A week after Gordon Campbell stepped down as premier in November 2010, condo marketer Bob Rennie forecast a season of uncertainty at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.'s annual housing outlook conference.
"Our premier quit on us, and he quit on us at the wrong time, after calling a referendum," Rennie said at the time, citing the impending ballot on the ill-starred harmonized sales tax (HST).
"Now we're going to know uncertainty until we get to the Liberal leadership."
But the pick of Christy Clark as BC Liberal Party leader in February 2011, then rejection of the HST in a referendum that summer, brought (in the words of Rennie to the Urban Development Institute that spring) "another boatload of uncertainty."
Next week, the angst that's hung over the province since 2010 promises to be well and truly over when voters send a new assortment of MLAs to Victoria.
Based on the following comments gathered over the past 14 months, anxieties regarding a potential BC NDP victory have largely given way to resignation and even acceptance – barring some exceptions and assuming there aren't any major surprises:
"It doesn't matter what government we have in power, we're not going to have 8% GDP relative to what's going on in the rest of the world. We've got problems out there. Alternatively, if we have a great economy and the tide is rising all across the world, you know what? The negative impact of any party in this province isn't going to stem that tide."
Tony Astles, executive vice-president, Bentall Kennedy LP
Urban Development Institute, January 19, 2012
"I'm trying to think back to when the NDP were in power, but I'm quite a young guy and I don't remember how bad it was. ... The government changes, you gotta deal with it."
Rossano DeCotiis, president, Onni Group of Companies
Urban Development Institute, January 19, 2012
"I know it's not politically correct to say it, but I think in British Columbia right now we're much more vulnerable to some decisions that need to be made in the political environment."
David Podmore, president, Concert Properties Ltd.
Western Canada Hotel and Resort Investment Conference, October 3, 2012
"Frankly, [an NDP government] scares me. ... I lived through the '90s."
Michael Ferreira, principal, Urban Analytics Inc.
Urban Development Institute, October 18, 2012
"The trouble with socialist governments is they don't let facts stand in the way of their perspectives. ... A socialist direction ... has never worked anywhere in the word at creating jobs and helping the downtrodden. There's a reason why you don't see a family of four in Florida get up under the cover of night, hop onto a homemade raft and paddle over to Cuba. They're going the other way, because there's opportunity."
Steve Evans, principal, Sunstone Realty Advisors
NAIOP, 18 October 2012
"To change our course of business for the election, that's not how we operate. We think longer term."
Colin Bosa, president, Bosa Properties Inc.
Urban Development Institute, January 24, 2013
Rob Macdonald of Macdonald Development Corp., source of some of the real estate industry's most colourful commentary on the BC NDP, told the UDI (in a note read by Diana McMeekin) to expect the worst:
"The business community will lose confidence and everything we have worked hard for over the last 12 years is likely to go to [something unrepeatable beginning with "s"] all over again."
The equally colourful Eric Carlson, president of Anthem Properties Group, took up Macdonald's mantle, reminding UDI members in January the BC NDP hasn't improved on its 1990s track record of "fast ferries, Casinogate, four premiers in one term, eight deficit budgets, the worst economic performance in B.C.'s modern history."
"We're supposed to forget all that," he said. "And the BC NDP don't have to do a thing. They just have to look good, wear dark suits (instead of the brown ones with orange ties that they used to). They can be an inanimate object, a chair, and they would rise in the polls."
