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Precisely how democracy would be undermined by the sort of alliance that is common among freely-elected regimes elsewhere she did not say, but Clark was barely able to hide her displeasure with Guichon for refusing to bite. “She has chosen another path,” Clark groused. “I suppose she’ll be able to talk to you about why she made that decision. I don’t know why. But she did.”

Anyone who has followed Clark, even from afar, can’t be surprised by her reluctance to accept the will of the people just because it went against her. As premier she offered voters a cheery smile and a fine line in disdain. Politics isn’t a calling, it’s a war, and those who aren’t with you are against you. “When we go into political combat we all acknowledge that sometimes we spend so much time fighting with one another in here that it’s hard to listen to what British Columbians want,” she acknowledged after trying to hang onto power by co-opting large sections of the NDP platform in the recent throne speech.

After rubbishing NDP plans mercilessly on the campaign trail, Clark performed the quickest pirouette since Pierre Trudeau, pledging changes she’d spent the campaign rejecting. “It’s an acknowledgement, a sincere acknowledgement, that we didn’t get it right,” she shrugged. Also, it would seem, a confession that a Clark government wouldn’t let beliefs or principles get in the way of power.

Photo by Chad Hipolito / The Canadian Press

It’s been like that throughout her career. A confrontation with B.C. teachers she started in 2002, stripping away certain of their bargaining rights, wasn’t settled until she was premier 14 years later, when the Supreme Court took just 20 minutes to side with the teachers. She waved off persistent concerns about her government’s wholesale willingness to accept large donations from lobbyists and corporate backers, even after B.C.’s elections agency referred its investigation to the RCMP. Faced with similar complaints, Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau eventually retreated in the face of public anger, but not Clark. Not until the throne speech did she finally proclaim that, given the chance, she would accede to NDP demands to ban corporate, union and third-party donations.