BC Liberals meeting in Penticton have accepted a motion to explore a name change, reminding me of how Arthur Andersen Accounting emerged from the Enron scandal as Accenture, and has been a burden on the public purse in that guise ever since. We must recall that the BC Liberals emerged under Gordon Wilson from the 1991 election that finally drove a stake through the heart of the Social Credit party, but the mantel of Liberal was soon cast aside in a palace revolt that brought Gordon Campbell to the leadership of the party, a man whose star rose with the advent of rampant crony capitalism and kleptocracy that will hobble the public treasury for decades to come.

It’s quite laughable to listen to the BC Libs in opposition as they not only switched sides of the house in 2017, but they now decry the same practices they instituted under Clark and Campbell, things like freedom of information, government advertising, and vanity projects requiring exorbitant spending. They’re sometimes right, because the New Dippers have turned out to be very much like the former governments in their disdain for the vast majority of the public and for the environment.

Rebranding is basically inferring that the zebra has changed his stripes and is substantially something other than what he used to be. I’m betting that the newly-named party will be very much the spitting image of the old in all manner of policy and execution, continuing the duopoly in BC politics, where the duality is mostly a matter of name and where good governance is hiding in the furthest corners of the back benches. Makes Furstenau and Olson look really good, but for their narrowest base of support.

Thanks to Anna Pavlin for posting this image at Unsplash.

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  –William Shakespeare

“Beauty’s only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone.”   —Alberto Gianquinto