Monday 3 July 2017

BC Politics Update: Final Edition... Maybe

I posted and ran last Thursday because of my concert tickets but I wish I could have stayed home and kept on top of all the happenings because it ended up being an incredible day for BC politics.

But first, PMJ was fantastic and the whole evening was so much fun. The highlight for me was Maiya Sykes singing Radiohead's Creep. I wish I had a recording of her singing it because it was breathtaking. Instead, here's her singing Don't Look Back in Anger.


But the more important news: BC FINALLY HAS A GOVERNMENT! We went to the polls on May 9th and a short 51 days later, we had our results.


As expected, the Throne Speech from Christy Clark promised the moon, forcing the NDP and Green party to vote against things they plan to do as part of their platforms to put their power-sharing plan in motion.


As I've previously mentioned, this is a very calculated move by the Liberals as it means that they already have their next election platform. The worst part? It's working! Reading the comments on a few of the articles Thursday night - I know, reading comments? What was I thinking? - there were more than a few that mentioned "but the Throne Speech promised so many things, what were the NDP/Greens thinking?" Even if the NDP/Greens had decided not to vote against the Throne Speech, the Liberals-in-SoCreds-clothing HAD NO INTENTION OF EVER FOLLOWING THROUGH ON THE PROMISES IN THE THRONE SPEECH!!

This is a government that removed so much funding from the education budget that the Supreme Court of Canada found them in breach of contract and mandated that they restore funding retroactively. Think really hard for one freaking minute: it took a court-order for the Liberals to even come close to properly funding public education. Do you really think this is a government that is going to increase funding to everything else that they've cut over the last 16 years?


By losing the confidence vote, Clark had shown that she did not have the support of the government. She went to Government House Thursday night to tender her resignation to our Lieutenant-Governor, Judith Guichon. Upon tendering her resignation, there were two things that could happen: the LG accepts the NDP/Green proposal for power-sharing or she could call another election. We know that when asked for her opinion, despite saying she wouldn't advise on it, Clark told the LG she should call another election because of course she did.


Thankfully, Guichon didn't follow Clark's recommendation and called John Horgan to Government House that same night. BC now has an NDP minority government with Green support.

This is uncharted territory for BC politics. We've never had a minority or coalition government in BC. It could be a great success or we could be heading to another election in a few months times.

On the upside, this whole fiasco gave us one of the greatest tweets ever.

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