Why not a Liberal-NDP alliance as path to stability?

With the election results now final and no party in a majority position, the political parties are getting down to serious talks.

There are three main considerations in these negotiations. The first is policy compatibility. The second is personal compatibility among the leaders. And the third consideration is the configuration of the legislature.

While the NDP and the Greens may have more policy overlap, with only 44 seats between them they would only have a razor-thin majority and would be right back to minority status if the speaker is drawn from their ranks.

The legislative configuration works somewhat better for a Liberal-Green alliance. It’s difficult for an outsider to assess the potential working relationships among the leaders.

But while everyone is wondering if the Greens will prop up the Liberals or the NDP and what promises those parties might make to obtain their support, there is another option: An alliance between the Liberals and the NDP.

These two parties have viewed each other as mortal enemies for a quarter-century now — three-quarters of a century if you include the rivalry between the Social Credit and the CCF. But the present configuration of the legislature might require them to put aside their rivalry for the benefit of the province.

The situation in Germany after the 2013 election is perhaps instructive. After that election, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (a conservative party) won the most seats, but just shy of a majority. The CDU’s previous coalition partner failed to get anyone elected, so Merkel required a new coalition partner.

Merkel could have turned to the Greens, but she opted instead to pursue a “grand coalition” with the Social Democratic Party — the CDU’s mortal enemy for three-quarters of a century. The coalition has given Germany stable government for the past four years and Merkel is widely regarded as the most effective leader in the world today.

What are the grounds for a Liberal-NDP alliance? The budget introduced in February — but not yet passed — included new spending for health, education and family and children. The NDP surely supports this increased social spending.

The Liberals also promised in the budget to reduce MSP premiums by half immediately with the goal of eliminating them entirely. The NDP promised the same thing in the election. Perhaps they could sit down together and figure out how to do it.

The NDP promised in the election to increase social assistance and disability payments by $100 a month and to restore the bus program for people with disabilities. The Liberals may now be willing to consider that in the next budget, especially since they were heavily criticized for not doing it already. Perhaps it could be financed by not rolling back the surtax on high-income earners as the NDP proposed in its platform.

The NDP promised to eliminate bridge tolls, while the Liberals promised to cap them at $500 a year. That sounds like a compromise already — these two parties are certainly closer on that issue than either are with the Greens, who want to keep bridge tolls and introduce a comprehensive road-pricing scheme.

And further areas of agreement could always be fudged. The NDP called for a review of Site C. All right, let’s have a review. Ditto, rates for the ICBC, hydro and ferries. Let’s form a committee to study electoral reform. Party finance reform could surely be enacted immediately.

The Liberals and the NDP probably don’t have enough in common to govern together for four years like the CDU-SDP coalition in Germany, but they might be able to cobble together a plan to pass the current budget and one next spring before we go back to the polls again.

This option would buy the province some stability in a very uncertain time. It would probably be a much more stable arrangement than the three-seat Greens giving either the Liberals or the NDP the thinnest of majorities. And it would be by far the most democratic — representing fully 80 per cent of the electorate.

Christy Clark and John Horgan would surely be loath to work with each other, but in this circumstance they have to put their personal animosity aside for the good of the province. This may not be the best option for the province, but it’s an option that should be explored along with the other possibilities.

Hamish Telford is associate professor in the department of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley.