BC May 9, 2017 Election Results and Comments

From JKR;

If the Greens are so abhorrent there's nothing to stop the BC NDP and BC Liberals from forming a government like the one in Germany between the CDU and SPD.

​I didn't say, nor even imply, that the Greens are abhorrent. All I was doing is what's done all the time by PR types, and presented the vote as a negative. As in, 60% of voters didn't want party X to form the government. I merely pointed out, using that specific framework, that 84% of voters didn't want the Greens as government.

​However, what you suggest, a possible coalition between the NDP and the Liberals may not be that impossible. I doubt  very much it would be touted out in the open, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see neither of those two parties allow the Greens to decide who will form the government. In other words the NDP will allow the Liberals to govern for a while, at least until their war chest is built up a bit, marginalize the Greens, and then pick on opportune moment to overturn the government in the hopes of a new election.

It may be a small possibility, but it is a possibility...

As in, 60% of voters didn't want party X to form the government. I merely pointed out, using that specific framework, that 84% of voters didn't want the Greens as government.

They wouldn't be forming a fake majority government.  They would be working together with another party to reach a consensus on how to govern.  What's the difficult part of that for you to grasp?

can someone from BC tell me if MLAs have pensions?

and if so How long do they need to serve to get one?

I believe this might play a factor in Weaver's Decision.

Rev Pesky wrote:

​I didn't say, nor even imply, that the Greens are abhorrent. All I was doing is what's done all the time by PR types, and presented the vote as a negative. As in, 60% of voters didn't want party X to form the government. I merely pointed out, using that specific framework, that 84% of voters didn't want the Greens as government.​

I think PR "types" present the vote as a negative when they want to show that a phoney FPTP majority government does not have adequate support to monopolize power. So if the BC Liberals had won one more seat the PR "types" would now be saying that 60% of voters didn't want the BC Liberals as a majority government.

A major flaw of FPTP is that it allows governments to be formed without regard to the majority of voters. People advocate for PR voting and/or preferential voting in order to remedy this problem inherent to FPTP. Unfortunately, FPTP only works properly in single elections between only two persons. That is just math. This is why the Conservative leadership election yesterday was done by preferential ballot not FPTP. If the Conservatives had used FPTP to elect their leader, Maxine Bernie would have won with less than a third of the vote and many would have felt that the majority were not supporting him. This is why the Conservatives are against using FPTP for their own elections. On the other hand, they completely support FPTP for federal elections because they benefit from vote-splitting on the left. They know that most Liberal voters prefer the NDP over the Conservatives and most NDP voters prefer the Liberals over the Conservatives.

The fact that preferential voting very often provides different results from FPTP voting shows that FPTP voting is plagued with the problem of vote-splitting whenever there are more than two candidates running. In Alberta the right is solving this problem by merging the PC Party and Wildrose Parties. The left prefers PR over forced mergers.

And this is why strategic voting is part and parcel of FPTP voting.

No amount of referendums will solve the problems inherent to FPTP voting. Only replacing FPTP will.

 

 

It is not difficult to grasp except if you live on Vancouver Island and you saw the Green's campaign. If they prop up the Liberals then a Vote for Change has quickly become a vote for a tweeked status quo. 

I get that and I'm from Vancouver Island but living on the Sunshine Coast.   I do think that Weaver would fatally damage the Green brand if he propped up Christie Clark, making him our own homegrown Nick Clegg.  How he plays this is going to have long-lasting repercussions in how the Greens are viewed.  Irregardless of his personal politics, it really comes down to how committed he is to building a strong Green party and whether the Greens will follow him over a cliff.  Many of those who voted Green won't be back in the next election though if he does go that route.

I still don't see how supporter's of PR have anything to apologize for.  A phony majority where Clark can act with impunity is objectively worse than a situation where the Liberals have to compromise and the Greens have to take a hard look in the mirror and decide what they stand for because they will be held accountable for stabbing so many of their voters in the back. 

And this election really is yet another example of why we need Proportional Rep.  The idea that this was a rural/urban divide is bullshit as you know with your familiarity with Vancouver Island.  I live in a very rural riding and we went solidly NDP.  The complete joke that is BC Ferries won't be improved until the BC Liberals are removed just as Vancouver Island didn't get a real highway until there was an NDP government and the 'rural' ridings that did go BC Liberal this election were bought off with promised pork projects.  This type of buying off some regions and denying other regions infrastructure has been a mainstay of FPTP politics in this province since WAC Bennet and would be alleviated by Proportional Rep.

Which is why I don`t understand Horgan`s rhetoric about needing a referendum on fixing our broken electoral system.  We need a referenudum to fix something that anyone can see is broken?  That`s the wedge issue, he want to use to say why an agreement with the Greens was impossible? Like I said, I think Weaver would be setting his party on fire if he props up Clark but if Horgan wants to hand him a fire extinguisher, he seems to be on the right track.  I hope this is just negotiating noise and not the BC NDP incompentence that we`ve all become accustomed to.

 

 

I would like to see as a compromise a sunset referendum after two elections. The NDP central office has always feared being outflanked on the left by a new party without the baggage of the NDP. There is no oxygen in the current system for new parties. I know I would be up for a new party not dominated by either the union heirarchy or Green capitalists. A place where activists from unions, environmental groups and social justice movemenets can duct tape a Red Green party together.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

I would like to see as a compromise a sunset referendum after two elections. The NDP central office has always feared being outflanked on the left by a new party without the baggage of the NDP. There is no oxygen in the current system for new parties. I know I would be up for a new party not dominated by either the union heirarchy or Green capitalists. A place where activists from unions, environmental groups and social justice movemenets can duct tape a Red Green party together.

My view is instead of a sunset clause put in a staged implimentation.  Offer 4 extra seats, 2 for '604' and 2 for '250'.  I see a system where everyone votes for local candidates and also for the regional candidates with regional candidates elected by unused (losers and surplus votes) locally.  We wouldn't disrupt the local constituencies and people like me living in Richmond would have a vote that counted for once.  These four seats would give the Greens a chance at establishing themselves as a permanent fixture.

I also see the Green presence as supportive of the NDP.  Two of the three ridings they are competitive in are otherwise problematic for the NDP.  Oak Bay and Sannich&Islands have a strong Liberal bent and I would prefer these seats to be held by Greens than see-sawing between the NDP and Liberals (with the Liberals winning most of the time).  Making the NDP worry more about the environment is also not a bad thing.  Cowichan Malahat is a sad loss, though the Green MLA sounds okay - next time the local NDP will have to do a better job on all the HR stuff if they want to win.

NorthReport wrote:

This is all a show for the fans.

There is no question in my mind that Weaver, on election nite, and actually long before that, decided he was not going to ever forget he was once a card-carrying Liberal. Clark will make enough Green concessions so that Weaver never ever forgets it.

I'm wondering now if the Green-Lib deal was forged when they were worrying about an NDP majority, slim or not. Weaver would have had slightly more electoral license to prop up the Libs, since he could then help represent the "unrepresented". The actual results may have presented a conundrum for him. It will be icky optics if he cuts for a deal for a cabinet post.

NDP and Greens to make significant announcement.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VancouverSun/status/869284060597714944

If it all plays out as expected, BC will also get the hardest-working Parliament that ever there was.  When it's 44-43, nobody can afford to skip out on a vote to go to the cottage.

The Green's ran on Vote Change and they have followed through on it. Congratulations to them and the NDP for hammering out a deal.  For some reason this tune came to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHJoj9IqeKg

..i guess i win the prediction :)

Greens to support NDP in four-year government deal

VICTORIA – The B.C. NDP will get a chance to govern the province, and John Horgan become its new premier, after New Democrats picked up the support of the B.C. Greens Monday for a new four-year government.

“In the end we had to make a difficult decision,” said Green Leader Andrew Weaver. “A decision we felt was in the best interest of British Columbia today and that decision was for the B.C. Greens to work with the B.C. NDP for a stable minority government over the four-year term of this next session.”

The two leaders made the announcement in front of the golden gates at the entrance to the legislative chamber in Victoria.

“There’s lots of work to do and we’re not done yet, but I ‘m confident with the 44 members, a majority of members prepared to support confidence motions for a New Democrat government, that we’re going to get there,” said Horgan.

“I would suggest the sooner the better for this institution.”

 

http://vancouversun.com/news/politics/b-c-greens-and-ndp-to-hold-announc...

With Clark's leadership in question, the Liberals will not want another election in the next few months. They will let this go until they are in better shape.

jas wrote:

Wow. When I read Stockholm's prediction today, I thought "Dream on..." I am also happy to be wrong.

However, this is a very tenuous arrangement. Weaver still has the upper hand. If there is any collusion with the Libs, Weaver can bring down the govt on a moment's notice. With this degree of instability, I would have rather it be the Libs at the helm. Better to deep-six them with.

The reports say Weaver has agreed to vote with the NDP government on budget and confidence motions for four years. I will give him the respect he deserves and that includes believeing he will live up to that deal. After all his name is not Trudeau. Weaver claims he wants to show voters that minority governments can be good government and thus that PR is a good thing. Federally the Liberal minority government with the NDP pushing them left produced some of the best government in our history.