SNAP ELECTION CALL FUELS OUTRAGE
NDP leader reneges on deal with Greens to sends voters to polls amid rising COVID numbers
Premier Horgan under fire as critics question how voters can trust a leader who reneges on written deal with Green party to not call an early vote
VICTORIA — Premier John Horgan found his character under attack after calling a snap election Monday, with opponents and former allies questioning how voters can trust a leader who reneged on an agreement with the Greens not to call an early election.
Horgan announced the election in his Langford riding.
“I want to get the election behind us, not for myself but for the people of B.C. because they can't afford to have partisan hectoring and uncertainty about whether bills will pass or not, which is what we've experienced over the past 3½ years,” said Horgan, who added that a proper economic recovery plan requires a new full term in office.
British Columbians will vote Oct. 24, with advance voting starting Oct. 15, according to Elections B.C.
The snap vote appears to be a gamble by Horgan that his public popularity will overcome any voter blowback caused by plunging the province into electoral uncertainty during record-high COVID-19 cases. B.C. recorded 366 new cases over the weekend.
“I've struggled mightily with this decision and it did not come easily to me,” said Horgan. “This pandemic will be with us for a year or more and that's why I believe we need to have an election now.”
His decision violated the written power-sharing agreement he signed with the B.C. Greens in 2017, in which he promised to wait until the next scheduled election on Oct. 16, 2021.
“He has to recognize that he cannot lay blame for this election on anybody except for himself,” said B.C. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau. “There's no reason in any world to call an unnecessary election during a global pandemic. This is on John Horgan and on John Horgan alone.”
New Democrats hope a snap vote will turn the party's 41-seat minority government into a majority of at least 44 seats, shaking off the need for any further Green co-operation and, perhaps, eliminating their former allies entirely by targeting the three Vancouver Island seats last won by the Greens.
Furstenau said she met with Horgan Friday to assure him the Greens would continue to provide the votes necessary for the NDP to pass matters of confidence, as the two parties have done consistently since 2017.
B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson sought to make Horgan's betrayal of the Greens a wider issue of trust in the premier, describing it as a “cynical, self-serving, selfish move.”
The snap election call is a high-risk, high-reward move by a premier whose government received widespread acclaim for its public health response to COVID-19 in the spring, but faces a worsening situation this fall. B.C. has the highest per capita number of COVID-19 cases in Canada, but Horgan countered that by saying the province has only a low rate of positives in COVID-19 testing.
The early campaign will clearly centre on the extent to which Horgan can advance the narrative that it is the public who will benefit from a snap election at the height of B.C.'s pandemic, when cases are at record-highs and exposure notifications are sounding in 18 public schools.
He missed the mark on Day 1, offering a confusing argument that British Columbians expect him to be focused on the pandemic 24/7, except, for some reason, for the next 35 days, said Hamish Telford, a political-science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley. The NDP has only one play left, to push through the initial wave of criticism and hope voters turn their mind to other issues later in the campaign, he said.