Premier Christy Clark announced Tuesday May 30 she will not step aside but will force her government to be defeated in a confidence motion in the legislature, sometime in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the NDP and Green party leaders announced their priorities for an NDP minority government, which includes:
• scrapping bridge tolls;
• raising the carbon tax by $5 per tonne in 2018;
• eliminating Medical Services Plan premiums;
• banning corporate and union donations to political parties;
• referring Site C dam to the BC Utilities Commission;
• holding a referendum on proportional representation in the fall of 2018;
• endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People; and • using “every tool available” to halt the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Just a half hour before the NDP Leader John Horgan and Green Leader Andrew weaver announced details of their agreement, Clark held a brief press conference where she confirmed she has no plans to step aside and hand over the reins of power to the NDP, even though she acknowledged the inevitability of an NDP minority government.
“We have a duty to meet the house and to test its confidence,” Clark said. “Constitutional convention tells us that, and I intend to do that in very short order.”
She added she will deliver a throne speech before the end of June.
“If there is going to be a transfer of power in this province – and it certainly seems like there will be – it shouldn’t be done behind closed doors. It should happen in public, as constitutional convention tells us it should.”
Both Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver and NDP Leader John Horgan acknowledged Clark’s constitutional right to test the confidence of the house.
The NDP and Green caucuses have ratified a four-year supply and confidence agreement in which the Greens will support the NDP on key votes. It was released Tuesday afternoon. The agreement does not oblige the Greens to support the NDP on every vote – just confidence votes like budgets and throne speeches.
However, it does spell out a number of policies on which the Greens and NDP already agree, and which they plan to implement once the NDP is established in government.
The agreement calls for the $8.8 billion Site C dam to be forwarded to the BC Utilities Commission for review. But work on the project will not be halted while that happens, Horgan said.
“We’re not going to stop work at Site C while that review takes place,” Horgan said. “But we have a six-week and a three-month timeframe for preliminary response and final response.
“All of us want to hear from BC Hydro: What have you signed, how biding are these agreements and what are the consequences of proceeding?”
In answering questions about the Trans Mountain pipeline, Weaver took a swipe at Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley, who has said the B.C. government has no legal authority to stop the pipeline expansion, since it is a federal jurisdiction. He characterized her policies as 20th century, compared with the Green's focus on a 21st century green economy.
“For Miss Notley to tell British Columbia that somehow chasing the 20th century is the way for our future is not a good sign for her and her economy in Alberta,” Weaver said. “Frankly, I think she should get with the program and get with the 21st century as well.”
The NDP-Green agreement is intended to last four years. However, with just 44 seats to the Liberals’ 43, all it would take is for a Green or NDP MLA to miss a vote on a confidence motion, cross the floor, or resign to bring the new minority government down.
