It’s not easy courting the Greens
Greens’ hunt for a long-term alliance makes deal with Liberals a long shot
One of Christy Clark’s favourite TV shows is Game of Thrones, the epic fantasy where competing dynasties battle, plot and scheme for control of the kingdom.
So as a fan of the show, the Liberal leader should know that the one who wears the crown is rarely safe for long. Enemies are everywhere, and no dynasty lasts forever.
Now Clark’s own Liberal dynasty dangles by a thread, as representatives of three main political parties meet in a Victoria hotel room to bargain for power.
B.C.’s own game of thrones kicked into high gear last week when the election results officially confirmed a minority government: Clark’s Liberals won 43 seats, one short of a majority in the 87-seat legislature.
John Horgan’s NDP won 41 seats and Andrew Weaver’s Green party snagged three, giving the Greens the balance of power in a hung parliament.
That makes Weaver the kingmaker. Or queenmaker. The Liberals and NDP are both courting his support, and Weaver will decide whether Clark or Horgan wears the crown.
Clark is still the premier, for now. Her party won the most seats and got the most votes. She has the right to appoint a new cabinet and introduce a new throne speech in a newly convened parliament.
But, to survive, she needs those three Green MLAs on her side to avoid losing a vote in the legislature that would bring her minority government crashing down.
The Liberals could offer Weaver a throne speech and a new budget that would deliver on many of the priorities Weaver championed in the election.
It could include a promise to reform B.C.’s Wild West campaign-finance laws, under which Clark’s Liberals raked in millions of dollars in unlimited corporate donations.
It could also include a promise to review B.C.’s first-past-the-post electoral system, in response to Weaver’s desire for a proportional-representation system in B.C.
Of course, the Greens would be given official-party status in the legislature, giving the Greens more support staff (and giving the three Green MLAs a nice pay raise.)
You can bet a new Liberal budget would dramatically boost spending on education, another key Weaver demand. Maybe Clark would flip-flop on her support for grizzly bear hunting, giving Weaver a win on that file.
If the Liberals can persuade Weaver to support their throne speech and budget, Clark would survive two critical early votes in the legislature, and give herself some short-term breathing space.
But here’s the problem: Weaver wants a marriage, not a friendship.
“We’re willing to negotiate in the long-term,” Weaver said. “There’s nothing magical about two years. There’s nothing magical about three. Frankly, there’s nothing stopping us actually looking for four years.”
This kind of talk would seem disheartening for Clark’s Liberals, because there’s little in common between the Greens and Liberals to sustain a longer-term alliance. Their positions are mirror-opposite on huge issues like the Site C dam and the Kinder Morgan pipeline, for example.
What can Clark do? She can try to strike a longer accord with the Greens. And her most powerful argument boils down to simple mathematics.
A Liberal-Green team-up would combine for 46 votes in the legislature, a more sustainable majority than a razor-thin 44-vote NDPGreen alliance that would unravel if they lost a single MLA. A Liberal-Green accord would also prove Weaver is serious when he says the Greens are willing to work with any other party, no matter where they reside on the political spectrum.
But a Green-Liberal accord would also pose risks for both Weaver and Clark.
Weaver could face a backlash inside his own environmentally focused party for propping up Clark, the champion of fossil-fuel development in B.C.
And Clark risks a backlash, too, if she concedes too much to Weaver. If she jacks up taxes, for example, the B.C. Conservative Party might come out of hibernation to challenge her for right-wing votes.
So maybe Weaver will do a deal with the NDP, instead. After all, the Greens and New Democrats appear to have a lot more in common. Consider that one of Weaver’s highest priorities is to secure a proportional-representation voting system that would give the Greens massive added power.
That’s because a pro-rep system would be more likely to produce minority governments in the future, with the Greens continuing to wield the balance of power.
The NDP wants proportional representation, too. It looks like a match made in heaven.
But then those pesky voting numbers come back into play. It could take years to secure proportional representation, and a shaky onevote majority in the legislature might not survive long enough to achieve it.
Weaver might also be worried about maintaining a separate, independent identity for his Green party. If he hitches his wagon to the NDP, he risks looking like Horgan’s puppet.
Whatever happens, it’s going to happen quickly. Weaver said he wants “certainty” by Wednesday, when the election results become legally binding.
What if Weaver and Horgan show up at a joint news conference to announce an alliance, even though Clark technically won the election? Clark could still appoint a cabinet. She could still call the legislature into session and still present a throne speech containing her new vision for the province.
It would be a fool’s errand, of course, because the new NDP-Green tag team of MLAs would just vote her down. But Clark might prefer to go out on her shield that way, rather than slinking away.
Her other option would be to go to Judith Guichon, the lieutenant-governor, and ask for another election. But Guichon knows British Columbians wouldn’t want another election so soon. With an NDP-Green accord in place, Guichon would more likely invite Horgan to form a government.
Perhaps this would be the best outcome for the Liberals. They could retreat to the opposition benches, lick their wounds, and wait for Horgan to make mistakes and break his promises.
Then the Liberals could begin plotting their comeback, but probably with someone other than Clark as leader.
To survive this game of thrones, Clark must convince Weaver that it’s in his own interests that he place the crown on her head, not on Horgan’s.