It’s full steam ahead for Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberal government, following a most unexpected election win last month.

Clark has named her cabinet, and in a most unusual occurrence, the provincial legislature will actually hold a session this summer. And, after being defeated in her own riding, Point Grey, Clark will get a seat in the July 10 by-election in Kelowna. MLA Ben Stewart agreed to step aside so that the Liberal leader could take over this eminently ‘safe seat.’

With everything going her way, it comes as no surprise that Clark and her Liberal government’s hubris is already on full display. Back on June 3, she quietly gave her top political staffers a huge salary increase; her chief of staff will now make an obscene $230,000, up from a $195,000. So much for prudent fiscal management.

Christy Clark at cabinet announcement on June 7| Photo courtesy of the BC Govt Photos

In making her by-election announcement in Kelowna, she unsubtly invited comparisons with W.A.C. Bennett, the premier who made an indelible impact on B.C. and who is forever associated with Kelowna, where he started out running a hardware store:

“To me, Kelowna is a natural political home for me and the values that I believe in. This is the cradle of free enterprise… You think of the visions that W.A.C. Bennett brought to growing our province and the vision that Bill Bennett brought to controlling government spending and keeping taxes low for the people here.”

So Clark vows to continue the Bennett legacy of right-wing politicians.

The comparison to Bill Bennett should be alarming to union members and anyone concerned about maintaining what’s left of public services and a social safety net in B.C. The Bennett Socreds of the 1980s imposed austerity and attacked the labour unions – the resistance to these measures culminated in the mass movement called ‘Solidarity’ back in 1983.

If – or indeed when, since her LNG revenue targets are a fantasy – Clark drops the hammer of austerity, labour and its allies must be ready to mount a new version of Solidarity to push back. That’s going to be a considerable challenge, especially after a shocking election result that so many were counting on to stop the bleeding. The labour movement hasn’t really mounted a major anti-cuts movement since 2002, in the early days of the Gordon Campbell government, and coalitions need to be urgently reconstructed.

The other part of the comparison by Clark, the reference to old W.A.C. Bennett, is just plain wacky. I have no idea what she means by describing Kelowna as the “cradle of free enterprise.” Yes, Bennett Sr was a successful businessperson who then went into politics. But his lasting political legacy is widely recognized not in any tax or spending cuts, but in the establishment of the province’s signature, public Crown corporations like BC Hydro.

Here’s how one bemused Vancouver Sun letter to the editor writer put it: “Bennett’s government was responsible for establishing or advocating several of the current quasi-socialist organizations known as Crown corporations. These entities enable government to appoint boards, restrict competition and remove significant amounts of Crown corporation revenue for government coffers.

Bennett helped establish BC Ferries, BC Hydro, BC Rail, and he gave formative support to socialized medicine.

Of course, public utilities does not socialism make, and it is true that W.A.C Bennett was the leader of political forces who united together to block actual democratic socialists – the old CCF then NDP – from winning power. So, in that sense, we must concede that Clark’s self-aggrandizing comparison has some merit.

I must make one other point, somewhat tangential, about Clark’s history of Kelowna. My great, great grandfather Cornelius O’Keefe was among the first settlers to establish himself in the Okanagan Valley – in his case, just outside of what is now Vernon. But the settler society, and its wealthier elements that Clark depends on as her base, are mere newcomers to the area; the Valley is in fact the cradle of indigenous societies many thousands of years old. But this is not a history that Clark is remotely interested in referencing, given her utter disregard for forging a respectful relationship with the first peoples of this land.

Disappointingly, the B.C. Greens have decided not even to run a candidate against Clark. This is a serious dereliction of their democratic duty. Clark’s entire election platform was centred around an ecologically disastrous – and economically illusory – boom of liquified natural gas (LNG) exports in the province’s north. The Greens should have taken the by-election as a chance to vigorously explain the truth about fracking and LNG.

The NDP will contest the seat, but Clark will win the July 10 by-election and take her place in the legislature.

For all of us disheartened by the B.C. Liberals’ win and alarmed by Clark’s right-wing agenda, we have only one consolation: hubris comes before the fall.