While hitting out at party leader Adrian Dix, whom he blames for the election loss, Gentner also took a shot at B.C. NDP president Moe Sihota, the former MLA and Minister, claiming that a group identified with Sihota controls the party executive. He didn’t elaborate who that group is or how it controls the party. But Gentner went to length to talk about the leadership contest and how the membership was stacked in Dix’s favour by the usual suspects, which Gentner didn’t mention by community, trying to save himself criticism if he has to run again in the Indo-Canadian dominated North Delta ,but what he was referring to was the mass Indo-Canadian membership sign-ups, which not only helped Dix win the NDP leadership but also helped Premier Christy Clark win the BC Liberal leadership in a hard fought battle between runner-up Kevin Falcon.
VANCOUVER – Former NDP MLA Guy Gentner didn’t mince words in calling for the party to drastically change how it conducts its affairs when he did his own post-mortem of the party’s dismal failure at the recently held provincial election, where instead of winning and forming government, they actually lost to the stumbling and bumbling Christy Clark who was supposed to be wiped out by all opinion and not-to-be-trusted opinion polls.
Gentner told the Georgia Straight newspaper that one of the reasons he didn’t run in the election and why the party lost was due to leader Adrian Dix’s own demons and skeletons. Due to this factor, NDP and Dix chose the high road instead of drilling home the absolutely horrendous record of the BC Liberal government who did everything wrong in the book. But this was never put to the voters by the party in a hard-hitting kind of way because the leader himself lacked the ethics.
“The whole issue of ethics during this election campaign was muted because the NDP itself has problems in that department,” he told the Straight.
Gentner told the newspaper NDP’s problem with ethics goes right to the top.
“The issue of the election was based on ethics and was based on the fact that we have a leader that had one faux pas,” he said, referring to Dix’s 1999 memo-backdating controversy during his time as chief of staff to then-premier Glen Clark.
“Meanwhile, the Liberals were riddled with scandal and we didn’t take the opportunity to remind the populace about their 12-year record. And the reason being is we were worried about, you know, the tension it would create on reminding the voters about Mr. Dix’s problems in the ’90s. So we tried to avoid it,” Gentner told the Straight.
Gentner also took a shot at B.C. NDP president Moe Sihota, the former MLA and Minister, claiming that a group identified with Sihota controls the party executive. He didn’t elaborate who that group is or how it controls the party. Gentner called for the entire executive to step aside in order to allow critical thinking inside the NDP.
“They made the decisions, and this is the result of it,” he maintained. “The NDP can only work with critical thinking within itself, and without it, it became lax and overlooked a lot of systemic problems. I’m hopeful that will change in November, when the [party] convention comes.”
Gentner went to length to talk about the leadership contest and how the membership was stacked in Dix’s favour by the usual suspects, which Gentner didn’t mention by community, trying to save himself criticism if he has to run again in the Indo-Canadian dominated North Delta ,but what he was referring to was the mass Indo-Canadian membership sign-ups, which not only helped Dix win the NDP leadership but also helped Premier Christy Clark win the BC Liberal leadership in a hard fought battle between runner-up Kevin Falcon.
Gentner told the Straight as the NDP undertakes a review of the debacle, he wants the party “to take a very close look at itself”.
“The problem is the party itself,” Gentner said. “There’s something wrong at the core. The party lacks integrity.”
Dix didn’t make himself available for comment to the Straight reporter Pablo Carlito but MLA Mable Elmore responded to Gentner’s statements in the newspaper.
“He’s off base,” Elmore said in dismissing her former caucus colleague’s opinion during a phone interview with the Straight. She added that it’s “pretty shocking” for him to be making such criticisms.
“He’s certainly free and also welcome to bring his views forward and submit them to the review,” Elmore said.
