If NDP Wins Majority, Could the Greens Replace the Liberals as the Official Opposition in BC in the Next Election?

Sonia Furstenau is the de facto Leader of the Greens!

How the BC NDP Won the Battle for Green Support

An excerpt from a new book reveals the stomach-churning details of backroom negotiations after the 2017 election.

[Editor’s note: The 2017 British Columbia election was the closest in the province’s history. The BC Liberals tallied 796,672 votes, just 1,566 more than the 795,106 votes cast for the NDP. But it was the third party, the BC Greens, that held all the power. The Liberals had fallen short of a majority with 43 seats, the NDP with 41 and the king-making Greens with three. In a new book, A Matter of Confidence: The Inside Story of the Political Battle for BC, Vancouver Sun columnist Rob Shaw and Global News BC reporter Richard Zussman tell the behind-the-scenes story of the final days of negotiations between the Greens and the two other parties, the rise and fall of Christy Clark and the path John Horgan took to become premier.]

Sonia Furstenau hadn’t been eating well. And the stress of the negotiations was getting to her. It had been more than a week since the final results came in from Courtenay-Comox, and negotiations with the Liberals and NDP over who would form the next government were still seemingly far from an end. She missed her kids. She missed her home. And, above all, she hated the BC Liberals.

Furstenau’s disdain for the governing Liberals was well known. Both Premier Clark and Environment Minister Mary Polak had failed for years to visit her home community of Shawnigan Lake and explain why permits were given to dump toxic soil in a quarry near the community’s drinking water source. The issue had ignited a political fire within Furstenau and driven her to run for provincial office. The idea of now negotiating with Clark, Polak, and the party that had treated her neighbours so terribly was weighing heavily on her mind.

Furstenau had tried eating some sushi earlier in the day but found she couldn’t eat much. As she arrived back at her hotel room in Victoria, she could feel the anxiety and pressure on her growing. She couldn’t take it anymore. She raced to the bathroom toilet. And vomited.

The Liberals didn’t know it at the time, but their chances of securing a deal with the Greens were flushing away. Furstenau would prove to be the deal breaker within the Green caucus, the MLA who simply could not be brought onside to consider any type of deal that would allow the Liberal government to spend one more day in office.

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2018/03/19/BC-NDP-Battle-For-Green-Support/