Gordon Campbell

This article introduces the Canadian politician; on the British naval officer, see Gordon Campbell (Vice Admiral) .

Gordon Campbell

Gordon Muir Campbell (born January 12, 1948 in Vancouver , British Columbia ) is a Canadian politician and city planner. He was Prime Minister of the Province of British Columbia from June 5, 2001 to March 14, 2011. Campbell was chairman of the British Columbia Liberal Party from 1993 to 2011 and has represented the Vancouver-Point Gray constituency in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia since 1994 . He was previously mayor of the city of Vancouver from 1986 to 1993.

Youth and Studies

Campbell was born into a wealthy Vancouver family. When he was 13 years old, his father committed suicide . The mother then had to raise her four children alone. Campbell attended University Hill Secondary School in Vancouver, where he was president of the student council. After high school he received a scholarship from the prestigious Dartmouth College in Hanover , New Hampshire, and studied urban planning . He also received a Bachelor of Arts in English .

In 1970 Campbell married Nancy Chipperfield in New Westminster . As part of an exchange program run by the development aid organization CUSO (Canadian University Students Overseas) , he went to Nigeria with his wife , where he taught at a school for two years. Upon his return in 1972, he wanted to study law at the University of British Columbia , but soon gave up. Instead, he supported the election campaign of Art Phillips , who successfully ran for Mayor of Vancouver. He remained Philipps' assistant until 1976. Campbell then worked as a project manager for the real estate company Marathon Realty and founded the Citycore Development Corporation . In 1978 he graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Masters of Business Administration degree .

Urban and provincial politics

In 1984 Campbell was elected to the Vancouver City Council as a representative of the Local Party Non-Partisan Association . From 1986 to 1993 he was mayor of the city. His term of office includes Expo 86 , the conversion of the world exhibition site into a high-density residential zone (the largest urban development project in the history of the city) and the construction of the new main building of the Vancouver Public Library . Campbell also served as council chairman for the Greater Vancouver Regional District and president of the British Columbia Council.

The British Columbia Liberal Party elected Campbell as its chairman in 1993, asserting himself against incumbent Gordon Wilson, who had lost the trust of the party base. By winning a by-election in the Vancouver-Quilchema constituency, he won a seat in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in 1994 . In the elections on May 28, 1996 Campbell ran successfully in the Vancouver-Point Gray constituency. The Liberal Party achieved a slightly higher share of the vote than the ruling British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP), but received six fewer seats. Campbell remained the official opposition leader.

The NDP government, led by Glen Clark , has faced numerous controversies and difficult economic and financial conditions. Clark's successors Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh could not stop their party's loss of popularity. In the elections on May 16, 2001, the Liberals celebrated an overwhelming victory: with 57.62% of the vote, they won 77 out of 79 seats. Campbell took office on June 5th as Prime Minister.

prime minister

One day after taking office, Campbell fulfilled one of his election promises: he cut income tax by a quarter and abolished the corporate capital tax . In order to achieve a balanced budget balance , the government pursued a strict austerity policy . It cut social benefits, reduced the administrative apparatus and privatized the state-owned British Columbia Railway . In contrast, the government increased spending on education and public health.

Campbell at a soapbox race in Kitsilano

In January 2003, Campbell was on vacation in Maui . He was briefly arrested there for driving while intoxicated and was eventually fined. The state police Hawaii released a file photo ( mug shot ) , the political opponents used again later to Campbell publicly expose. The organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving called for his resignation.

The government introduced fixed dates for the elections to the provincial parliament. This means that the Prime Minister will in future waive his right, which has arisen from British tradition, to determine the election date at his own discretion within a certain period of time. In the elections on May 17, 2005, the Liberals' share of the vote fell to 45.8%, but they still had a majority with 46 seats. On the same day, a referendum on changing the electoral law failed: 57.7% of the electorate voted for the abolition of relative majority voting and the introduction of transferable individual voting , but this was below the 60% required, which the government had previously set as a condition . Another referendum in 2009 also failed.

Campbell's second term as Prime Minister was initially marked by an economic boom. The unemployment rate fell to 4.0% in spring 2007, the lowest level in 30 years and 6% less than in 2001, but doubled again within a year. The elections on May 12, 2009 produced almost the same results as four years earlier: the proportion of voters was practically the same and the enlargement of the parliament resulted in three seat wins. In July 2009, the provincial government announced that it would soon replace the two-tier VAT (5% at federal level, 7% at provincial level) with a uniform tax of 12%. This project met with rejection from the opposition, the media and the majority of the population, because it would inevitably lead to a tax increase in some product areas. The Liberal Party lost massive popularity in opinion polls. In June 2010, Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom resigned to protest against the single rate of VAT.

On November 3, 2010, in the face of ongoing protests and low approval ratings in opinion polls, Campbell announced that he would step down as head of government and party leader as soon as the party had chosen his successor. Christy Clark succeeded him on March 14, 2011 .

Web links

Commons : Gordon Campbell  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Gordon Muir Campbell ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .