It’s interesting to speculate on what government is going to look like for the next couple of years.
When the House sits we will, right off the get-go, see a budget that bears little relationship to the one brought down a short time ago to carry the Liberals to its electoral victory. It will be a “fudgit budget” like that of Glen Clark in front of his election budget in 1996. Will we see the same folks that fought Clark’s budget in the courts rise to protest this one as they did in former times?
We will see the beginnings of serious civil disobedience over fish farms and erroneously so-called Run of Rivers projects. This will not be the usual “rent-a-crowd” but people from all walks of life and political persuasions standing up for the fish and rivers of our beautiful province. As usual, there will be sit-downs followed by the company getting injunctions with breaches of those injunctions going to jail. Except I believe that there won’t by just one or two but dozens.
The NDP will be in disarray. They know that the last election was theirs to win and they blew it. Senior NDP “bureaucrats” will go including Gerry Scott who was in charge of the campaign. Carole James may not be able to hold on for as long as it will take to reform the party if only because many in the party see her as the cause of their grief. She wasn’t, or at least she was hardly the only one at fault. This brings up the question of who, if not Carole? These things are very divisible and more division is the last thing the NDP needs. One NDP insider told me that several NDP MLAs will jump ship when the session starts and form a “Green Party” caucus.
The Liberals won with 22% of the registered voters. This indicates two things, namely that the NDP utterly failed to get out its vote and that the party in power, no less in power because of it, are unpopular and will be subjected to a great deal of public pressure.
We’re in for interesting times.
Rafe,
Interesting point about the possibility of a group of NDP MLA’s jumping ship to form a Green Caucus.
The fact of the matter is, the NDP and the Greens should be talking about an “affair”, not a marriage, to be formed about six months before the next election.
They need each other and there is one issue that, if they used their brains, could bring them together – electoral reform.
I am an NDP supporter, but I worked exclusively on the STV campaign, along with a lot of Greens. I know the NDP establishment (not necessarily the rank and file) have a preference for MMP, as opposed to STV. Actually the Greens, as far as I know (Andrea Reimer, for one and Adrienne Carr for another)also prefer MMP.
I actually prefer STV, but I would be more than happy to work for STV, if that’s what it takes to rid ourselves of FPTP. OK, so there’s the first compromise to be made. All STVers, by into MMP.
Forget any more referenda on the subject of electoral reform. It has to be fought as a political issue as part of an election if ever we are to see it happen.
If the two parties contine to go tehir separate ways, neither will ever achieve what they want. The NDP won’t get power, because the Greens are taking away the votes they need. The Greens will never elect an MLA under the FPTP system.
So, have an affair, for one election only. Work out a deal. If they can’t work out a compromise to benefit themselves, how will they ever be able to work together if MMP was to be introduced.
Both parties need to demonstrate that they can work together, as they would have to in a minority government situation, which MMP would likely produce.
If neither party is interested in a compromise, in which both parties could benefit, we are destined to be ruled by the corrupt Liberals for a long time to come.
Wayne Taylor
So Campbell and his nefarious gang of ne’er do wells only have 22% of the vote; can this government be considered legitimate?
I know it’s legal, but certainly not moral.
Evil Eye says, “I know it’s legal, but certainly not moral.” Morality has never been an issue for Campbell and the BC Liberals