then, voters had just finished destroying both the Socreds and the federal Tories, and with the Harcourt government so weak, it was reasonable to believe the NDP could be overcome as well. That left plenty of room for both the Liberals and Reform to battle it out. But today, even with the NDP down to 20% in the polls, "I don't think anybody has those illusions about [the resilience of] an NDP government under Glen Clark," says Mr. Weisgerber. Since the election, Mr. Campbell has also moved the Liberals firmly to the right on issues such as taxes and native land claims, drawing many fiscal conservatives to his party.

If he cannot lead the party to victory, observers predict Mr. Vander Zalm will settle for extracting some kind of concessions from the Liberals, rather than charge forward to an inglorious defeat in the next election. Odds are Mr. Campbell's aides have already been calling him. "I think in the end Mr. Vander Zalm, being an entrepreneur, will become a deal-maker," says Mr. Lynch. Naturally, the new Reform president is not prepared to say what he would ask for in that situation. "I have said, if somebody wants to talk to me, I'm available," he says.

Others believe Mr. Vander Zalm's primary goal is to rewrite the ending to his political career. His historical legacy is his abrupt resignation from office after the release of the Hughes report, but in the coming months Mr. Vander Zalm will undoubtedly remind voters that when he was premier, B.C. had a booming economy and two balanced budgets. And even if he did mix private and public business, his ethical shortcomings pale in comparison to those of the New Democrats, who stole from charities in Nanaimo and lied about balancing the provincial budget. "He left the job of premier with a tremendous cloud over him, and a lot of public scorn that went with it," says Mr. Weisgerber. "And I think he sees this as an opportunity, even if he's not re-elected, to vindicate his political record in the eyes of British Columbia voters."

—Derek DeCloet

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