TROUBLE IN PARADISE?
Tense times ahead for NDP, Greens
A year into a power-sharing partnership that put the B.C. NDP into government, Premier John Horgan and Green Leader Andrew Weaver say they’re both still happy to be working together. Mostly. Or, at least, for now.
The two leaders recently celebrated the first anniversary of their May 29, 2017, confidence and supply agreement, in which the three Green MLAs promised to support the 41 NDP MLAs on important budgetary and financial matters, in exchange for consultation and consideration of Green party ideas. The deal gave the newly dubbed “GreeNDP” partnership the votes to topple Christy Clark’s Liberal government on June 29, 2017.
Since then, Horgan and Weaver have had a tumultuous relationship. While the NDP have had to adjust to the practical realities and limitations of governing, the Greens have wrestled with how to make their influence felt without continually threatening to bring down the government. Looming on the horizon is the NDP’s climate plan, expected this fall, which Weaver has said could make or break their partnership.
“It’s a tug and pull, it’s a push,” Horgan said at a joint news conference with Weaver recently. “Sometimes we’re on one side, sometimes we’re on the other. But that’s what life is about. I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish, with some ups and downs, again we don’t hide from that. That’s just the way it goes.”
Weaver said he doesn’t have buyer’s remorse in choosing to support a new NDP government over the Liberals. Relegating the Liberals to opposition after 16 years in power was, he said, “the single best thing we did.”
Still, in an interview, Weaver admitted if he could do it over again, he would have negotiated a tougher agreement with the NDP in one area: the Site C dam.
The $10.7-billion hydroelectric dam on the Peace River near Fort St. John was a marquee project for Clark’s Liberals. The Greens wanted it stopped. The NDP promised the Greens it would send Site C to an independent review by the B.C. Utilities Commission. Many people, including Weaver, felt the review was a way for the NDP to get the justification it needed to kill the project. Instead, Horgan in December stunned the Greens by announcing the dam would proceed.
“The Site C one is one that I think we could have in retrospect been a little stronger on,” said Weaver, adding he should have just made the cancellation of the dam an explicit part of the deal.
“We were led to believe, and I think the B.C. NDP will say this is true, that they needed the information on which to make the decision they wanted to make, and they needed the political cover from that information to make that decision ... So we felt, OK, the BCUC are going to give you this information and you can make the right decision. They made the wrong decision.
“I don’t know what was the real reason. I still to this day don’t get it. I don’t understand it. What we’ve been told doesn’t hold water for me.”
Horgan remains unrepentant about Site C.
“The cost of suspending the project was too great in my opinion, and Andrew and I disagreed on that,” he said. “It was a difficult decision and it tested our mettle as leaders of political parties and as partners in an agreement.”
Outside of Site C, the parties say they’ve made progress on most items in their confidence and supply agreement. A joint list indicates almost two-thirds of 50 items in their agreement have either been completed or are underway, including adopting the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, shifting elections from the spring to the fall, holding a referendum on proportional representation, increasing the carbon tax by $5 a tonne in April, creating a B.C. Innovation Commissioner, launching an emerging economy task force, improving child care and mental-health services, and restoring free adult basic education courses.
The agreement also stipulates the NDP government “immediately employ every tool available to stop the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline” expansion project. The NDP has done that through various court challenges and a reference question to the B.C. Court of Appeal that sparked a political war with Alberta and led the federal government to purchase the Trans Mountain project to prevent it from collapse.
Weaver called it a “wonderful year working together.” The Greens were able to exercise their influence to kill an NDP proposal to make it easier to unionize and a $400 annual renter’s rebate that Weaver considered bad policy. The Greens still want progress on tougher lobbying rules and expanding the carbon tax to fugitive emissions and slash-pile burning.
To keep the Green-NDP partnership going, the government created a secretariat in the premier’s office at a cost of about $257,000 annually. It helps to co-ordinate the almost-daily discussions between the caucuses and “consultation committee” meetings every two weeks that include Green MLAs Adam Olsen and Sonia Furstenau, and NDP Finance Minister Carole James and Environment Minister George Heyman. Horgan’s chief of staff, Geoff Meggs, and Weaver’s chief of staff, Evan Pivnick, meet weekly. And Horgan and Weaver tackle issues face-toface every second week.
“John and I have had very frank conversations and we get along very, very well,” said Weaver.
Still, their relationship is set to be tested on several fronts this fall.
The biggest confrontation looming is the NDP government’s pursuit of the liquefied natural gas industry and how that will affect its climate change targets. The NDP offered in March more lucrative tax breaks to a $40-billion Shell-led LNG Canada proposal for an LNG export terminal near Kitimat, in an attempt to secure a final investment decision. At the same time, the government set new greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets of 40 per cent from 2007 levels by 2030. Weaver, a climate scientist, dubbed it “impossible” to meet the climate plan while adding a large polluter like an LNG facility.
“We’re at 64.4 megatonnes (carbon dioxide equivalent) right now,” said Weaver. “A 40 per cent reduction in 12 years, that’s a lot and we’re going to add the single biggest point source of emissions in Canadian history? Problem.”
Weaver has threatened to end the NDP- Green alliance this fall if government’s promised climate plan can’t reconcile LNG and pollution targets.
“It’s not about holding a gun to their heads,” he said. “It’s about saying, ‘You promised something.’ Government hasn’t thought this through.”
In response, Horgan told his environment minister to work directly with Weaver to craft a plan that will please the Greens.
Part of the NDP’s tax breaks for LNG Canada will require the government to repeal an LNG income tax act the Liberals put in place several years ago.
“There’s no way in a million years we’ll support the elimination of the LNG income tax act,” said Weaver.
That means the NDP will have to court the Liberals for the necessary votes, sidelining the Greens but setting up an even more volatile political partnership.
The confidence deal led to the referendum on proportional representation set for Nov. 30. Political analysts have long viewed it as an important date for the NDP- Green alliance. If it passes, the 2021 election would be held under the new system, while any snap election before that would be under the old first-past-the-post system. That means if the referendum passes, the Greens would need to keep the NDP in power the full term before they could get to use the new electoral system in 2021. If the referendum fails, the likelihood of a snap election increases.
Weaver said he’s unhappy with the government’s proposed speculation tax, which was supposed to target foreign investors who leave properties empty but will instead disproportionally hit B.C. residents with second homes. He’s also unimpressed with a new surcharge on homes worth more than $3 million, calling it an “inheritance tax” on seniors.
“Right now I’m struggling because I do not like what I see,” he said on the housing taxes.
The confidence agreement obliges the Greens to vote with the NDP on matters of confidence, such as the budget and taxation measures.
However, Weaver said he’s discussed the speculation tax with the finance minister, and believes it’s more of a policy than a tax because government doesn’t intend to generate much revenue. Therefore, the Greens could vote against speculation tax legislation this fall without violating the confidence deal, said Weaver.
“Because it’s a policy, and not a tax measure, they have to sell it to us,” said Weaver.
It’s unlikely the NDP agrees. Still, for all the posturing by the Greens, they have yet to vote against their NDP partners on any issue. Nor have they joined the Liberals to pass any bills or amend any NDP legislation.
Opposition Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said Weaver and the Greens are all talk.
“In the past 10 months, we’ve seen Andrew Weaver and the Greens make a lot of smoke, lots of huff and puff. But when push comes to shove they stand for nothing,” said Wilkinson. “They vote slavishly with the NDP every single time. They have not once voted against the NDP, even though they make all these grand noises about being evidencebased and principled, they are actually just lackeys of the NDP.”
Horgan dismissed Liberal criticism, pointing to Clark’s final days as premier when she insisted an NDP- Green alliance would not be workable.
“Working together, Andrew and I, the NDP caucus and Green caucus, have had stable government since July of last year,” said Horgan. “You’ll recall at the time, the previous government had said, ‘This is impossible, the only people who can govern in British Columbia are us.’ We’ve demonstrated quite obviously that’s not the case. Good outcomes result from people working together, and Andrew and I have demonstrated that.
“We’ve had our ups, we’ve had our downs, and we will continue to have our ups and downs. But our focus every day is to make sure if we have a disagreement we resolve it and we work for the people of British Columbia.”
Sometimes we’re on one side, sometimes we’re on the other. But that’s what life is about. I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.