Bill Tieleman the BC NDP Svengali?
Bill Tieleman denies being puppeteer of the BC NDP, but friends and enemies alike note his tight grip on the populist political strings.
It’s Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010 . Carole James is still the leader of the BC New Democrats; at least, she still thinks she is. But the revellers gathered at Vancouver’s St. Regis Hotel for what has come to be known as the annual “lefty party” seem unanimously of the view that James can’t last. The public attack three days earlier by senior NDP MLA Jenny Kwan and Kwan’s 900-word critique of James’s weaknesses seem too devastating. Everyone is speculating on the likely events of the coming week and a surprising number of people are asking this question: “Did you hear that Bill wrote Jenny’s statement?”
“Bill,” of course, is Bill Tieleman, the populist columnist, NDP activist and political strategist who, on this night, is also the Christmas party host – along with his old friend and lefty fundraiser Harvey McKinnon, NDP policy director Vanessa Geary and several others. The suggestion, offered with equal enthusiasm by people who are attending the party because of Tieleman, and by those who are here in spite of him, is that he is up to his patchy beard in the effort to oust James – that he is, in fact, the architect.
After hearing the accusation for the fifth or sixth time, I put the question to Tieleman directly: is he, in this instance, the Svengali?
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“That’s ridiculous,” he shouts over the din, all the while pointing out interesting guests (Angus Reid pollster Daniel Savas, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and his erstwhile rival Peter Ladner, Vancouver councillors Ellen Woodworth and Heather Deal, Vancity chair Patrice Pratt, NDP MLA Bruce Ralston, CUPE local president Paul Faoro and Vancouver Sun city editor Adrienne Tanner). The movement to remove James is widespread, unorganized and spontaneous, Tieleman says. It’s not something that any one individual could have orchestrated alone.
“So,” I persist, “that’s a categorical denial. You didn’t write Kwan’s letter, didn’t edit it, didn’t have anything to do with it?”
Tieleman smiles as if caught in a comfortable corner, replying, “Well, I didn’t say that.” After pointing out a few more interesting guests (former NDP MLA and B.C. Teachers’ Federation president David Chudnovsky, former City of Vancouver finance director Estelle Lo, publisher and political activist Mel Hurtig), Tieleman goes on to ponder what would happen if James were to step down: “Someone else said tonight that I might well be responsible for the elimination of both parties’ leaders.” And then he laughed loud enough to be heard easily over the music and the conversational buzz.
Two days later, Carole James surprised everyone and no one with her resignation, thereby joining stale-dated premier and outgoing BC Liberal leader Gordon Campbell on the dust heap where British Columbians collect disgraced, discredited and dismissed politicians. Two days after that, James told the Province that Tieleman was, indeed, responsible for her ouster, saying, “Bill Tieleman didn’t appreciate the fact that I’ve been working with both business and labour.”
Among political headhunters, that might actually be interpreted as high praise.
As for the other party leader, Gordon Campbell has never specifically attributed his downfall to Tieleman’s leadership in the politically fatal campaign against Campbell’s unpopular Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). And Tieleman is inclined to reject the credit there as well. He argues, convincingly, that both party leaders inflicted their own injuries. But few can deny that among political activists or journalists, Bill Tieleman did the most to ensure that Campbell’s and James’s self-inflicted wounds kept on bleeding.
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