Leaks Prove Liberals Dead

Damaging leaks from a faltering BC government indicate that the civil service or disaffected party members have decided the Liberals are on the way out.

Another leak, and another nail in the BC Liberals’ electoral coffin, proving without much doubt that the governing party is essentially dead leading up to the next election.

The latest was to the Sun’s Vaughn Palmer and regarded how the party’s communications office issued “talking points” that were parroted by Premier Christy Clark and others in the Legislature.

This follows the ruinous leak about the Liberals’ “ethnic outreach plan” that created a political firestorm a few weeks ago.

Putting aside that I can’t understand in either case why these leaks were so damning — it seems to me they highlighted what everybody knew anyway and, regardless of party, have done for years — it is interesting in that both storms were the result of unidentified “leaks” to the press.  

Leaks invariably come from the opposing party — in this case, the NDP — which has the most to gain in an upcoming election by disparaging the ruling Liberals.

But someone has to supply the damaging information.

In this case that someone could only be one of two possibilities — someone in the civil service who is high enough to have access to the material and knows the damage it could cause, or a disaffected Liberal who wants to see party rebuild.

If it’s the former, then the civil service has already decided the next election.

In most organizations, whenever a change at the top is coming, various functionaries below start feathering their own nests by currying favour with the next potential rulers.

Bureaucrats, who are steeped in the quiet, but constant, warfare that bureaucracies create, tend to elevate this practice to a fine art. Sun Tzu may have written the book, but bureaucrats supplied the information.

By leaking the Liberals’ ethnic outreach plan, and, now, its iron “talking points” methodology, some civil servant has put into action what his or her fellows in the service are thinking —  how they can ensure they have jobs with the next administration.

Of course, in a roundabout way, the leaks could be to the Conservatives who would like to set up a future scenario in which the Liberals collapse over the next few years, and they become the government in waiting after the NDP have worn out its welcome.

Even more nefariously, they could be coming from disgruntled Liberals who want to destroy Christy Clark and rebuild the party in their own image.  

My money’s on the civil service. But whatever the source, there is only one conclusion. This government is a dead man walking.