Last time I checked, you couldn’t topple a government by holding a news conference.
Staging talks to agree to a political coalition? Not going to get you much of anywhere.
Suggesting the ruling party does not enjoy the confidence of the people? Big talk, simply wishful thinking.
That is why the Christy Clark government is still the government, has a legal and moral right to try to stay the government and faces no imminent loss of government – until there are formal measures otherwise.
The day may indeed come, and soon, for the New Democrats and Greens to run the Liberals from power and run themselves into it, but that day is not upon us.
The near-certain scenario is that Clark will ask the lieutenant governor to allow the Liberals, as the party with the most seats and votes, to continue to govern and earn the confidence of the legislature.
Only if her caucus revolts will she not have an opportunity to stay as premier. How long she stays, and how much of a choice she has about it, are other matters.
She need not resume the legislature immediately, no matter the pressure from NDP Leader John Horgan as he talks of a mandate for change, and no matter the negotiations by Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver to effect elements of his platform through either Clark or Horgan.
Instead, Clark can wait and wait and wait to launch a new session, present the government’s speech from the throne to outline its agenda, and test the legislature’s confidence with a so-called money bill or motion.
By then, the Liberals will have reshaped their spring budget into something much more Green-friendly—even NDP-friendly—for days of debate and passage.
By my reckoning, the most likely time this comes to a head is September, when the government will need to ask the legislature to approve a supply of funds to operate. But Clark or her internal rivals could force the issue sooner, before summer. Discussions within the party are under way on whether to string out the situation, and there is a contingent that just wants it over—meaning no concessions to dilute the brand. This will be Clark’s toughest test politically.
No matter the decision, hardly anyone can see a 2021 reelection campaign.
If you’re going to walk the plank, though, at least leave those on the ship looking a little sheepish—thus, the two opponents would need to vote against what they would want if they were in power in order to create the path to that very power.
If Liberals take the premier’s preferred conciliatory road, expect additional education funds, some clarity on transit projects, possibly a new timetable for carbon pricing, maybe a boost to welfare rates or an enhanced commitment to social housing. Additionally, we might see the elimination of corporate and union donations as a modest move in the direction of campaign financing.
True electoral reform, the suddenly big plank of the Greens? Can’t see it coming, unless it is tied to a referendum, and the Greens don’t want that. This one, I suspect, is part of the negotiation where the bigger bargainer doesn’t blink.
The prospect of an enduring Liberal government may be highly dismaying to the majority of the province that did not vote Liberal, just as it would be highly reassuring to the majority of the province that did not vote NDP or the Greens.
Minority governments, especially ones as slender as this, tend to develop organically—first as an effort to formally coalesce, then to unseat, then to sustain. This process is not decreed by Twitter or radio interviews. The placards outside the legislature are meaningless if the process inside the legislature is not abided.
Amid the legislative procedure is the likely departure of the premier.
She may thread the government through the needle—indeed, this may be exactly the kind of fight she loves—but she had no intention of running again in 2021. If she cannot be seen to sustain the government, she will go before she is told to go.
Which raises another dilemma for the Greens: Do they get, bit by bit, some of their agenda from the Liberals and then await a new leader—one more devoted to environmentalism, perhaps—and prop the government measure by measure? Or do they sit as a junior partner in the NDP practice—as one political scientist put it, a sapling in the shadow of an old-growth giant?
The interesting election result has nothing on the interesting challenges ahead.
