Premier Clark Meets with Lieutenant Gov.
Prince George ,B.C. -Premier Christy Clark has met with the Lieutenant Governor who has requested that Clark continue as Premier of B.C.
“British Columbians sent a very strong message to all sides of the legislature, they want us to work together collaboratively and across partisan lines. They are interested in making B.C. stronger achieving our collective goals, and they demanded of us a new way, a new approach to achieving those goals.” said Clark in her first media availability since the polls closed.
She has already had a meeting with Green Party leader Andrew Weaver, and hopes to meet with NDP leader John Horgan today.
“As we move forward with planning a new government, I want to let British Columbians know, that your voice has been heard, and we will work, all of us, together, to earn your trust.”
Clark says she doesn’t believe anything went ‘wrong” for her party “Elections don’t go wrong, they go the way they go”. She says an election is a chance for people to make their voices heard, “and that is never wrong.”
Clark says the Green vote was the real impact in this election, with the Liberal vote dropping, the NDP staying status quo, and the Greens made the gains.
There are still a little over 50 thousand votes to be counted, so the actual dust won’t settle for another couple of weeks. Right now, the Liberals have 43 seats, the NDP 41 and the Greens 3. There is one hotly contested riding, which saw the NDP pick up a win with just 9 votes more than the Liberal candidate. There will be an automatic recount in that riding, and the Liberals are confident the absentee ballots will swing that riding back into their favour.
“Whether it’s a majority or minority government that I lead, I do intend to work across party lines with parties that want to work with us that want to collaborate.” She says she has developed a good working relationship with Andrew Weaver in the past.
Comments
Didn’t waste time meeting Weaver uh.. Welll Weaver is not familiar with the likes of her. Behind that smile is something else
So what you are saying is that you know her better than Weaver who has sat across the floor from her for 4 years.
Can you give us the experience you have had with Clark that improves upon Weaver’s?
I am sure others are interested too.
The Liberals big concern right now is a NDP/Green coalition which gives them a majority, and makes the Liberals the opposition party. All the high rollers in the Liberal Government cannot fathom losing their power and going to opposition.
If Weaver and Horgan ever want to form the Government this is their chance. Dump the Liberals and move on.
In one of the interviews (Keith Baldry I think) had with the leaders last week he asked Weaver something to the effect of working with Horgan. He gave the very distinct impression he didn’t have much use at all for Horgan.
Is the dislike personal? At the policy level, my impression is that the NDP and the Greens aren’t that far apart.
Why would the Green party give up their swing vote position of power to loose it to the likes of the NDP? They are far better off to just let either party have a minority and be the deciding vote on most policy. They were hoping for this scenario all along, so it would take something pretty extraordinary for them to give that up.
I think it’s too late with the Governor General endorsement of a liberal government. I think the Governor General jumped the gun here. Now that she has endorsed the BC liberals, then the only option with a green and ndp coalition majority would be a vote of non confidence and a new election….
It’s not an endorsement, it is the reality that, barring any changes with absentee votes, the liberal party is in fact the party that won the election.
And by the way the Governor General the Queens representative to Canada the Leiutenant Governors are provincial representatives of the Governor General
So, if the seats stay the way they are distributed now, it would be 44 seats for the NDP-Green coalition and 43 fro the BCLiberals.
Take one person off the coalition roster for Speaker and we have a 43:43 tie.
Please explain how they will govern.
The Lieutenant Governor has already figured that out, including the probability of the BCLiberals losing a seat versus the NDP.
I doubt that she asked Clark to stay on just because she is a female as well.
The duty of the Lieutenant-Governor is to ensure there is always an elected head of government in place as the Crown’s first advisor. Until the absentee ballots are counted and any official recounts are conducted in ridings where the vote count is quite close, the Liberals currently hold the largest number of ridings. So Christy Clark, already being Premier, would naturally be asked to stay on.
If the final vote count puts the NDP in the lead, then Clark could, (and probably would), resign as Premier after advising the Lieutenant-Governor to call on Horgan to form a new government.
Alternately, if Clark thought she could still govern with support from the Greens, she could stay on as Premier until defeated by a vote of non-confidence at a subsequent session of the Legislature. Then it would be up to the Lieutenant-Governor to call another election or call on Horgan to take over as Premier. If Clark then advised the calling of another election, precedent in Canada would generally mean that’s what would happen. Though it would be entirely up to the Lieutenant-Governor to decide.
Where do you get a statement like that stillsmoking? Read it a few times, is this your introreration of the editorial? This is how rumour crap gets started. Re-read it, must be some heavy underlying issues I missed. Assumption I presume?
If this minority govt becomes the official reality in BC, the Greens will need to be careful about what they vote for or against and with which party. They don’t want to piss off their own supporters or the next election might be a complete waste of their time.
Exactly. They have gained a major gain in this election. How they handle themselves will be the basis on which they will be judged in the next election, whether sooner, or at the scheduled time.
Everyone will be judged by how they conduct themselves. Everyone will get a chance to gain or lose seats the next time around.
If there is infighting, those who stick to the higher ground should prevail.
Then again, that is the way reasonable people should think. How unreasonable people think is anyone’s guess ….. :=)
The person who should really be worried is the woman that made all of this possible . Her leadership style and big money buying up the airwaves had reached its best before date long before the election was called .
Premier Rachel Notley (Alberta NDP) needs to have a pipeline across B.C. whereas Horgan (BCNDP) is dead set against the pipeline. Wonder how they would sort that out! Horgan promised to put a stop to Site C, which is well underway. Contracts have been awarded, turbines are being manufactured…the lawsuits would cost B.C. tens of millions. At the end of the day nothing to show for except equipment rusting away in storage and the unfinished dam project being reclaimed by nature.
Ah well, it is only our tax money, so not a big deal!
Actually to be fair, and I didn’t vote for NDP or care for their leader, what the NDP said was, they would put a stop to Site C until a review was conducted as to whether the power was actually needed. That is slightly different than simply putting a stop to it, period.
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