Compelling speculation

Last thing Greens want is another election

Memo to the Penticton Lakeside Resort: Please reserve the grand ballroom for April 26, 2018, from 7 - 9 p.m., we will need it for The Herald’s all-candidates forum.

The date might be off by a few weeks but the prediction many pundits are making is that another provincial election will be held in about a year.

Social media is going wild right now — not to mention the back rooms in Victoria — with all kinds of possibilities.

Which will it be: a Green/NDP coalition, a Liberal/NDP coalition, a Green party speaker, someone crossing the floor, the entire Liberal caucus having to show up for all significant votes, a snap election, none of the above?

The speculation, of course, shouldn’t really begin until all of the official recounts are complete. But this is British Columbia and along with natural beauty, a mediocre hockey franchise and fabulous skiing comes whacky politics.

These things can happen in a minority government. Many believe the most effective form of governance is with a minority government. We’re about to see.

With the Green Party holding the balance of power with its three seats, leader Andrew Weaver would be nuts to trigger an election nobody wants. His party’s three seats are not only a first for British Columbia but a first for Canada.

The last thing Weaver wants to do is to surrender any of those three seats, including his own.

Another thing to consider is many of the MLAs have only one term under their belts. The magic number for the gold-plated pension is six years meaning don’t expect a lot of movement in the first half of the Liberals’ four-year mandate.

But anything is possible in British Columbia. —James Miller