LEAVE IT TO WEAVER TO CROWN A RULER

Green leader offers reasoning for lengthier power-sharing agreement

Green Leader Andrew Weaver provided a window into his thinking in negotiations with the two major political parties this week when he expressed hope about a longterm understanding.

“I don’t think British Columbians want to go back to the polls any time soon,” Weaver told reporters in a press conference at the legislature Wednesday. “We have said to both parties we are willing to negotiate for the long term. There’s nothing magical about two years, there’s nothing magical about three, and frankly there’s nothing stopping us actually looking for four years.”

A power-sharing agreement lasting two, three, even four years? That would be a far cry from early speculation that the Greens would be content with a few concessions up front, then proceed issue by issue and vote by vote.

But listening to Weaver it was readily apparent what occasioned his shift to the longer term.

First and foremost, there was electoral reform. The Greens would implement proportional representation by simple majority vote in the legislature.

But after flirting with that possibility, the New Democrats reverted to their platform promise to put it to referendum.

“I think if you are going to change the electoral system, you should ask people about that,” party leader John Horgan told reporters Wednesday. “It’s their system, not mine. I feel strongly about that.”

The public would first be consulted on a preferred system of proportional representation before putting it to referendum. Then Elections B.C. would need time to implement the new system so it could be in place for the next election.

But there was more to Weaver’s drive for a longterm agreement than providing enough time to bring in a new electoral system.

He wants to demonstrate the merits of a less polarized, more co-operative style of government and that needs time as well.

Indeed, if Weaver and his colleagues can show enough positive results before the referendum rolls around, it might undercut critics who say proportional representation leads to weak minority governments.

But those aspirations would be dashed if the Greens signed on to an arrangement that falls apart in a matter of weeks or months.

“You can’t say you know you can make proportional representation work if you can’t make minority government work,” as Weaver himself conceded to reporters in a followup media scrum Friday afternoon.

“If a minority government were to fall apart over petty bickering or over political cynicism or political opportunism, it would send a signal to the electorate that we are quite frankly not mature enough in B.C. to hold together a minority government.”

More to the point for Weaver’s political fortunes, if the arrangement failed, B.C. would be plunged straight into an election that would surely be one of the most polarized in provincial history.

Both major parties would warn against another minority and try to cannibalize the Green share of the vote to bolster their own. The Greens, denied the turf protection that proportional representation could provide, might never have another opportunity like this one.

So Weaver’s bid for a longer term power-sharing agreement is critical to his agenda for electoral reform and his broader goal of doing government differently.

But that in turn has implications for his dealings with the major parties.

An NDP-Green deal is pretty much Horgan’s only hope to make himself premier. He is right that his party is a better match for the Greens on the theme of time for a change.

He is prepared to offer Weaver much on the many points where the NDP and Green platforms overlap. No wonder most observers figure the odds favour a Green-NDP partnership.

But the one thing that Horgan cannot offer with any certainty is time.

An NDP-Green partnership would hold just 44 seats in the legislature to 43 for the Liberals, an arrangement difficult to manage with the best of intentions.

The New Democrats would hope to improve the balance by luring a Liberal to cross the floor. They might ask Liberal Linda Reid to stay on as Speaker, so they need not tie up one of their own members in the post. They could rework the standing orders of the legislature to give government manoeuvring room on procedure.

But if the standoff remains at 44-43, the NDP-Green partnership would be hardpressed to survive the three or more years envisioned in Weaver’s preferred scenario. Whereas with a B.C. LiberalGreen combination, the two parties would have 46 seats, five more than the NDP, an entirely manageable balance.

In the early 1980s, Social Credit governed for four years with a five-seat lead over the NDP. In the late 1990s, the New Democrats held on for five years, never losing a vote, despite a meagre three-seat edge over the combined opposition.

But if the seat count with the Liberals better suits Weaver’s objectives he would face big challenges persuading many of his own supporters of the rightness of the combination.

He would need to show a lot of gains up front, and from what the Liberals have hinted to date, it is not clear they would be prepared to meet him more than halfway on a long list of demands.

Still, the math works better with a Liberal-Green partnership than with NDPGreen. And by way of a footnote, I would just point out that Dr. Weaver’s doctorate is neither in climate science nor for that matter political science, but rather in applied mathematics. VPalmer@postmedia.com Twitter.com/VaughnPalmer

You can’t say you know you can make proportional representation work if you can’t make minority government work.

ANDREW WEAVER, Green party leader