For now, the British Columbia New Democratic Party is set to govern the province with a minority in the legislature. Saturday’s election was as close as predicted, with the incumbent NDP finishing the night with 46 seats, one ahead of the BC Conservatives at 45. The BC Greens won two seats, which might, in context, be quite a win for them, indeed.
It takes 47 seats to govern BC with a majority. With mail-in ballots to be counted and two ridings to be recounted, it’s still possible the Conservatives could edge ahead. But in the meantime, the NDP remains the government and is set to continue as such — though in a weaker position.
If the legislature remains a minority, the BC Greens will determine who governs and be well placed to extract policy concessions.
As a condition of supporting the NDP, the Greens ought to insist on another kick at the electoral reform can, which they campaigned on once more in 2024. In their platform, the Greens promised to introduce and pass the reform in the legislature and then to hold a referendum on keeping it after two elections have passed under the new system.
Adopting a new electoral system could have, or could reasonably be seen to have, partisan implications, so parties ought to accept that the process of changing the system should be fair and robust, but not unreasonably onerous. More public engagement will also have the benefit of giving any new system more legitimacy.
The Greens should stipulate a referendum on reform before choosing the system, especially since they stand to benefit electorally from the change. In 2024, the Greens won two seats with eight per cent of the vote — roughly four per cent of the total seats in the legislature. Under PR, their count would stand to double under a similar return and the public might come to see the party as a more viable option since they wouldn’t be worried about “wasting” their vote by casting a ballot for a party with a low probability of winning a seat.
Moreover, since the NDP didn’t campaign on electoral reform this time around, voters might rightfully feel that PR, a big change, came out of the blue. The Greens should choose to also keep a second referendum to confirm the system, as New Zealand did when it adopted proportional representation.
The Greens should also ask for another citizens’ assembly to evaluate systems and recommend one to voters. It’s been nearly 20 years since the last one, and it’s more than time for a refresh — one that would galvanise reformers and raise the salience of reform for the public.
They should also demand that the assembly and referendum are carefully designed and well-resourced with money for both non-partisan public education and for partisan campaigners who wish to make the case for or against a change. It should go without saying, but to be clear, they should also insist on a 50 per cent plus one threshold for adopting a new system.
Perhaps that seems like a lot to ask. But it’s not, really — not when the Greens control the future of the legislature. Now’s the time to twist arms.
The process of government formation in these circumstances is tricky, often frenetic and marked by plenty of horse trading. A government that navigates this moment poorly isn’t likely to last, and surely the NDP is thinking about ways to not only keep governing, but to do so with some stability.
The Greens are very unlikely to support the Conservatives, whose leader has voiced doubts that fossil fuel emissions contribute to climate change. In 2017, when the province returned a similar legislature, the Greens considered partnering with the now defunct BC Liberals, who were then in government. They didn’t. Instead, they supported the NDP in a supply and confidence agreement that included measures for consultation between the two parties and a suite of policy initiatives.
In the agreement, the Greens got, among other things, a referendum on proportional representation, electoral finance reform and more aggressive climate policies than the NDP might have otherwise been willing to put forward.
Both the NDP and Greens campaigned on electoral reform in 2017 and in 2018 the referendum came to pass — and it was a mess. Poorly organised, underfunded and haphazard, the vote put proportional representation up against the current first-past-the-post system, and voters chose the status quo at 61.3 per cent to 38.7 per cent. That referendum was headed by David Eby, the man who’s now premier — at least for the moment.
It was a disappointing moment for electoral reform advocates, who might have expected better. In 2005, the province had held a vote on changing the electoral system to adopt a proportional single transferable vote system after a Citizens’ Assembly recommended it. The Liberal government under Gordon Campbell set an arbitrary 60 per cent threshold to adopt the system and reformers came up shy at 57.7 per cent — a remarkable feat that ought to have been enough to change the voting system in the province.
On election night, Green leader Sonia Furstenau lost her race, though she is staying on as leader. Combined with the distance between them and the Conservatives, these realities weaken the Green bargaining power, but not fatally — and neither should mean the third party in the legislature should let itself be pushed around. The Greens should recognize the leverage they have and use it to the full extent possible by pushing for structural change to ensure that the legislature’s composition reflects the will of the voters proportionately.
Comments