Thoughts of chair Corky Evans

Tom Fletcher

VICTORIA – “You shouldn’t read that.”

It was the first and only bit of advice Nelson-Creston MLA Corky Evans offered me, when he spotted a green legislative reporter with a coffee and a copy of the daily news summary that’s prepared for provincial staff and politicians.

He quickly explained his abrupt suggestion. Following the daily media coverage of B.C. government just leads to more of the same. The headlines often have precious little to do with the important work being done in the chamber.

In subsequent chats he often returned to his theme that the political business isn’t what it used to be. Speeches used to mean something, but now the press shows up for the scripted theatrics of question period and that’s about it.

So it wasn’t a surprise to hear that at age 60, Evans has decided to wind up a long political career and “get a job.” The days of old-fashioned storytellers like him, he figures, are gone.

“I get it that that’s not hip any more, and Mr. Campbell’s got 600 people to make sure he only speaks the words they write,” Evans said on the phone after announcing his retirement to his Kootenay constituents.

“But I’m very proud that I have been there for a long time and never spoken words that anybody else wrote.”

Here are a few more thoughts from chairman Corky, starting with the suggestion he’s one of B.C.’s last socialists:

“I think the majority of citizens in British Columbia are socialists at heart, and sometimes they don’t vote that way because we embarrass them and make them grumpy. But British Columbians own the land, which is a socialist idea. They own more of the land than the Soviet Union did under Stalin. British Columbians own the rivers, or they did prior to Gordon Campbell. They provide public health care. I believe in a socialist analysis, or a social democratic analysis and that’s who I am, but I sure don’t think I’m alone.”

On farming:

“When I started out, agriculture was considered a stupid, boring subject only discussed by hicks, and irrelevant to the globalist brave new world and to the world-class idea of Vancouver that had come after Expo. And I think, in 20 years, we’ve succeeded in making farming and food into real issues in the public discourse.”

On coming to B.C. from Oakland, Calif. as a Vietnam war resister in 1970:

“It was a less racist society. It was a less violent society. There was a health care program and public schools. I can’t begin to tell you how different it was.”

On whether he’s faced anti-American sentiment:

“Sure, but it’s no big deal. It’s way, way less of a deal than what native people feel, or people from India. Anti-American sentiment is endemic in Canada and fairly shallow and has not hurt my life.”

On switching from logger to MLA in 1991:

“I am quite proud that when I started in public life we had seven sawmills in our constituency and I argued that we should have that kind of diversity and we should also have community forests. And we now have, within 100 miles of my house, a half a dozen community forests, and all seven sawmills are still running.

“And so the monopoly control that has taken over the Cariboo, the Island, the North and is now taking over the Okanagan, we have avoided that here. We have doubled the park system without damaging the independent sawmills, and we’ve built community forests to create market diversity. I believe in that stuff.”

Time to move on

In one of his last Question Period appearances this spring, Evans made an impassioned plea to Agriculture Minister Pat Bell to bring back the “Buy BC” program to promote local farm produce. It was one of Evans’ projects when he was agriculture minister.

Could it be the government just doesn’t want to admit that something the NDP did in the 1990s actually worked?

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers. tfletcher@blackpress.ca