Former cabinet minister baffled by Liberal ploy

A former Liberal cabinet minister in B.C. says he has been mulling over his poverty reduction plan that was rejected by the party he once hoped to lead.

George Abbott said the Liberals suddenly came up with their own plan in a throne speech two weeks ago, but only as a strategic political move to win votes.

The throne speech came after the New Democrats and the Green party developed a plan to topple the Liberal party, which was defeated in a non-confidence vote in the legislature Thursday after 16 years in power.

“I don’t think the Liberals made it any easier for themselves with the machinations around the throne speech,” Abbott said. “If the aim was strategically to win the confidence of the Greens or perhaps random NDP members, it was entirely unsuccessful.”

Premier Christy Clark promised policies to reduce poverty, including $1 billion in spending on childcare spaces, drawing criticism the action was more in line with traditional NDP principles. Many of the throne speech promises from the Liberal minority government came from the election platforms the NDP and Greens campaigned on in May.

Abbott, who held three cabinet posts as health, education and aboriginal relations minister, left politics before the 2013 election after placing third in a Liberal leadership contest won by Clark two years earlier.

He said the poverty reduction plan he proposed during the leadership campaign faced resistance in the Liberal party “for reasons I still really don’t understand.”

“I have always thought it made a lot of sense to have some focus on that objective, but I wouldn’t have done it because strategically it was the clever thing to do, it was the right thing to do,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a way to make democracy perform as it should.”

Promising more social spending during the recent left-leaning throne speech only meant the Liberals “closed off some of the daylight” between themselves and the NDP, said Abbott, who is no longer a member of the Liberal party.

“Strategically, they may think that sets them up well for a near-term election, but if there’s not a nearterm election, if we’re looking at six months, a year, two years, it is going to be difficult for Ms. Clark, should she retain the leadership, to run again on what they offered up in the throne speech.”

Clark has defended the Liberal throne speech, saying the party reacted to what voters expressed in the election campaign.

Abbott said the Liberal party is likely clinging to its resource development policies to create some distance between the New Democrats, who are poised to take office.

Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, predicts some grumbling on the social policy shift among the Liberal party.

“I think (Clark) heard from the more liberal side, ‘Look, we were too stingy and that’s why we lost the election.’ Now she’s going to hear from the conservative side, saying: ‘We tried to outdo the NDP and failed and now we’re in a place where we’re not comfortable.’”