Legislature to Resume Today
Prince George, B.C. – The next chapter in the story of the BC Government, will begin to unfold this afternoon with the election of a Speaker, followed by the Speech from the Throne.
There is wide speculation on what the speech may contain, as the Liberals look to present a plan that will gain support from at least three members on the opposite side of the legislature to prevent the government from falling.
Premier Christy Clark has said the Throne Speech will include a poverty reduction plan, and a commitment to childcare, spending $1 billion over four years to create childcare spaces and to subsidize families earning less than $60 thousand a year.
Other highlights of the speech include a commitment to boost welfare payments, and while there has been speculation the increase could be $100 a month, that amount has not been confirmed.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong has told 250News the speech will include “A recommitment to rural British Columbia, to Northern British Columbia, to the economic activity that supports not only people in rural British Columbia but people all over the Province. ” He did not reveal any details.
Attorney General Andrew Wilkinson has indicated the speech will also include a plan to put an end to corporate and union donations to political parties.
It has also been revealed the Liberals plan to spend $50 million dollars to increase the number of charging stations in BC for electric cars .
The Legislature doesn’t sit on Fridays, so debate on the Speech from the Throne will start next week. Although 6 days have been scheduled for debate, the opposition could force a confidence vote before next week is through.
Comments
I know opportunism is the mark of the Christy Clarke government, but to adopt the main election platform of the NDP just to keep their hands on power is a new low, even for them. It shows just how desperate they are and how little commitment they have to the platform the just fought an election on. Was their whole election platform just a bunch of lies, or are they trying to set up a scenario where they stimulate another election after promising on video they would not do so? Liberals, opportunists of the first order. Power at all costs and damn the province.
Agreed @ammonra, they think we are stupid. Wait a few minutes after the confidence vote and they will be yelling that they gave the NDP/Greens what they wanted but they voted it down because they are power hungry.
Throughout the campaign we hear “how are they going to pay for these social policies”, but wow…look at that the Liberals have found a billion dollars more? Christy sitting on TV saying she heard the voters, that she is going to fix the problems her government caused. Like we should trust someone who has no problem with lying.
They are opportunists who don’t care about the people, just the power and their paycheque.
“They are opportunists who don’t care about the people, just the power and their paycheque.”
Politicians of all stripes are the same, some more so, some a bit less so. You forgot to mention the platinum plated pensions.
But the NDP is behaving the same way, Ammonra. Why fall into the trap Christy Clark is about to set for them? If they vote non-confidence’ on any of the things that were in their platform, they’re showing they’re against the very things they said they were for. Let Christy Clark enact those things, after all they’re measures Horgan has said are needed and wanted. And then let her try to pay for them, and take the blame when taxes have to be raised. If she puts those taxes on the wealthy and corporations she loses their support. And if she puts them on ordinary citizens, (which any government will end up doing, since it’s virtually impossible to tax either the wealthy or corporations effectively), they’ll turn against her, too. Either way the Liberals will be the big losers.
But if the ndp defeat the government after they tried to be bipartisan and the Lt Governor sends us back to the polls as clearly she should… Then the ndp will be shown to be the hypocrites they are after having had the opportunity to implement their policies, and rather than do what’s best for BC, they made a play for personal power and gain instead.
Really hard to campaign on that record this summer IMO. Especially when they spent all their campaigning dollars for propaganda this spring.
Time for another vote once the liberals are defeated is the only course of action. The media shouldn’t even be speculating otherwise because the coalition only has a tie and not a majority, so are hung already from the get go.
Should the Lt Governor hand power to an after election minority party coalition that doesn’t even have a majority of seats to govern, then the people of BC should turn out enmass on her doorstep to demand she step down.
Sure, opportunists of power the Liberals???? How about the NDP and Green! Who else has to combine two parties to get more seats than the Liberals! This is the epitome of a ‘lower than a snake’s belly’ adage as far as I am concerned.
Parties combining to get more seats is a common practice all over the world.
It doesn’t make it right Palopu. Its a slap in the face to voters that didn’t vote for the party their party aligned with.
Greens did not vote NDP and vice-versa.
It’s not right. The majority vote of a single party should win, not the combined vote of two parties. Enough said.
BAWS said it plain and simple! Who cares what happens in other parts! My vote got basically nullified by this underhanded tactic. Why should I even vote next time if they can do this!
The alternative here BAWS is that the Liberals continue in power. This leads to one of two things: a) The Liberals have to act like the NDP in order to have the support of their MLAs whenever a vote takes place or b) Everything that the Liberals send to a vote gets voted down by the NDP and Greens and no legislation ever gets passed. As an obvious Liberal supporter, which of those 2 things would you prefer?
If John Horgan and Andrew Weaver are as clueless as right wingers keep claiming, why not let them run the province for a while? The best way to ensure your party wins the next election would be to expose the weaknesses of the other parties.
.
In other parts of the world they announce their coalition partners before the election and not after.
This is the first time in Westminister parliaments that a coalition was made after an election and only has enough MLA’s for a hung parliament anyways, but expects to take power. It is thirst for power and be damned with who the voters voted for and what is best for political stability for the province.
Lian right now the NDP and the Greens are dealing with a lying and most corrupt government that we ever had. Snakes belly? The Libs are lower than whale s—.
oldman1 did you live in this Province during the 90’s with the Harcourt and Clark, or during the 70’s with Dave Barrett’s government? If you did you would know this lib government is not the most lying corrupt government we’ve ever had. Not even close.
If you can’t acknowledge or even have an understanding of what those governments did to this province you really don’t have an opinion worth listening to.
Sure, and the other two dingbats are honest politicians. Hoagie would be comfortable selling ice to Eskimos!
Actually BAWS, I believe the worst was the Van Der Zalm government.
If Christy Clark and the Liberals are now going to adopt the “….main election platform of the NDP” then why would the NDP want to vote them out? Isn’t putting that platform into operation what the NDP wanted? Things that Horgan has told us constantly since the election were the things more British Columbians really needed and wanted? What does it really matter who brings them in? Shouldn’t the NDP be embracing the changes they called for, and all the wonders they said those changes would make to the lives of so many British Columbians?
Behaving the way Horgan’s been acting looks like he’s only interested in gaining the Premiership and putting his Party into power. But what power to do what they say they want to do are they going to have in a Legislature that’s deadlocked? Here’s his chance to show he’s actually ‘for’ doing all those things his Party has long wanted done. To get the credit if they succeed, and escape the wrath of the voters if they don’t.
Hey wants to get the fat paycheque and pension before corporate and union donations are banned..
Socredible, it would be because you can’t trust a single word that comes out of Clarke’s mouth. Remove Clarke and then implement the NDP policies. That way they will be implemented properly, with conviction, not just in a minimalist way to retain power by a tired and worn out clique with no ideas of their own.
No it’s all politics and about who can grab some personal power.
The after election coalition wants to seize power and then implement a massive change in how our democracy works stealing half the seats in rural BC to appoint party insiders to ‘proportional representatives’ of the Lower Mainland majorities that would never be directly elected or accountable to voters… and then have the hypocracy of saying they stand for democracy.
Talk about ridiculous hyperbole. I wasn’t aware that the type of proportional representation had been decided yet, so how can you possibly know what is going to happen? And, who said they would not be accountable to voters? And who said it would be at the expense of rural areas? I do not know what the regulations to proportional representation are going to be. Clearly you must have some inside knowledge. Pray do enlighten me.
I would have thought that was pretty obvious, Socredible. The Liberals under Gordon Campbell and Christy Clarke have shown themselves over and over again to have no compunction about making promises to get power, then once they have it to implement something different from what they promised. Think BC Rail and Campbell’s guarantee it would not be sold. Think Clarke’s Families First promises. Their sudden conversion to social values the voters want is another promise of the same kind. In the very unlikely event they were to retain power and there were an election which they win, watch out for a sudden deconversion and return to “money in the corporate back pockets” politics.
What I dislike is the whole party politics concept. You should elect the best person for the job. Then they should each vote for what they consider to be best for the province. If they think there is a problem, fix it.
I agree. Our system is designed for MLA’s having sovereign power and not parties. BC didn’t even have political parties for the first few decades and we didn’t even have the name of party affiliations on the ballot until the 70’s.
What we are seeing is the final days of a party power coup on our democracy. If this coup is successful they will take half of our sovereign MLA seats and give these to their party insiders who will never have to face a personal election where they are directly accountable and face no term limits meaning a majority voting block in our legislature is pure partisan and removing their accountability to democratic processes.
The sky is falling!
I agree and have said so quite often.
Good point, Jack. Would be nice for the people of the province if things worked that way, but that isn’t reality now.
Of course, the party with the most seats should form government, but this time around that party didn’t get enough seats to be able to form a government, so unless there is a coalition of some kind we have nothing. Otherwise, we would have government by a minority which is exactly what democracy, for all its difficulties, is meant to prevent.
Only hearing about throne speech promises that are pretty much taken from the NDP platform. Does that mean Liberal promises during the election have been abandoned or will they be in the throne speech as well? If they are abandoned, how will that sit with those who voted Liberal based on their promises that were so different from NDP promises? Will Liberal supporters be very upset that their votes will have been ignored, or will they be OK so long as their party stays in?
If the throne speech keeps to Liberal promises, in addition to the new ones taken from the NDP platform (because the Liberals heard the public’s message) should we expect the Fraser Institute to enlighten us on how much our taxes will go up to pay for these combined promises? Maybe the corporate taxes will have to up after all, just to pay for the social programs.
Hard not to be just the tiniest bit cynical. Still, rather have this mess than what is called government in other parts of the world.
Fair assessment chuck..!
The liberals made a one year commitment to child care before the election of $350 million. After that was to be announced pending the budget. The throne speach is a follow up in the years after, so technically is not stealing from the ndp, but rather is speeding up the process they already agreed to in principle.
We have had minority governments all over the country just not in BC. There hasn’t been a coalition though that is more of a European thing. They will have a minority with 3 greens voting their way only on confidence matters only which makes one shake his head. To drop site c they are willing to sell the farm, a project they wanted a few short years ago. How times change
So what is on the top of the list. Adjourning until fall?
Clark is no dummy! The Throne Speech will include many of the things that the NDP campaigned on, many of the things the NDP promised, many of the things that the NDP demanded!
So, the Throne Speech will be read, and then in short order, Horgan along with his patsy Weaver, will vote out the Liberal Government, effectively voting agains everything that Horgan campaigned on, promised and demanded!
Horgan’s actions will effectively confirm what is already common knowledge, that Horgan is just another typical politician who cares more about wearing the crown than about the people that pay for the crown!
Of that, there is ABSOLUTELY NO DISPUTE!
Don’t be ridiculous. Both Horgan and Weaver have made it abundantly clear that the reason they intend to defeat Clarke is because they think her remaining as Premier would be bad for the province. You may disagree, but so what, they do think that and they are the ones democratically elected to make that decision. You were not! It is not opportunism, it is a desire to reflect the wishes of a majority of voters and remove the Clarke Liberals.
Well said ammonra . It reminds me of how the righties welcomed JT . You can’t trust the libcons to implement their own promises . Let’s hope the RCMP are doing their job on the ElectionsBC file . What are they waiting for ? Till After the next election ? What the heck are they doing ? The voters of BC deserve justice !
Problem with your logic is the liberals got the most votes, just a few dozen votes short of a majority. So to say that the province voted for a coalition cobbled together after an election is a stretch in logic.
What we are seeing is a red terror like logic to seek power and then once power is seized change the democratic process to set up a system of party cronyism of appointed party insiders with no term limits and no direct accountability to voters. Those appointments will be identity, partisan, and tribal politics at its worst.
To say this is done in the name of democracy is the height of hypocracy.
I did not say the voters voted for a coalition, I said the majority of voters voted to oust Clarke and her Liberals.
Comments for this article are closed.