"Let’s have an election,” Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver chirped in the legislature this week.
Throwing down with a demand for an election is pretty standard rhetoric on the non-government side, although it’s unusual to use the line only 11 months after the last one. When Weaver uses the line, though, there’s an obligation to take it semi-seriously.
The NDP government reigns day-by-day on the strength of a confidence agreement with the three Green MLAs. So when their leader up and demands an election, it makes you wonder about his confidence in the confidence deal.
It turns out, though, that he wanted an election not to test the NDP, but in hopes of whittling back the number of B.C. Liberals in the house. And the reason he wanted that is because he worked himself into a rage over a procedural slip that developed when he didn’t show up in time to take part in a debate he felt strongly about.
At hand was a bill that makes certain first responders more eligible for compensation benefits related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Weaver wants the eligible categories widened to include many more employees.
But he arrived a few minutes late when it came to debate. Weaver had already made it clear he wanted to speak, and understood the Liberals were going to ask questions, as well.
When it came up, there were no questions, so the bill’s five sections passed in no time.
Weaver said he was tied up in a meeting with developers about the speculation tax, and came in late to learn no one the Opposition side did anything to buy him some time.
“Miffed” would be an understatement in describing his mood.
“Why don’t half of you guys quit?” he snapped at the Liberals. “Let’s have an election. Let’s get some more B.C. Greens down here, and we’ll do their job for them if they’re not willing to do it themselves — to actually hold government to account, not to ask stupid questions about stuff to try to score political gain.”
Weaver, who’d spent more than hour the previous day making his points, did arrive in time for the more general wrap-up debate on third reading and spent another hour on the topic. Interspersed in his points about the bill were broadsides at the Liberals.
“The message I want people to take home here today is: In this place, it’s not about doing what’s right for the people of B.C., it’s about doing what’s right for petty, political games from the B.C. Liberals.”
He said they should hang their heads in shame. He questioned how Speaker Darryl Plecas, a former Liberal MLA, could “ever have sat on that side of the house with those members opposite.”
He also demanded the Liberal MLA responsible for the opposition’s response to the bill resign his chair.
Liberal House Leader Mary Polak noted that Weaver could have asked one of his two caucus members to hold his place.
She objected to him insulting other MLAs when all he had to do was show up on time.
But there’s more going on than just frustration over his losing a chance to speak.
Weaver has been increasingly agitated about Liberal questions to the NDP government about the pipeline argument. He was directed to retract a remark he made about the Liberals’ pipeline questions last week.
That’s not uncommon, except that Weaver has more than once spoken at length on the need to improve the decorum and stop the name-calling in the house.
And Wednesday, his preamble to a pipeline question dwelled so much on the “hysterical rhetoric” of the Liberals that the Speaker had to remind him questions are supposed to be directed to the government.
Although the Green caucus is on the sidelines as the drama plays out in the B.C.-Alberta-Ottawa pipeline argument, the trio is very involved behind the scenes. The confidence deal gives them full access to most of the NDP’s deliberations.
Weaver’s lashing out is a sign of the pressure everyone is feeling. Bluffing about an election at this volatile point would be a very risky way of blowing off steam.
