Dix, Adrian
Come back in three or four years, and we’ll give you a less fuzzy definition of Adrian Dix. You see, the B.C. NDP leader and MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway is a politician running for office, and politicians running for office are, by definition, chameleons: as in the old Culture Club / Boy George song, “Karma karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon.” As the song says about life on the campaign trail, “Every day is like survival… / I’m a man without conviction / I’m a man who doesn’t know / How to sell a contradiction / You come and go. / You come and go.”
Well, there are a few facts. The 49-year-old Dix was born in Vancouver on April 20, 1964. Father an Irish immigrant insurance broker in Vancouver. Dix served as Chief of Staff for former NDP Premier Glen Clark, 1996-99, then took a bullet for the party when Clark got in trouble; Dix fibbed for the boss, and was dumped. Clark eventually went on to work for B.C. billionaire businessman Jimmy Pattison; Dix wandered in the French-speaking woods, worked for a B.C. French-immersion NGO, then did the standard media pundit gig until he was elected to the legislature in 2005. Married to poet Renee Saklikar.
Beyond that, he looks like your friendly neighbourhood accountant. Has diabetes. Seems nice; not easily flappable (so far). Polite. Running against Liberal B.C. Premier Christy Clark in the May 2013 provincial election, polls put premier-in-waiting Dix 15-20 points ahead as campaign got underway. Ah, Christy, we hardly knew ye, after two troubled years in office, sighed the pundits. Voters weary of Libs (or whatever they actually are, some sort of Tory-Social Credit-anybodybutNDP hybrid) after more than a decade in office (mostly under former Premier Gordon Campbell), said the pollsters. Dix is a moderate: no spectacular policies, but an upholder of “social democratic values.”
P.S. Pollsters, pundits and prophets turned out to be wrong. Premier Christy Clark’s Liberal government was handily re-elected with a 50-33 seat majority in the May 2013 provincial contest. Definitions of Adrian Dix likely to remain fuzzy in the history books.