MLAs return to Victoria for start of Spring session

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – Politicians are returning to the BC legislature on Valentine’s Day, but romance is not expected to be in the cards.

Premier Christy Clark’s Liberals are coming back rattled over a recent website hacking affair of their own making, while the New Democrats are looking to raise the profile of their largely unknown leader, John Horgan.

Political experts say the hacking feud which saw Clark accuse the NDP of spying and then apologize is a sign of the high stakes drama brewing in the month’s before the spring provincial election campaign.

Hamish Telford, at the University of the Fraser Valley, says after 16 years of Liberal rule, voters could be in the mood for change.

“People start to get an innate sense that it’s time for a change. That sense really emerges from a belief that one party and one group of people have been in power for too long, are growing too comfortable with it, and are perhaps beginning to abuse their power,” he says.

That’s the pitch the NDP has been making: that Premier Christy Clark and the rest of the BC Liberals are out of touch.

The Liberals are expected to table their fifth consecutive balanced budget later this month, and recent estimates project a surplus of about 2-billion dollars.

“The question’s not about money,” says Michael Prince at the University of Victoria, “the surpluses are quite healthy and if there’s a time to help the least advantaged in the province, this is the time.”

We should get an idea of the provincial government’s plans when the Speech from the Throne is read tomorrow afternoon.