BC Legislature will be in uncharted territory tomorrow when it begins its post-election session.
“British Columbia has never been in this situation before,” says John Rustad, Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. “On Thursday, we will be bringing in a throne speech and there will be a minimum four days debate and then we will see whether or not the legislature and the Liberal government can survive a confidence motion.”
There’s been a lot of discussion around the content of that speech.
The Liberals appear to have flip-flopped on several major issues – now promising to raise welfare rates and ban corporate and union donations, issues the NDP campaigned on.
But Rustad says it’s about giving voters what they want.
“We went through the last election and heard very clearly from people from across the province, both in urban as well as in rural BC, the kinds of things that they were hoping to see so I think what you’ll see in this throne speech is a bit of a change and a reflection of what we heard throughout the election to try to reflect what the desire of the peoples are.”
If the confidence vote fails to pass, the fate of the BC government will rest in the hands of Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon.
“She can either ask the Premier to try again, which is unlikely, she could ask the NDP to form the next government and test the Legislature for confidence as well or she can call an election.”
Guichon would do well to tread lightly when considering calling another election. A recent poll by Angus Reid found that most British Columbians aren’t interested in going back to the polls right away. More than 70% think the results of the election should be allowed to play out. Just 29% of respondents said they think we need another election right away.
Rustad says Guichon will be taking many factors into consideration.
“She is getting advice from constitutional experts across the country, from the Governor General of Canada, from the legislature, from the Westminster parliamentary system in England. She’s getting advice from right across all spectrums but the decision will be entirely up to her. [She will have] to take into consideration what the legislature will look like, what the likelihood of another election would be, how the legislature would function under a minority situation, whether the actual institution of the legislature would be damaged by having to change the role of the speaker to be partisan. She’ll be weighing a whole bunch of things to make her decision and it’s hard to say which way she’ll go.”
The issue of the Speaker has been a contentious one. With such a slim minority, neither the Liberals nor the NDP seem keen to offer one of their own for the position. Premier Clark has said choosing a Speaker will be the government’s first priority when the new session begins.
For the rest of us? There’s not much to do except continue to wait.