Greens shift to left with income-security platform
Political experts say the B.C. Green party has positioned itself somewhere to the left of the B.C. NDP on the 2017 campaign trail.
On Wednesday, B.C. Greens party Leader Andrew Weaver promised to raise welfare and disability rates.
Still in third-party position, but riding a wave of popularity and improving poll results, Weaver vowed to increase welfare rates by 50 per cent over today’s rates by 2020 and modernize B.C.’s social safety net “for the emerging economy, the gig economy.”
This campaign promise, along with the Green’s other fiscal planks revealed to date, are part of the party’s strategy to contrast Weaver against the other party leaders, particularly the B.C. NDP’s John Horgan, said political scientist Hamish Telford.
“So far, at least on economic issues, (Weaver) has placed himself to the left of the NDP,” said Telford, an associate professor in political science at the University of the Fraser Valley.
“In part, I think that’s to provide contrast with the NDP, but also to appeal to perhaps a younger set of voters who would be more inclined to vote Green,” Telford said.
That is a definite contrast with past B.C. campaigns, and the federal Green party’s tendencies toward more conservative positions on balanced budgets and fiscal management that give them a “blue tinge,” according to veteran political scientist Norman Ruff.
“The fact (the Greens) put a priority on preserving the environment has given them the notion that they’re on the left and progressive,” Ruff said.
The B.C. NDP has yet to release specifics around welfare and disability rates, but has been critical of the B.C. Liberals on those topics.
However, with the announcements that Ruff has seen to date, Weaver does appear to have “pushed the Greens more perhaps a little further to the left than they’ve been in the past.”
On income security, Weaver criticized the B.C. Liberal government for leaving social-assistance rates frozen for a decade and only raising disability assistance rates a little bit in the last election.
“It’s unconscionable that they would to this, it’s just mean,” Weaver said.
Weaver promised to raise welfare and disability assistance rates 10 per cent this October and 50 per cent over today’s rates by 2020, to provide youth aged 18-24 transitioning out of foster care with basic income support and to strike an independent “fair-wages commission” to set the province’s minimum wage level.
Weaver also promised to make MSP premiums a payroll deduction, rather than charging them separately, and to launch a basic guaranteed-income pilot project.
B.C.’s social safety net needs to be overhauled to adapt to the new, emerging economy where more jobs will be automated and the country faces the prospect of higher unemployment, Weaver said, and criticized both the B.C. Liberals and NDP for not focusing on the changing nature of work.
For British Columbians to take advantage of the entrepreneurial opportunities of the future, “we must eliminate the fear of uncertainty brought by income insecurity,” Weaver said.
Ruff said this policy, along with the Green party’s other announcements, appears to be trying to “poach as many votes as it can from the NDP.”
However, how far the Greens can carry that is still an open question.