It is hard to think of anyone who will miss outgoing British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell more than Stephen Harper, except perhaps federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
Among the premiers, Campbell — a Liberal — was considered the Prime Minister’s closest ally and was associated with some of Harper’s proudest moments in office.
Only a few months ago they co-presided over the successful Olympics. His advocacy of aboriginal issues helped put the issue of a historic public apology to First Nations on the agenda of Harper’s first mandate.
Campbell was not originally predisposed to champion aboriginal rights. That came after the premier was in office, and the change resonated beyond the ranks of his own provincial party and into those of the federal Conservatives.
According to provincial sources, no premier quite captured Harper’s ear the way Campbell did. They have reasons to click. Like Harper, the B.C. premier built a small-c conservative coalition out of two former parties — the Social Credit and the provincial Liberals — and led it to power.
But Campbell also earned his access to the Prime Minister. One could in fact argue that he eventually paid an exorbitant price for it.
In the federal-provincial debate over Ottawa’s plan to create a single national financial regulator, Campbell started off in the opposition camp, along with Alberta, Quebec and Manitoba. His decision to switch sides was a game-changing moment for the optics of the federal bid. Without B.C. onside, Flaherty would have had a harder time fending off the perception that he was acting as a proxy for Ontario.
But it was Campbell’s decision to follow Ontario on another federal bandwagon that proved his undoing. By agreeing to harmonize his province’s sales tax with the GST, Campbell handed Flaherty a big win. After two fruitless decades the federal dream of a pan-Canadian harmonized sales tax became immensely closer to being realized.
But the political return of that particular Ottawa-Victoria elevator turned out to be less than forthcoming. While his federal allies ran for cover, Campbell was left to deal with a massive HST backlash.
In the House of Commons, Flaherty and Harper promptly shifted the onus of the unpopular initiative onto their Liberal partners at Queen’s Park and Victoria.
The Conservatives reaped credit in corporate Canada for progress on a long-standing file but expended very little political capital on selling the move to angry voters.
The ultimate fate of the HST in B.C. is uncertain. If it is not a casualty of the campaign to select Campbell’s successor, it may be killed in a referendum.
Given the electoral calculations that preside over policy-making on Parliament Hill these days, Harper and Flaherty might rather see the HST die an early death in B.C. than have to campaign in support of it in a province considered crucial to the crafting of a federal majority.
In Canada, few of the governments that have introduced a consumption tax have survived to reap its benefits. It remains to be seen whether Premier Dalton McGuinty will beat the odds in next fall’s election.
No premier will be following that particular test more closely than Quebec’s Jean Charest. He is about to become the dean of the premiers, though maybe not for long. Although his caucus is not as restless as Campbell’s, Charest has clearly fallen from grace and suffers from the perception of wear and tear from consecutive mandates.
If McGuinty is forced to follow Campbell into retirement next fall, chances are Charest will not be far behind.
Chantal Hebert is a syndicated national affairs columnist for The Toronto Star.