Nobody likes a traitor.

So, when Paul Martin announced that Shirley Chan, Ujjal Dosanjh, andDave Haggard had signed on to the Liberals’ “dream team” ofcandidates in British Columbia, the reaction was swift andunforgiving: Their former colleagues in the New Democratic Partybranded them “turncoats” of the worst kind.

Simultaneously, some Liberal party members complained that the“parachuting” of former NDP supporters into their ridings — theprime minister appointed Dosanjh, a former New Democrat premier,while party organizers set up Chan, once a top aide to former NDPpremier Mike Harcourt, and union leader Haggard for acclamation ”disrespected prospective candidates and the democratic process.

And when the Liberals saw they had to fight hard to turn B.C. voters away from theNew Democrats and Conservatives in the federal election, they began to flaunt the three “star candidates” in that now well-known televisionadvertisement. The ads, which began airing June 1, depict Chan,Dosanjh, and Haggard walking together in Vancouver’s Stanley Park,followed by a message from the prime minister.

“We’ve always backed the NDP,” Dosanjh says in the ad. “Today,there’s a better choice.”

In a telephone interview, Haggard, who stepped down as president ofthe 55,000-member Industrial, Wood, and Allied Workers of Canadalast month after his candidacy was announced, said he turned awayfrom the New Democrats when Jack Layton became the party’s leader.

That’s when the Liberals came calling. Haggard said Martin’s talk ofending so-called western alienation helped convinced him to switchteams.

“I decided that the NDP weren’t going to make the policy changesthat I supported, and if they didn’t make those changes, then in alllikelihood, that party was never going to be in power in thiscountry,” the Liberal candidate in New Westminster-Coquitlam said.“I believe you can only make changes if you’re government.”

Haggard said he hoped the ad would encourage voters to consider theiroptions carefully.

But Dr. Norman Ruff, associate professor of political science at theUniversity of Victoria, said the ad, along with the “parachuting” ofthe three NDP defectors, probably won’t have the impact theLiberals were hoping for.

“The ad is a very hard visual portrayal of what the Liberals werehoping to do by recruiting those three,” Ruff said. “I think for NDPvoters, it has a kind of reaction. They all see it, and they seethat these three are the three sell-outs. So, I don’t think it’slikely to shift the core NDP support.”

These tactics won’t likely sway soft New Democrat supporters either,the political scientist asserted.

“My sense is, at the moment, that the ad will backfire,” Ruff said.“It will harden the NDP resistance to that kind of appeal. I thinkany kind of audience receptive to that is very, very small in theprovince.”

Bill Tieleman, a political columnist with Vancouver’s GeorgiaStraight newspaper and one-time communications director for formerNDP premier Glen Clark, called the ad a “desperate attempt” by theLiberals to hold on to their six seats in B.C.

“In my view, this is a defensive ad. It’s not a ‘win more seats’ad,” Tieleman said by telephone. “It’s an attempt to hold some ofthe seats that they have, which I think, at the moment, is extremelydubious. But they’re certainly not in expansionary mode, or if theyare, they’re crazy.

“It’s also sort of pathetic, really,” the columnist added. “I thinkpeople in politics don’t generally like turncoats — don’t generallylike people who change parties — and a party leader and premier whochanges, in particular, is quite distasteful to people.”

During the campaign, the federal Liberals have appeared to be trying todissociate themselves from unpopular Liberal governments in B.C.,Ontario, and Québec. Cuts to social programs and labour unrest inB.C. and Québec have led to backlashes against premiers GordonCampbell and Jean Charest. Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty raised taxes inMay despite an election promise to do otherwise.

After vandals shattered windows at the Vancouver offices of LiberalMP Hedy Fry and Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt May 31, Fry told themvia TV cameras that they should “do some homework,” because “thefederal Liberals are a totally different party, both legally andconstitutionally.”

But Tieleman asserted that federal Liberals repudiating theirprovincial counterparts are being disingenuous. There are many tiesbetween the B.C. and federal Liberals, he explained. For instance,Mark Marissen, the Liberals’ campaign chair in B.C., is married toDeputy Premier Christy Clark.

“There are major connections,” he said, “and hiring Ujjal Dosanjhand Dave Haggard for a few weeks won’t change that.”

Now the leader of the New Democrats is playing up the B.C. Liberals’links to both the federal Liberal and Conservative parties on thecampaign trail.

“If you like what Gordon Campbell’s doing, vote for Paul Martin. Ifyou love what Gordon Campbell’s doing, vote for Stephen Harper,”Layton said June 1 during a stop in New Westminster. “But if youwant to send Gordon Campbell a different message, a better message,then I invite you to vote for the NDP.”

In a telephone interview, Marissen said the ad was intended to paintthe Liberals as an alternative to the Conservatives. But thecampaign chair wouldn’t admit to any attempts to distance thefederal party from the Campbell government.

“It’s not about provincial politics at all,” he said. “It’s aboutfederal politics.”

Marissen called the ad “very proactive” and denied it was adefensive measure.

“It is a very positive ad talking about our team,” he said, “wherewe’ve reached out to British Columbians from across the politicalspectrum to make sure that British Columbia’s voice is heard inOttawa.”

There’s a lot of respect out there for Chan, Dosanjh, and Haggard,Marissen said, adding that anyone who considers them traitors is alost cause for the Liberals anyway.

In a May 13 column in the Georgia Straight, Tieleman questionedwhether Haggard made a deal with the Liberals to secure a federalappointment after the election. He pointed out that the former unionleader’s odds of winning aren’t good, since Conservative MP PaulForseth took the riding by more than 6,000 votes over the Liberalrunner-up in 2000.

Over the telephone, Haggard, whose campaign has been plagued byrumours he could pull out at the last minute, denied and disagreedwith those charges.

“I don’t plan on losing the election, and I have no commitment onanything other than running for this election,” he said. “I plan ondoing that, and I plan on winning.”

Asked how he felt about being labelled a traitor, Haggard replied:“I’ve never turned my back on working people in my life, and I haveno intention to. It’s Jack Layton that’s turned his back on workers,in my view.”

Tieleman’s column, however, noted that Haggard and the IWA helpedthe Campbell government privatize thousands of health care jobs,leading to the Hospital Employees’ Union strike that put theprovince on the verge of a general strike in May.

Bev Meslo, Dosanjh’s NDP opponent in Vancouver South, said she’scampaigning full out, because all signs point to a close election.

“We are going to have fireworks in this riding,” Meslo said. “Iwould not be surprised if Canada waited for the results of VancouverSouth. I think it’s going to be, like, one o’clock in the morninghere, and they’re going to be waking up in Ontario still notknowing.”