Gordon Muir Campbell (born January 12, 1948) is a retired Canadian diplomat and politician who was the 35th mayor of Vancouver from 1986 to 1993 and the 34th premier of British Columbia from 2001 to 2011.
He was the leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party from 1993 to 2011. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Canadian High Commissioner to the United KingdomDiplomatic Appointments and Canada's representative to the Ismaili Imamat from 2014 to 2016.Diplomatic Appointments
Early life
Campbell was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Charles Gordon (Chargo) Campbell, was a physician and an assistant dean of medicine at the University of British Columbia, until his suicide in 1961, when Gordon was 13. His mother Peg was a kindergarten assistant at University Hill Elementary School. The couple had four children. Gordon grew up in the West Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver and went to Stride Elementary, and University Hill Secondary School where he was student council president. Upon graduation from high school, Campbell was accepted by Dartmouth College, a well-known Ivy League institution in Hanover, New Hampshire; he had received a scholarship and a job offer so he could afford the tuition fees and defray educational expenses.
Campbell intended to study medicine but was persuaded by three English professors to shift his focus to English and urban management. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English. At Dartmouth College, in 1969, Campbell received a $1,500 Urban Studies Fellowship that made it possible for him to work in Vancouver's city government where he met Art Phillips, a TEAM city councilor who later became the 32nd mayor of Vancouver.
Early career After graduating from college that year, Campbell and Nancy Chipperfield married in New Westminster on July 4, 1970. Under the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) program, they went to Nigeria to teach. There he coached basketball and track and field and launched literacy initiatives. Stanford accepted Campbell to pursue a master's degree in education, but the couple returned to Vancouver instead where Campbell entered law school at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Nancy earned her education degree. Campbell's law school education was short-lived; as he soon returned to the City of Vancouver to work for Art Phillips on his mayoral campaign. When Phillips was elected in 1972, Campbell became his executive assistant, a job he held until 1976., source: Maclean's, 1999
At 28 years old, he left Mayor Phillips's office and went to work for Marathon Realty as a project manager. In 1976, Geoffrey, the Campbells' first child, was born. In 1978, the Campbells bought a house in Point Grey, which remained their home for the next 26 years. From 1975 to 1978, Campbell pursued a Master of Business Administration degree at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business. In 1979, Nancy Campbell gave birth to their second child, Nicholas.
In 1981, Campbell left Marathon Realty and started his own business, Citycore Development Corporation. Despite the economic slowdown that affected Canada that year, his company was successful and constructed several buildings in Vancouver.
After a two-year absence from civic political activities, Campbell became involved in the mayoral campaign of May Brown and was an active supporter of the Downtown Stadium for Vancouver Committee. Although Brown was unsuccessful, Campbell and the committee continued promoting the stadium to revitalize False Creek, which at the time was polluted industrial land. The committee was eventually successful, as Premier Bill Bennett announced the Downtown Stadium project in 1980.
Vancouver Councillor and Mayor Campbell was elected to Vancouver City Council in 1984 as a member of the Non-Partisan Association. He was then elected as mayor of Vancouver for three successive terms from 1986 to 1993. Notable events in civic politics during that period included the development of the Expo Lands, the re-development of Yaletown, and the foundation of the Coal Harbour residential area. One of the most significant projects of his term was the construction of the new Vancouver Public Library. He also served as chair of the Greater Vancouver Regional District and president of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities.
Liberal leader Campbell became leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party in 1993 in a three-way race with Gordon Gibson, Jr. and Gordon Wilson, the incumbent party leader, who had lost the confidence of his party. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly the next year in a by-election in Vancouver-Quilchena.
In the 1996 campaign, Campbell was elected to the Vancouver-Point Grey riding, which he held until 2010. The Liberals entered the election leading in the polls because of a fundraising scandal in the New Democratic Party (NDP). His party gained 16 seats and won a slight plurality of the popular vote, but the NDP retained enough seats to continue as the majority government. He stayed on as leader of the Opposition, opposing NDP premiers Glen Clark, Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh.
In May 2000, Campbell, along with Michael de Jong and Geoffrey Plant, brought a court case against the Nisga'a Nation, the Attorney General of Canada and the Attorney General of British Columbia, parties to the first modern-day Aboriginal Treaty in British Columbia, known as the Nisga'a Final Agreement. He and the other plaintiffs claimed the treaty signed with the Nisga'a Nation was "in part inconsistent with the Constitution of Canada and therefore in part of no force and effect". However, Justice Williamson dismissed the application, judging that the enacting legislation did "establish a treaty as contemplated by Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. The legislation and the Treaty are constitutionally valid."
Premier Glen Clark's government was beset by controversy, difficult economic and fiscal conditions, attacks on the NDP's building of the Fast Ferries and charges against Clark in relation to casino licensing, known as Casinogate. (Clark was eventually vindicated, though resigned his post because of the investigation.) In the BC election of 2001, Campbell's Liberals defeated the two-term NDP incumbents, taking 77 of 79 seats in the legislature. This was the largest majority of seats and the second-largest majority of the popular vote in BC history.
Premier (2001−2011)
First term
Tax In 2001, Campbell campaigned on a promise to reduce income taxes significantly to stimulate the economy. A day after taking office, he reduced personal income tax for all taxpayers by 25 per cent across every tax bracket. The government also introduced reductions in the corporate income tax, and eliminated the Corporation Capital Tax.
Spending To finance the tax cuts and to balance the provincial budget, Campbell's first term was also noted for several measures of fiscal austerity such as reductions in welfare rolls and some social services, deregulation, sale of government assets (in particular the ferries built by the previous government during the Fast Ferry Scandal), reducing the size of the civil service, and closing government offices in certain areas.
BC Rail In 2003, Campbell announced the sale of BC Rail, a publicly owned rail corporation, to the Canadian National Railway. This occurred even though he had made a campaign promise not to sell the company during the 2001 British Columbia election. In 1996, he had lost an election after promising to sell BC Rail, leading some to allege that he had hidden his true plans to get elected in 2001, and "went back to his original plan" after winning the election in 2001. This sale was condemned as unfair by the losing bidders, and triggered charges based in information found during police raids on cabinet offices in a drug-related investigation in what is known as the BC Legislature Raids.
Education The Campbell government passed legislation in August 2001 declaring education as an essential service, therefore making it illegal for educators to go on strike. This fulfilled a platform promise made in the election campaign.
The government embarked upon the largest expansion of BC's post-secondary education system since the foundation of Simon Fraser University in 1965. In 2004, the government announced that 25,000 new post-secondary places would be established between 2004 and 2010.
The Campbell government also lifted the six-year-long tuition fee freeze that was placed on BC universities and colleges by the previous NDP government. In 2005 a tuition limit policy was put in place, capping increases at the rate of inflation.
Environmental Campbell made significant changes, including new Environmental Assessment Legislation, as well as controversial new aquaculture policies on salmon farming. In November 2002, His government passed the Forest and Range Practices Act which reversed many of the regulations previously introduced by the former New Democrat government.
First Nations
During the 2001 election, the BC Liberals also campaigned on a promise to hold a consultative referendum seeking a mandate from the general public to negotiate treaties with First Nations. In the spring of 2002, the government held the referendum.
The referendum, led by attorney general Geoff Plant, proposed eight questions that voters were asked to either support or oppose. Critics claimed the phrasing was flawed or biased toward a predetermined response. While some critics, especially First Nations and religious groups, called for a boycott of the referendum, by the May 15 deadline almost 800,000 British Columbians had cast their ballots. Critics called for a boycott of the referendum and First Nations groups collected as many ballots as possible so that they might be destroyed publicly.
Of the ballots that were returned, over 80 per cent of participating voters agreed to all eight proposed principles. Treaty negotiations resumed.
In the lead-up to the 2005 election, Campbell discussed opening up a New Relationship with Aboriginal People. This position was directly opposite to his view of aboriginal treaties pursued in the 2000 Nisga'a Final Treaty court case, discussed above. The "New Relationship" became the foundation for agreements in principle that were made during the second term, but ultimately rejected by the membership of the First Nations involved.
Health care In 2004, Campbell imposed an unprecedented 15% pay cut to health care employees. Early in its first term, without consulting labour unions, his government passed legislation (Bill 29, the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act) that unilaterally amended labour agreements and required health authorities to contract out positions when savings could be predicted. This led to the privatization of more than 8,000 healthcare jobs. These changes met resistance from many health care workers and resulted in a strike by some of them. A court order and amendments by the government to parts of the legislation ended the strike. The unions took the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in 2007 that the Act violated "good faith" requirements for collective bargaining.
The Campbell government increased health funding by $3 billion during its first term in office to help meet the demand at hand and to increase wages for some health professionals. As well, they increased the number of new nurse training spaces by 2,500, an increase of 62 percent. At the same time, it nearly doubled the doctors in training and opened new medical training facilities in Victoria and Prince George.