Weaver says Liberals ‘reckless,’ but he’s willing to talk deals

B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver called the B.C. Liberal government “reckless” Wednesday, even as he expressed willingness to negotiate with both the Liberals and the NDP about the possibility of forming a minority government.

Weaver, whose party is poised to hold the balance of power after last week’s election, said the Greens are ready to collaborate with anyone to develop good public policy.

“It would be irresponsible for us to preclude negotiations with any political party simply because they have not said something in the past,” he said. “We’re in discussions with both.”

But he admitted to having serious reservations about Liberal positions on a number of key issues, including electoral and political finance reform, the Site C dam, and the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline.

“Our position on Kinder Morgan and Site C is not too dissimilar from the NDP’s position,” he told reporters at the B.C. legislature. “Our position on Kinder Morgan and Site C is quite dramatically far away from the Liberal position.”

Weaver called the Liberal government’s decision to build the $9-billion dam “reckless” from an economic perspective. “It’s essentially trying to deliver taxpayer-subsidized power to a non-existent [liquefied natural gas] industry.”

He also said it was “utterly irresponsible” for the Liberal government to back the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion in exchange for improved spill response, revenue sharing and other conditions.

“That we’re being told to ship diluted bitumen in our coastal waters is just reckless, and this government is reckless for agreeing to it,” he said.

Weaver identified banning corporate and union donations to political parties as one of three mandatory requirements for a deal with either party, along with granting the Greens party status and moving ahead with electoral reform.

But he dismissed the Liberal plan to strike a panel to study the issue of political donations. “[That’s] akin to, ‘We have a plan to develop a plan to come up with a plan,’ ” he said.

He said he has doubts about the Liberals’ interest in changing the voting system, despite the fact Clark says she supported the idea of proportional representation when she was a radio talk show host. “I admit I am somewhat skeptical about what’s happened over the last few years, because we haven’t seen any movements in that direction.”

The Liberals currently have 43 seats to 41 for the NDP and three for the Greens, pending the outcome of absentee and final vote counts next week.

The Liberals still could get a majority in the 87-seat legislature if they recapture Courtenay Comox, where the NDP holds a nine-vote lead.

Even if that happens, Weaver said the Greens will have bargaining power because the Liberals will have to use one of their 44 seats to appoint a Speaker.

“So that would take one person out and you’d still be in an untenable position,” he said. “So the Liberals will need to work with us either way, whether it’s a minority or a majority government.”

It’s hard to focus on the delicate machinations of vital negotiations when you’re still giddy with excitement from being at the table in the first place. But that’s the position Andrew Weaver is in as he and the rest of B.C. await the final election count. His B.C. Green Party campaigned on more than 100 policy ideas built on several main principles.

Now he looks to be in, or close to, a position where he can demand another party implement some of them if it wants to count on his support to maintain control of the legislature. With the final seat count still uncertain, the B.C. Liberals have 43 seats, the NDP 41 and the Greens three. Whether the province ends up with the thinnest of Liberal majority governments or a minority government, Weaver’s three seats give him an opportunity that small parties rarely have in Canada to influence public policy. What to demand? And from whom? The trick is to figure how much muscle his three-person caucus will have, and how much of the Green platform can be leveraged into either the Liberal or NDP agenda.

Comments over the week since the inconclusive results were announced have established he has a few demands that have been referred to as “deal breakers.”

He wants party status for the Greens, even though they are one short of the conventional mark established for that designation. That looks to be a given, at this point. It would provide a bigger office budget, higher pay for the leader, the right to ask more questions in question period and other benefits that give it more influence in the legislature.

It would also simplify the negotiations required to keep the legislature running. Without party status, other leaders would technically have to dicker with three independent MLAs.

He wants to bring the big-money era to an end, with a ban on union and corporate donations. That’s a trickier proposition.

Last year, the Liberals raised $13.1 million, the NDP $6.2 million and the Green Party $754,988, after it stopped taking corporate or union donations last fall. The Liberals bring in more than any other provincial party in Canada, by depending to a marked degree on corporate donors. The NDP gets a lot of money from unions, but it’s not as reliant on that money as the Liberals are on corporations.

The NDP has been agitating for years to bring in a ban, so its agreement is almost guaranteed. However, agreeing to a ban would be a long-term blow to the Liberals. The government was grudgingly moving in the direction of reviewing party financing.

Premier Christy Clark would have to waive her objections to replacing those donations with a taxpayerfinanced system. But she might wind up desperate enough to do just that.

The third item on Weaver’s list — electoral reform — is vastly more problematic. Changing the voting system unilaterally, without a referendum, would make minority governments far off into the future much more likely. For a province facing its first one in 65 years, that’s a big change.

There was an exhaustive study of the voting system 14 years ago that produced a confusing but viable alternative. Twice it didn’t get the required support to pass. No government should agree to impose such a wrenching change without going back to the people by way of a new referendum or an election.

It is too fundamental an issue to be considered as just another bargaining chip during a tense period of talks about who is going to prop up whom for what might be a brief term in government. If the Greens want to change the voting system, they should present an alternative and get the OK from voters, not present the vague concept in a list of demands to a politician sitting across the table.