Looking ahead in BC politics after a dramatic 2017

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It may be hard to top 2017 for provincial political excitement, but one BC professor says some there’s plenty on this year’s political agenda that could make for a good sequel.

The May election, which resulted in minority government, the defeat of the governing Liberals in the Legislature, and a new NDP government with Green Party support, made for an enthralling year in BC politics.

“Those were all very unique, very historic events and for political junkies it’s hard to match that,” says Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy Dr. Michael Prince with the University of Victoria. But he says there may be a few issues ahead to get political tragics excited.

BC Budget

When they handed down a “mini-budget” in 2017, the New Democrats had only been in government a couple of months. One of the NDP’s first real tests will come with this year’s budget, expected in February, where the government will try to make good on some election promises that haven’t come to fruition yet.

“This budget in 2018 will be the first full-blown NDP budget,” Prince says.

“The themes around affordability, helping families, addressing issues around childcare, more investments in education, housing issues- those will feature prominently.”

Prince expects there to be a heavy focus on childcare. One of the NDP’s key election promises was $10-a-day childcare, but that platform did not make it into 2017’s budget.

“There are a lot of things that there are expectations for them to do. There’s no way they can fulfill them all. So that’s going to be part of the challenge in the first three or four months of this year.”

Electoral reform

Although it’ll be hard to live up to the drama in BC politics last year, Prince says the debate around the electoral reform referendum may heat up the political sphere. British Columbia is getting ready for a referendum on switching from “first past the post” to some form of proportional representation.

“I would say that the debate that will swirl around the electoral reform referendum is going to be a pretty good sequel in terms of drama and excitement in 2018,” Prince says.

“That will start to dominate our politics and our media through the summer and into the fall, once we know what the question or questions are. I believe we’ll hear about those by May or June, and then the referendum campaign will be truly on… That could be one of the dominant, if not the dominant, issue in the latter half of this year.”

NDP-Green relationship

The first few months of 2018 will also be about the NDP trying to show British Columbians a minority government can be a stable government.

“Just trying to reinforce in the public’s mind and signal to the Liberals, but also just to repeat ‘this is a minority that can work, and it last than just more eight months or 12 months’,’ Prince says.

There have already been a couple of disagreements between the NDP and the Greens, on whom they rely for support in the Legislature. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver was angry and disappointed with the government’s decision to proceed with the Site C hydroelectric dam, and called the New Democrats’ decision to remove tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges “reckless”. He also expressed disappointment when the NDP went back on a pledge to bring ride-sharing to the province by the end of 2017.

“But (Weaver) is not interested in forcing an election any time soon. It’s like a marriage. There are going to be some bumps along the way, but they’re still committed to the union,” Prince says.

The year ahead also holds a Vancouver municipal election, and the result of the BC Liberal leadership race.

“We could try to predict the forecast what 2018’s going to look like but we can be pretty confident there’s going to be something that will catch us all by surprise,” Prince says.