In March 2007 — two years before he launched his anti-HST petition campaign — Bill Vander Zalm found himself at a private fundraising event with Gordon Campbell in Palm Springs, Calif.
The B.C. premier, according to ex-premier Vander Zalm, wouldn’t shake his hand.
“It’s very unusual. That’s why I remember it. I’ve never seen it happen,” recalled Vander Zalm this week at his home in Ladner.
Only Campbell and Vander Zalm know what went down that day in the California desert three years ago. (Campbell, through his press secretary Bridgitte Anderson, said he recalled meeting Vander Zalm at the Palm Springs event but couldn’t recall whether they shook hands.)
But what’s clear is that the “free enterprise” centre-right politicians have not been on friendly terms for many years.
Campbell has publicly reached out during his time in office to former Social Credit premier Bill Bennett. But the B.C. Liberal premier has never called former Socred premier Vander Zalm, who succeeded Bennett as premier in 1986 but was forced to resign five years later over conflict-of-interest allegations involving the sale of the Fantasy Gardens theme park.
“And I think it’s probably a lot less now.”
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Vander Zalm is now the leader of the Fight HST group, which claims it’s on the verge of signing up 10 per cent of registered voters in all 85 provincial ridings — the threshold required under initiative legislation to repeal the harmonized sales tax.
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Chris Delaney, Vander Zalm’s close friend and lieutenant in Fight HST, said that the former Social Credit leader told him about the alleged Palm Springs slight upon his arrival home from Palm Springs.
Delaney said that Campbell probably hadn’t forgiven Vander Zalm for earlier joining with the NDP and the labour movement in protests against the Campbell government policies on privatization of BC Hydro and BC Rail in 2003 — and against the Liberals’ decision to have new BC Ferries built in Europe in 2004.
Vander Zalm said he has no hard feelings against the premier and that his opposition to Campbell’s HST is not personal.
“I don’t have a grudge. Once we’re done with the HST issue, I hope I can concentrate on my lilac bushes and take the odd holiday.”
If Elections B.C. ratifies the Fight HST petition and the government doesn’t repeal the tax, Vander Zalm is threatening to go to Campbell’s Vancouver Point-Grey riding and seek the premier’s ouster under provincial recall legislation.
This scenario — an ex-premier out of office for nearly two decades seeking to topple a sitting one — is very unusual, if not unprecedented.
Most former premiers shift into quiet retirement (Bill Bennett and Rita Johnston), seek elected political office elsewhere (Dave Barrett and Ujjal Dosanjh), pursue policy goals at universities or non-profits (Mike Harcourt) or take a high-paying business job in the private sector (Glen Clark).
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