In Conversation with Keith Baldrey
During an internship I recently completed, I was fortunate to be able interview Global BC Journalist Keith Baldrey. The piece was written for a newsletter that all the interns co-authored, and can be found here. I would recommend checking out the newsletter, as it is a great read crafted by smart, dedicated people. The internship-newsletter-version of this interview was shortened for formatting reasons.
The BC Legislative Internship is a six month program that hires twelve university graduates to spend one month in the public service, and one spring session of the legislature (three and a half months) with a political caucus. The other months are filled with orientation and leadership projects. My ministry placement was with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. My political caucus placement was with the BC Green Party. The design of the program is educational and non-partisan, training politically interested recent graduates with hands on experience and knowledge of political systems to supplement their undergraduate degree. I highly recommend prospective students to apply! More information can be found here; do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions about the program. But now, onto the interview.
In Conversation with Keith Baldrey
“One of the lessons learned is that just because you have seen it and heard it before
doesn’t mean that everyone else has too.” - Keith Baldrey
Keith Baldrey has been around the block. He started covering provincial politics full time in 1984. Since then, he has covered nine premiers, nine provincial campaigns, and seen the day-to-day operations of a province’s politics for 35 years. What is more impressive than his resume is his willingness and ability to share this province’s history. Keith was kind enough to sit down with me to talk about his past and BC’s political history. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ben: You were a carny worker before?
Keith: I worked at the PNE for ten summers, starting when I was thirteen. It was a great way to make money. I also went on a travelling carnival across Western Canada for about four years in the late seventies. I worked in the games. My first game at the PNE, which I worked with my uncle, was guessing people's’ ages and weights. People’s ages were easier to guess because their eyes give them away. This enhanced my observation powers which came in handy later noticing little things about how people walk around in the legislature.
B: Who did you look up to journalistically?
K: I looked up to Walter Cronkite. Back then, American media had more influence than Canadian media. Cronkite was the dominant television guy.
B: Did you always want to go into journalism?
K: I wanted to work at the Vancouver Sun. I would race home from school to read the Vancouver Sun, Paul St. Pierre, Jack Wasserman, who were the major guys. I did part time work for the daily Columbian newspaper in New Westminster, which is actually the oldest daily in Canada. I got the Columbian to send me to Ottawa to cover the 1983 federal Progressive Conservative leadership election which elected Brian Mulroney. It was the richest and most extravagant thing I could possibly imagine. You could not buy a drink or food because everything was free. There were about a dozen candidates who had their own tent and bar. That was where you ate and drank. I was there as a starving student with no money, but I didn’t need any because everything was free.
The convention was in the old civic arena in Ottawa in July, it must have been 105 degrees. It was so hot, and jam packed with people. You were literally rubbing elbows with Brian Mulroney. At one point I found myself dancing with Mila Mulroney. She grabbed my arm and said, “blondie, my favourite”, and I’m thinking what am I doing dancing with Mila Mulroney?
After the Mulroney leadership convention, in 82-83 the SoCreds were re-elected. In 82’, BC was hit by a really big recession, way worse than the 2008 one. Interest rates were around 20 per cent, there were tons of layoffs, and government revenues plummeted. In 83’ after the election, the SoCreds brought in a hard edge restraint budget which paved the way potentially to lay off thousands of people and close down a bunch of offices, all these measures were breathtaking in how deep the cuts were.
This caused this huge protest, the likes of which we’ve never seen and probably won’t see again, where organized labour worked with community groups to come together in what was called Operation Solidarity (which took its name from the protests that were occurring in Poland at the time in the solidarity movement against the communists). This giant umbrella protest group came together, it was thousands, there was a huge rally here, about 30 thousand. Stan Persky, who was a well-known college instructor and poet and author, pitched the idea of starting a newspaper for the movement Solidarity. He said, look I’ve got some young unemployed young journalists that I can put together. He phones me and Tom Hawthorn, and put together a staff right away. We put out the Solidarity Times which has now been digitized.
B: So, it is still running?
K: Oh, no. At that time the atmosphere in this province was unbelievable because it was cascading towards these confrontations with the government. This House used to sit 24 hours a day as the NDP tried to do everything to stop the bills. It was getting to a crisis point, in fact, there was talk of a general strike. People were so romantic about what was going on. But even as young journalists we saw this thing was headed towards a disaster. But tell that to 60,000 people marching in the street. There was this intoxicating feeling, but we knew where this was heading. In the end there was a compromise, so it ended. We did nine issues [of the Solidarity Times]. Everybody who worked on it went onto pretty good careers.
B: As someone who is interested in politics, listening to someone who has lived and breathed it, that’s a great story.
K: I’ve always been interested in BC politics. Ever since [Dave] Barrett came in in 1972, because that was a revolutionary government.
B: Why?
K: It was so active and did things so completely opposite of what the SoCreds did for 20 years. And fairly left wing. They brought in all kinds of reforms. They created ICBC, ALR, Labour Code, WCB, Human Rights branch, Hansard, Question Period.
B: Provincial politics doesn’t get as much attention as federal politics, which I find, gets more attention; it seems to a be bit flashier.
K: It is, and it isn’t. Right now, what is going on is quite fascinating. Chretien and Martin years not as much. BC politics is always a little bit crazy. It was crazy in the 80s and 90s, and under Christy Clark. Not so much with Campbell, probably because he had a massive majority, so not much drama.
In BC, the difference between popular vote between the two parties is always pretty small, but the difference in seat count is much wider. It looked like it was never going to change, but then it did change in 2017.
That was arguably the most fascinating time, the changeover, that one month after the 2017 election. The amount of time we spent in the rose garden everyday talking to Horgan, Weaver, and Clark, as they all did this dance of who was going to form power. And then confidence day and the motion passed, and this place was electric. The BC Liberals fell from power and Horgan got the so called “Million Dollar” phone call.
The Liberals were furious because they won the most seats and they weren’t going to be able to hang onto power. And some just couldn’t figure that out. But I remember Mary Polak, to her credit, saying, “you know what, this is actually kinda historic”. They realized that this was a historic moment. Then we had the drama. The negotiations.
When the BC Liberals lost the vote, it wasn’t clear that [Judith] Guichon was going to call on Horgan to form government. A couple weeks earlier, they had dropped off at Government House a letter signed by all the members of the NDP and Green Caucus saying that we pledge to work together, along with CASA. Presumably, that factored into it.
He got the phone call and the whole place flipped on its head.
I was standing out broadcasting with Chris Gaulis, we were out there for hours, and we had this huge audience. But there were a lot of Americans there; there was this one guy with a southern accent who asked me, after I had explained to him what was happening, he said, “you mean to tell me, that a lil ole lady living in a house on the hill over there is going to decide who forms the government?” And I said well that is basically what is going to happen today, and he couldn’t believe it.
B: Do you have any guesses as to why BC is so all over the place politically? We have elected Reform, Liberal, Progressive Conservatives, Conservatives, NDP, SoCreds, Greens. We’ve had almost everyone except for the Bloc in BC.
K: BC over the years has become a fairly polarized province. It’s becoming less so because there are younger voters now. When the boomers were the dominant generation, this was a 50-50 province. The reform party was a unique anti-government party which there has always been an anti-government sentiment in BC. Particularly in the rural areas, and that is where the Reform was most prevalent. There is this detachment in the outlying regions that they are far away from the centre of power, so they are mad at the centre of power – at least federally. Then you’ve got the Green party which is an urban party which is tapping into some values that weren’t there 15 years ago.
Everyone says BC is the most left leaning province. It’s not a left-wing province. There is a big element of left-wing politics, but it is not a dominant. When I say it is 50-50, it’s more a 55-45, 55 centre right, 45 centre left. The only reason the NDP won in the 90s was because there was a split. Just like Notley won because there was a split.
Horgan, and Farnworth, and Dix were in the 90s government, and they know the mistakes they made, and they don’t want to repeat them. One of the mistakes they made, Dix said back in 2013, was that they tried to rewrite the world. They had so many bills in the 1990s it was ridiculous. That is why you don’t see a lot of legislation from these guys. They pick and choose their spots. There is a couple of controversies, but they aren’t changing the rule book and they’re not doing much to upset people. Whereas the 90s was always like change this, change that.
B: Do you have any MLAs that have done particularly well or people that have stood out as interesting characters since your time here?
K: Bill Vander Zalm was Mr. Chaos. He had so many scandals in his government. He tore his coalition apart. But he was also this charismatic figure. He really was something else - a compelling figure to cover because it was unpredictable, chaotic, destructive and exhausting. You had to be around him all the time because you didn’t know what he was going to say.
I would throw pebbles at his office window at night, and he would lean out and say “what do you want Keith?” and I’d interview him, and you could talk to him about anything.
The next day everyone would wake up to a Vancouver Sun headline, “Vander Zalm says this”. You couldn't leave him alone. You had to be at that scrum every day at 8:50. He would give a 40 minute scrum, all over the map, no press secretary, just us media deciding how long we were going to question him. He was never exhausted, it was all talk-talk-talk.
Grace McCarthy was the Minister who took him on and she was royalty in the SoCred party because she came up under WAC Bennett. She had a major role in putting the party back together under Bill Bennett when they were in opposition and brought it back to power. [She was a] Major Minister under Bill Bennett. She built the convention centre, brought Expo in, she was formidable. She was so sunny and optimistic to the point of characterture. You would say, Good morning Grace, and she would say, “isn't it a good morning, isn't it a fantastic morning?” She also realized Vander Zalm was taking the party down a dark hole mixing religion with politics. Also the development of the Expo lands which was False Creek, she thought it was a corrupt process, blew the whistle on him and quit out of protest.
She then ran for leadership of the SoCreds against Rita Johnson. We called anyone who supported Vander Zalm was called a “Zalmoid”. So the leadership race in 1991 pitted Grace, the old SoCred, against Rita, who was the Vander Zalm, and it was this bitter contest. Grace won that. You saw on display, the party that ruled BC for so long, almost 50 years, just fracturing in front of your very eyes. Vander Zalm, Grace, and Rita were the interesting characters of that time.
Then NDP came in during the 90s so you had Harcourt as the leader, but it was clear that he wasn't the leader. He was the Mayor of Vancouver, but he won the leadership with no one running against him. So he didn't go through that leadership process that you really have to go through to establish credibility. He had this young cabinet made up of Glen Clark and Mo Sahota, and Dan Miller. Mo had a pension for getting into trouble. Clark was super smart. But they had this immaturity because they were young. But those three were the dominant people in the 90s.
Harcourt ended up resigning because his government got caught up in this “Bingo-gate” scandal that no one wanted to take responsibility for. Harcourt eventually said, fine I’ll quit. We had 20 minutes notice to get into the press theatre. Glen Clark took over, and if he became Premier today he’d still be Premier. Smartest politician that I’ve met here.
B: Why do you say that?
K: He’s got great political instincts, but [is] also very, very smart. He could grasp a file on complex matters very quickly. He was a great communicator. He’s now Jimmy Pattison’s right hand man. Clark got in trouble early because a lack of maturity. Not thinking things through and getting too caught up in the game of this building of tripping up your opponent. Then he made an error in judgement getting too close to a casino applicant. That caused the police to investigate on what was really a trumped up charged and he resigned. I attribute that to youthful brashness.
B: How often do you find that governments that are younger seek out staffers that are older than themselves? Is that a common thing? Say if a Premier is forming a government that is younger, they go out and get some people who have seen more than them.
K: Usually governments come in and all the staff are young, and I think that can lead to problems. If you don't have good staff giving you good advice, you're not going to perform well or you're going to get into trouble. I think there is a problem with this government as there was with Campbell back in 2001. Campbell in 2001, he had all these really young staffers, but because they had 77-2 they could get away with anything. By 2005, and 2009 those staffers were more experienced.
This new crew by-and-large are young and inexperienced staff, but where the NDP made a good move was to hold on to most of the deputies. The Deputy Ministers are extremely important to a Minister. If you have a strong deputy you have the potential to be a strong Minister. To the NDP’s credit, Don Wright, as the head of the civil service said these guys are all pros, they can work with anyone. So with the exception of two or three, they kept them all. I think that allows some of these Ministers to withstand some of the problems that could be created by inexperience.
In Campbell’s era, the dominant people were Campbell, and Carole Taylor who was his Finance Minister. She was very smart. She left because she got tired of this place operating the way it does. Rich Coleman was a dominant personality because he was the house leader, and the Energy Minister. Shirley Bond and Mike De Jong were the big players. Christy Clark was for awhile, but then she left, then came back, then became dominant because she became Premier.
Christy reminded me of Glen Clark and Mo Sahota because she was young, a great communicator, and had a nose for politics. In her first go around, she was a young immature cabinet minister who was dominant. And then she quit and came back ten years later.
Dix, Horgan, and Farnworth were the dominant people on the NDP side. Now, James for sure. Horgan thinks very highly of James, rightly so. But because those first three went through all the stuff together in the 90s, they’re a bit closer. There are still some scars leftover from the Carole James takedown. The NDP historically always devours itself. Grudges that go on for decades, there’s factions, but so far these guys have held together pretty good. No sign of dissent or internal problems.
Contrast now to the 80’s. Bill Bennett was very tight in control. Vander Zalm came in and there was a civil war internally. Harcourt came in with almost the same fighting, but a different level. It split into factions aligned for and against Harcourt. Clark held together well internally until the mounties came to his door. Campbell held it together for a decade until the HST debacle. Then Christy, she had caucus unity after the 2013 election.
B: Is there any part of the journalistic process that you think people might not appreciate but would find interesting?
K: The behind the scenes of television news. What you would see in the background of a TV, it's all a green screen. The viewer sees colourful graphics, but it’s not. There are little markings on the floor of where to stand. We’ve got guys in the control room, a room that looks like a giant spaceship. It's interesting how seamless its comes off looking, but how chaotic it can be behind the scenes or right before.
I once had to do a story on a flood. I put together a package, my voice with pictures. But for some reason my audio didn't get through. Suddenly my boss said that your picture looks great but there is no sound. She said you’re going to read it live. But I didn't have my script. She told me that she would read it to me very quickly, then I would read it in my normal broadcast voice live on TV. It was a two minute story. She would say a line, then I would repeat in, all live.
B: All of these stories are great. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
K: My pleasure, anytime.
