Vaughn Palmer: Ben Stewart's farewell gift is a flight to Beijing

 

Wealthy winery owner stepped down to pave way for Christy Clark in Westside-Kelowna. No quid pro quo, premier insists

 

BY VAUGHN PALMER, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 28, 2013

 

 

 

Westside-Kelowna MLA Ben Stewart announces that he is stepping down from his MLA job and minister of citizen services and open government as Premier Christy Clark listens at Quails’ Gate Winery in Kelowna on June 5, 2013.

Photograph by: Gary Nylander , THE CANADIAN PRESS

VICTORIA — When B.C. Liberal MLA Ben Stewart gave up his seat to Premier Christy Clark mere weeks after winning it in the May election, suspicious minds wondered if there had been any promise of a reward down the road.

The wealthy proprietor of Quails’ Gate Winery probably didn’t need the MLA salary or the pension he would forgo by leaving the legislature prematurely at the outset of his second term.

Still, politicians work hard to win their seats, even safe ones like Westside-Kelowna where Stewart won with 58 per cent of the vote.

Plus he had served as a minister in both the Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark administrations, and clearly liked being in politics.

What had it taken to persuade him to give up the job, so soon after securing it?

Nothing, insisted both the outgoing MLA and his would-be successor, as they stood alongside each other to announce the news at his winery on June 5.

“Both Clark and Stewart said no inducement was offered, or made, to get Stewart to step aside,” the Kelowna Capital News reported.

Stewart, who had to fight back the tears at one point in the news conference, said both the offer and the acceptance were all his own work.

“I’m pleased to be able to make the riding available to Premier Clark,” he told reporters. “I want to ensure the premier gets a chance to deliver on not just a vision, but on some of the real things that we need to do for British Columbia.”

The premier paid tribute to the departing MLA’s selfless integrity. “He’s not a man who did it because he needed to be asked,” she said. “He did it because he has character.”

Still, the whispering continued throughout the subsequent byelection, where Stewart campaigned tirelessly for the sometimes absent premier, putting her further into his debt.

She won big on election night and again doused him with accolades: “Ben Stewart has served this community with integrity and commitment, with discipline, with focus, with hard work and, most of all, he has served this community with tremendous honour.”

The ex-MLA promised to keep a hand in with the newly elected one: “I’m going to guide the premier in trying to make certain she understands local issues, and I’ll continue to work with her to make sure she is as visible as she can be being the premier.”

The premier promised to draw on his expertise and knowledge, while emphasizing that he would not be paid for his advice — nor had he asked to be paid.

There matters stood until Monday when the premier, again flanked by Stewart, announced in Vancouver that he was being appointed the province’s new investment and trade commissioner to Asia.

Salary: $150,000 a year, or roughly what Stewart would have made serving as a cabinet minister, presuming he’d been reappointed after the election.

Base of operations: Beijing, with frequent travel to the province’s other trade offices in the region.

Mandate: Ambitious, as will be seen by a trio of excerpts from a lengthy wish list: “Leverage and maximize key strategic opportunities identified and developed as a result of trade and investment missions of the premier and ministers.”