Editor:
Kim Darwin’s response to Mathew Wilson’s questioning of the Green Party’s commitment to a free vote (“Green principles intact,” Letters, June 23) suggests that she is either naïve or simply unwilling to acknowledge that her party leader Andrew Weaver sold her out.
Darwin said “results of this election set the table for politics to be done in a different, more democratic manner with more cooperation across party lines” and that “the voters of B.C. made it abundantly clear that this is what they desire of their elected officials.”
On that point, I agree with Darwin.
Clearly Andrew Weaver didn’t agree. Instead of honouring his promise to the voters, he engaged in old-style backroom politics by cutting a deal with the NDP. Far from being democratic and seeking cooperation across party lines, the deal he signed completely disenfranchises the 43 elected Liberal MLAs.
The 2017 Confidence and Supply Agreement between the Green Caucus and the BC New Democratic Caucus requires agreement only between the NDP and Greens on virtually every matter, from changing the way we elect our government, to terminating 5,600 B.C. union wage jobs and dramatically increasing our taxes. The agreement completely ignores the majority party in the House of 43 Liberal MLAs. This is certainly doing politics “differently,” but it has nothing to do with democracy.
In putting “things into perspective,” Darwin tries to assure us that the Green Party agreement to support the BC NDP in supply and confidence motions “generally amounts to two votes per year,” as if this is no big deal. These two votes are at the heart of a party’s mandate to govern. The Greens agreed to prop up the NDP, the party that failed to win the election on their own merit, before they had even seen a written NDP legislative program or budget.
Perhaps Kim Darwin, who has no experience in government, can be forgiven for being a bit naïve, but Weaver knows that a supply vote sets the entire government agenda. It mandates government to tax and spend, and it is very poor public policy to commit to support a budget that you haven’t read.
Binding Green MLAs to vote for a budget without knowing what is in it constitutes a breach of trust with the people who elected them.
The B.C. voters gave Andrew Weaver a three-seat mandate, and that is all. The fact that those three individuals hold the balance of power in a Liberal minority government is because 189 voters in Courtenay-Comox voted NDP or Conservative rather than Liberal.
Andrew Weaver gave his word that BC Greens were committed to “make minority government work for the people of British Columbia,” and yet one of his first acts will be to tear down the Liberal minority government that voters chose to govern them. That constitutes a breach of trust with the electorate.
It will likely be a long time before Weaver and the Greens will be in a better position than they were the day after the May 9 election. The Liberals recognized they are in a minority, and responded to what they heard from the electorate. They tabled a Throne Speech that includes a wide range of policy initiatives that the Greens campaigned on, and the Liberal Throne Speech will likely get broad support from the voters.
Unfettered by the NDP, the Greens would have had the power to make amendments in committee stage, and advance the Green principles for government even further. Had Weaver honoured his commitment to the voters to “make minority government work,” he would, for the next four years, be the principal navigator for public policy direction. Instead he has squandered the political capital gained in the last election because he has been duped by Horgan, who knows that even together they don’t have the numbers to govern, and who is prepared to have another election where the Greens will largely be irrelevant, as both the Liberals and NDP look for a majority.
Last, on the matter of mudslinging, I couldn’t agree with Kim Darwin more. Agents of the Nicholas Simons NDP campaign, trying unsuccessfully to hide behind social media anonymity, circulated and promoted completely untrue, defamatory comments about Mathew Wilson and members of our family. If Darwin has thoughts about how to stop such a distasteful practice, I would love to hear them.
Gordon F.D. Wilson, MLA, Powell River-Sunshine Coast (1991 – 2001), Leader, BC Liberal Party (1987-93), Former Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Finance, Education, BC Ferries, and International Trade
