WEAVER USES MINORITY MUSCLE TO SWAY BUDGET
Contentious issues between NDP, Greens are child care, renters’ rebates
As Andrew Weaver tells it, the power-sharing agreement with the New Democrats does not oblige the Greens to support every spending item in an NDP budget, just the overall budget itself.
The Green leader’s interpretation came to the fore this week after the NDP decision to leave out election promises of $10-a-day child care and a $400 renters’ grant from the budget update.
The exclusions were convenient for Finance Minister Carole James as she had used up all of the spending room in the budget keeping other NDP promises.
But when pressed for an explanation during the budget briefing Monday, she attributed the holdup on child care and the renters’ grant to ongoing talks with Weaver.
“Those are both commitments that we made during the election campaign,” she agreed. “And they’re also part of the discussion that we’re having with the Greens around the (power-sharing) agreement that’s in place.”
Next day, Weaver raised the stakes by declaring NDP campaign commitments to be irrelevant to the discussion.
“What the NDP promised in their election campaign is not really relevant to the situation today,” Weaver told reporters, “because we also promised things in our election campaign.”
Not to say differences couldn’t be sorted out. But they would have to be sorted out within the confines of the power-sharing agreement the New Democrats and Greens reached on May 29.
The official name is the confidence and supply agreement. The Greens agreed to vote for supply, meaning funding supplied to run government programs in the annual budget. The authority to spend is the main determinant of whether a government has the confidence of the house.
But the agreement placed some limitations on the Green party’s obligations to support the budget. The relevant passage being clause 5 in the first section: “While individual bills, including budget bills, will not be treated or designated as matters of confidence, the overall budgetary policy of the government, including moving to the committee of supply, will be treated as matters of confidence.”
Note, in reverse order, the double-edged implications.
The Greens will support the overall budgetary policy of the government, including the key vote that sends ministry spending estimates to committee of supply for line-by-line scrutiny and approval.
But in return the New Democrats agree not to designate individual pieces of legislation, including budget legislation, as matters of confidence. Those can presumably be amended or defeated without ending the life of the government.
Armed with that reading of the agreement, Weaver has been emphasizing his bargaining leverage on matters at hand.
“It’s not going to happen,” he vowed this week in reference to the $400 renters’ rebate, the annual tab for which he estimates at $200 million. “We share the same values as the B.C. NDP on making life more affordable, but that money would be better targeted to where it is needed most.”
As for the NDP child-care plan, “why $10 a day? Why not $20? Why not means tested?”
The Greens have proposed a child-care program that is more flexible and also more expensive, being priced at $4.2 billion to an estimated $1.5 billion for the NDP version.
But even as the New Democrats proceed to talks with Weaver on those and other measures for the budget due in February 2018, they have yet to budge on either big ticket promise from their election platform.
“We are committed to the $400 renter rebate and the $10-a-day child-care program,” Finance Minister James assured reporters at the end of the budget news conference.
If the New Democrats were to launch one or both items in the next budget, Weaver’s options to oppose them would be limited.
The rules and conventions of the legislature are both narrower and more authoritative than the terms of the power-sharing agreement.
Once the house proceeds to debate spending estimates in committee of supply, program funding for the various ministries cannot be deleted or redirected.
The only amendment allowed by the rules is a punitive one to reduce the minister’s salary. (Legislative veterans recall the time the New Democrats moved to reduce the salary of a Social Credit minister to $1.49, all the while whistling the $1.49day slogan from the thenubiquitous radio advertisements for the Woodward’s department stores.)
Nor could the Greens aim to defeat the enabling legislation for the budget itself, for that would deny supply and hence constitute a vote of non-confidence. But there would be the option to amend the legislation to strip out a provision or two.
Supposing the implementation act for budget 2018 included spending authority for the $400 handout for tenants.
Weaver could move to strike that without changing the fundamentals of the overall budget. Of course, for his amendment to pass, he would need the support of the B.C. Liberals.
Not likely would the New Democrats allow things to get to that point.
When I asked Premier John Horgan Wednesday whether at the end of the day, Weaver would have to vote for the next NDP budget, he replied: “I don’t want to be in a haveto-do-anything place.”
He’s counting on the talks to produce a compromise.
Likewise, Weaver said he doesn’t expect a showdown. Rather he intends to use the bargaining leverage in the power-sharing agreement to improve NDP budget plans, not defeat them.
What the NDP promised in their election campaign is not really relevant to the situation today, because we also promised things in our election campaign.
ANDREW WEAVER, Green leader