Editor:
An interesting discussion is going on in the Letters section, mostly from the Wilson family (Gordon and Mathew), who seem to all of a sudden have problems with principles (“Power and principles,” June 15, “Green breach of trust,” June 30).
After private discussions with the Liberals and the NDP, the Greens decided their principles aligned more with those of the NDP. The Wilsons seem to think that is unprincipled, which begs the question, if the Greens had made a deal with the Liberals after their “backroom” discussions with them, would that alliance suddenly be “principled”?
Mathew Wilson says Andrew Weaver has abandoned his principles. What if Weaver had aligned himself with the Liberals, a party with which the Green Party had little in common, until, of course, Christy Clark read her flip-flop Throne Speech?
Why didn’t the Liberals discuss those policy changes with the Greens when they had their chance?
The senior Mr. Wilson says the 43 Liberal MLAs are now disenfranchised. Does he mean like the 35 opposition MLAs were in the previous Christy Clark government? Except that during that time, Clark was trying to woo Green support from Andrew Weaver in the legislature and in 2013 tried to split the Green/NDP vote by paying for and running a full page ad for the Greens in the Victoria Times Colonist (www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/new-b-c-liberal-ad-highlights-green-party-1.1324141). Not very principled!
The NDP/Greens got around 30 per cent more of the popular vote than the Liberals (1,127,493 votes to 796,672) and deserve a chance to govern. A Christy Clark minority wouldn’t and didn’t last five minutes. Let’s hope this new government can be successful in collaborating with the new opposition in the best interests of the entire province.
Bette Chadwick, Sechelt
