Martin says Liberals were hurt in the B.C. Interior by the gun registry and the sponsorship scandal

PUBLICATION: Vancouver Sun
DATE: 2004.11.15
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A3
BYLINE: Peter O’Neil
SOURCE: Vancouver Sun
DATELINE: PENTICTON
ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo: Tom Hanson, Canadian Press / After
PrimeMinister Paul Martin attended the weekend convention of the federal
Liberal party’s B.C. wing in Penticton on the weekend, he departed for
Haiti. Martin tours the Timkatec orphanage Sunday (above) in
Port-au-Prince.

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PM tries to narrow gap with B.C.: Martin ways he has made progress in
eliminating symbolic differences.

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PENTICTON — Prime Minister Paul Martin, who celebrated his first
anniversary as Liberal leader Sunday, says he is wrestling to the ground
the strain of B.C. alienation that has plagued federal politicians for
decades.

“Have we solved it? No,” Martin told The Vancouver Sun during a visit to
the West Coast to attend the weekend convention of the federal Liberal
party’s B.C. wing.

But, he said, he’s made major steps simply by appointing a record five
British Columbians to his cabinet, led by Industry Minister David
Emerson.

“All we said we wanted to do was narrow the symbolic difference between
British Columbia and Ottawa, and I think we’ve done it,” he said.

He said B.C. MPs are playing leading roles on all the major national
issues of concern to the west, including Emerson on the economy, Health
Minister Ujjal Dosanjh on medicare matters, and rookie backbencher Don
Bell, the former North Vancouver mayor who chairs the Liberal caucus
advocating Martin’s proposed “New Deal” for cities.

Later, Martin was pressed by reporters, after a speech to Liberal
activists, to explain what he’s done for B.C.

“The fact is that the priorities in British Columbia are the national
priorities: The environment, health care, education,” he said, before
going on to stress the clout of his B.C. ministers and backbenchers.

Asked for specifics on what he’ll do for B.C., Martin focused on his vow
to help recent immigrants from countries such as China and India get
recognition for their professional credentials.

He said he also wants Canadians from countries such as these to take
advantage of their knowledge, language, and business connections to
expand trade and investment.

As well, Martin said he is working closely with the B.C. government,
which has asked Ottawa for federal aid to fight the pine-beetle
infestation.

Martin, however, was non-committal during his visit on the top election
promise by B.C. Liberal candidates — to move a federal Crown
corporation from Ottawa to the West Coast.

In an interview with The Vancouver Sun, he said only that his B.C.
ministers and backbench MPs are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to get
the $84-million Canadian Tourism Commission.

“I’ve got to say to you that they are pushing for it very strongly,” he
said. “I think I’ll leave it there right now.”

B.C. Liberal MPs are facing stiff bureaucratic resistance in their bid
to poach the CTC, a tourism-promoting Crown corporation with 84
employees in Ottawa and 61 employees scattered throughout the U.S.,
Mexico, Europe and several Asia-Pacific capitals.

The vow to win the CTC as a 2010 Olympic “legacy” for B.C. was the only
concrete promise in the party’s “Made-in-B.C. Agenda,” a platform-style
document that opposition parties ridiculed as vague.

Industry Minister David Emerson, in an address to more than 500
delegates to the convention of the federal party’s B.C. wing, raised the
stakes in the CTC debate.

While he didn’t mention the issue by name, he described the Made-in-B.C.
Agenda as a “covenant” that must be honoured. “We must and will
deliver,” he said in his first major speech to party activists since
being recruited from the private sector to run for the Liberals.

Emerson stressed that the party needs to defeat negative images in B.C.
if it expects to break out of Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria,
where all eight party MPs were elected.

He said Liberals were hurt in the Interior by the gun registry and the
sponsorship scandal. He said Liberals are viewed by some British
Columbians as part of the “urban, big-city cappuccino set.”

David Herle, a pollster and Martin’s national election campaign
chairman, told delegates Saturday that Martin’s ability to turn his
minority government into a majority depends on doubling the Liberal
party’s current eight seats in B.C. to 16.

Martin, in the interview and in comments to other reporters, said he’s
confident of eventual breakthroughs in the softwood lumber dispute and
the U.S. ban on live cattle imports from Canada.

Martin lashed out at the initiative by American Senator Max Baucus,
announced last week, to ensure that the more than $3 billion in
softwood-lumber duties paid by Canadian firms will go to their American
rivals. “I find Senator Baucus’s statement yesterday absolutely
incomprehensible, beyond the pale,” he said.

He expects the U.S. government will eventually recognize its own economy
will suffer, Martin said, unless it opens up its border to both Canadian
lumber and live cattle.