Next Tuesday is Election Day in British Columbia. As the campaigners ready themselves for the final week of madcap activity, not all is going according to script: the election has failed to produce the anticipated battle between left and right.

For sure, in one corner is the Gordon Campbell Liberal government. It is a coalition of the right, formed out of the remains of the Social Credit party (led into disgrace by ex-premier Bill Vander Zalm), uses the Liberal name, and has ties to the federal Conservatives and Liberals.

It was decided some years back that the class struggle from above demanded no less than unity of the bourgeoisie behind one champion in each riding to confront the socialist hordes of the NDP, backed by the powerful Federation of Labour.

So the Liberals are clearly the party of business, trying to scare the public with stories of NDP governments past.

But the opposition, far from being united, is split between the NDP and the Greens. As for socialism, it is only mentioned by the Liberals.

NDP leader Carol James has proven to be a tough campaigner, poised and self-assured, attacking the Liberal record: “the issue is trust.” If she were auditioning for the job of leader of the opposition she has clearly got it.

The Greens are just trying to get their leader, Adrienne Carr, into the Legislature as the member from Powell River, the mill town up the sunshine coast that was home to one-time Liberal leader Gordon Wilson who ended up with the NDP.

But, with the Greens polling consistently in the 12-14 per cent range across the province, they are bound to be the spoilers in many a riding on Election Day.

So B.C. is no longer a two-party show, featuring a left and a right. Rather it is a two and one-half party system, much like an earlier federal system of Liberals, Progressive Conservatives and the NDP — before the arrival of the Bloc and the Reform Party.

In B.C.’s scenario, the NDP can try and be the centrist party, with the Liberals happily pushing themselves to the right and the Greens playing the traditional NDP role of supplying ideas to the governing party. Or, as with the Ottawa example, the system can feature two centrist parties, which alternate in office, with each being hardly distinguishable in power, except by personalities and the occasional big issue.

James has talked about “balance between business and labour,” and how past NDP governments have failed on this score. But her campaign oratory and material feature a class-struggle-lite story line about respect for ordinary families.

The NDP as centrist but progressive — much like the 1960s federal Liberals under Lester Pearson — is the 21st-century version of prairie NDP governments, inaugurated by Roy Romanow in the late 20th century and carried forward into the millennium by Gary Doer in Manitoba, and Lorne Calvert in Saskatchewan.

James is an admirer of Doer and he has been featured as a mentor and advisor in prep work done in the pre-election period.

In Ottawa, the two-and-one-half party scenario produced medicare, the Canada pension plan, a national commitment to end poverty (since abolished by Paul Martin’s 1995 budget), and generous unemployment insurance, so it has something to recommend it. But it did not lead to long run gains for working people because it did not address the economic issues raised by Tommy Douglas.

The Liberals were able to dominate the system because they controlled Quebec. Conversely, the NDP were the one-half because they had a limited regional base in the West.

In B.C. the NDP can make the two-and-one-half scenario work by securing and holding the trade union vote (including teachers and hospital workers), the seniors vote, and by running hard in the “heartland,” with multicultural communities, and by appealing to metrosexuals. But does the alternating of two centrist parties deliver enough to satisfy the NDP constituency? If not, the NDP needs another strategy.

There is another scenario, the Green Democrats option, whereby the New Democrats and the Greens negotiate a merger.

One big party, controlled by the grassroots, which exists to change society, not just win elections was the idea behind the farmer-labour party created as the CCF (predecessor to the NDP) in the 1930s. It was the same dream that motivated the Canadian Labour Congress and the CCF when they created the NDP. No one wanted to be the one half to the Liberals and the Conservatives in Ottawa. Nor did they want to be the Liberals, even “in a hurry” as they were once styled by Liberal Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King, who feared the forces lined up to fight for economic and social justice.

Today, unhappy with party politics, many political activists put their faith in a new voting system, some form of proportional representation, as the best way to reform the political system. Perhaps.

But there is no point in substituting electoral change for social and economic change. PR requires coalitions. Why wait for electoral reform to arrive before creating a new progressive political force?

Politics is about quality of life for individuals and for communities. On these grounds the NDP deserve to win in B.C. on May 17, and should show strongly. But the environment is the quality-of-life issue for the future. The NDP recognizes this; so do the Green Party supporters. That should be a good enough basis for talks between the two to go ahead, soon.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...