Vaughn Palmer: Weaver assures premier of his strong, continued support
Credit to Author: Hugh Dawson| Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2020 01:37:33 +0000
VICTORIA — A few days after Andrew Weaver left the Green caucus to sit as an independent, he fired off a reassuring letter to his partner in power-sharing, Premier John Horgan.
“I am writing to you to clarify my intentions regarding my support of this government and propose a path forward,” wrote Weaver on Jan. 27. “I intend to continue to support government on all matters of confidence and to support the spirit of the CASA.”
CASA being the “confidence and supply agreement” that the New Democrats and Greens negotiated prior to Horgan taking office.
Weaver signed the agreement as did the other two Green MLAs. Among other things, it commits them to support the government “until the next fixed election date,” now set for Oct. 16, 2021.
“Going forward, my relationship with government will continue to be based on the founding principles of the CASA, good faith and no surprises,” Weaver continued.
But at the same time, he advised the premier that he would no longer be as engaged in dealings with the government as he had been in the previous two and a half years.
“The new leader of the B.C. Green caucus will properly take my place in regular meetings with you,” he noted. This in reference to MLA Adam Olsen, who took over as interim leader when Weaver stepped down in January.
Nor would Weaver, as an independent, seek to encroach on the Green allotment of one question and a follow-up in the daily question period in the legislature.
“As an independent MLA, I do not intend to engage on all matters before government,” Weaver went on to say. “However, I would like to retain the option to meet with government on a limited number of priority policy areas of key importance to me.”
He did not specify those areas, but proposed that they be coordinated as needed through their respective offices and staffs.
“As partners who have accomplished so much together in the past two and a half years, I hope and expect the two of us will still be able to sit down together to advance our common goals.”
Horgan lost no time replying.
“I look forward to ongoing work with you in your new capacity as an independent MLA, in the spirit of CASA,” he wrote back on Jan. 30. “I welcome and accept the specific proposals for how we will continue to work together.”
The CASA secretariat would work with Weaver and if concerns arose, he should contact the premier’s staff directly.
“I am confident that the relationship we have forged will allow us to continue our work to advance common goals, find solutions and build a better B.C.,” wrote Horgan.
That relationship is one of the more important political developments of the current era, contributing as it did to the 31-months-and-counting survival of the Horgan government.
This time three years ago, Horgan and Weaver were barely on speaking terms. But the working relationship, as sketched out in CASA, has since blossomed into the political equivalent of a bromance. Not surprising that Horgan and Weaver moved quickly to ensure it would continue.
The first test of the renewed relationship came last week with the government launch into no-fault auto insurance.
Weaver was in Vancouver, dealing with a family matter, but his staff were given confidential briefings on the changes before they were announced.
He will wait to see the enabling legislation before pronouncing a final verdict on the changes. But he has no reservations about supporting no-fault in principle.
In fact, he had urged the New Democrats to consider no-fault back in 2017, when minister for ICBC David Eby ruled out the option in the initial discussion of auto insurance reforms.
“It is essential that we not take any options that would reduce rates off the table,” the then-Green leader said at the time.
Weaver reminded the New Democrats how he had gotten there before them on no-fault during his first speech as an independent, delivered Wednesday from his new seat in the chamber.
He has been relocated to the very back of the chamber, near the ceremonial entranceway. There, he is separated from his former colleagues in the Green caucus by an aisle — albeit one not as wide as the traditional two-sword lengths separating the government and opposition in the parliament at Westminster.
Other than a few reservations about LNG and Site C, Weaver devoted most of his speech to a clause-by-clause endorsement of the NDP legislative agenda as laid out in Tuesday’s speech from the throne.
“I feel that this government is on the right track. It understands where the future of our economy is,” declared Weaver.
“In the throne speech, the government gets what the challenges are. Then it moves on to say how it plans to deal with those challenges. Taken together, I am absolutely thrilled to support this throne speech.”
All this with barely any acknowledgement of the continued presence in the chamber of the party he led to its best-ever showing and into the power sharing agreement.
As for the official Opposition: “So I say that B.C. Liberals, as I said a while back, needed to be put in a time-out for some time. I’m still convinced that that time-out is not over yet.”
In sum, while Weaver did not say it in so many words, the speech was pretty much an argument for re-electing John Horgan.