B.C. Premier David Eby holds a news conference following the oath ceremony at the legislature in Victoria, on Nov. 13.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
For the second time in seven years, the BC Green Party has agreed to support an NDP government, signing a confidence pact with binding promises on policies and greater oversight of provincial legislation.
The two parties announced the four-year agreement Friday, touting the major policies they agreed upon that dedicate more than $200-million in spending – but with the understanding that this deal will be renewed annually by both parties.
The agreement bolsters the NDP’s razor-thin majority after the October election. The NDP holds 47 seats to the BC Conservatives’ 44 and the Greens have two.
It lists a raft of policies the parties see as “deliverables” next year, including: opening community health centres to improve primary care access; a $50-million annual plan to subsidize people buying heat pumps for their homes; protecting, buying or building 30,000 units of non-market housing starting with a quarter being secured next year; spending $50-million to expand public coverage of visits to psychologists; and creating new bus routes along three major highways.
The Greens will vote with the NDP in support of all these policies and also be privy to detailed briefings as the government crafts and delivers its budgets.
Niki Sharma, Deputy Premier and Attorney-General, told reporters in Vancouver Friday that in order to reach this new pact, both parties had to have frank discussions about what went right and wrong with the previous deal, which former NDP premier John Horgan prematurely tore up in 2020 to call a snap election. In that vote, the New Democrats gained a solid majority and the Greens lost one of their three seats.
“I know that we’ll have differences of opinions moving forward, but the fact that we can show a pathway where two political parties – in a time of great polarization – can come together for British Columbians is a profound thing,” she said.
Jeremy Valeriote, a rookie Green MLA for the riding of West Vancouver–Sea to Sky, said at a separate news conference in Victoria that his party pushed hard for the annual renewal of the agreement in negotiations over the past two months as a way to hold the NDP accountable. He also noted that the Greens secured the commitment of public quarterly progress reports on the 18 policies identified in the pact.
The Greens regarded Mr. Horgan’s snap election call four years ago as a betrayal.
“We did take a lot of those lessons and put them into this discussion,” said Mr. Valeriote.
The Greens maintain that they will continue to vote independently on areas not mentioned in the deal where the two parties clash, such as the New Democrats’ support for certain LNG export projects or its pledge to expand the use of involuntary care for people battling mental illness, addictions and problems with aggression.
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad said on election night in October that his party would try to bring down the New Democrats as soon as possible. He doesn’t see the agreement doing much in terms of stabilizing the current government when the legislature sits again in the new year.
“The difference between 47 [NDP MLAs] plus two Greens without a deal versus 47 plus two Greens with the deal is irrelevant: I don’t think there was a chance that The Greens were going to be eager to take down the NDP,” he told The Globe and Mail in a phone interview Friday.
Still, the agreement does make the mechanics of governing easier for the NDP, since they won’t have to ensure every single member is in the legislature on the days they want to pass new laws. It is pressure that wears on bare majority governments, according to Stewart Prest, a political-science lecturer at the University of B.C.
And, he said, it also allows the NDP to sidestep the controversy of the Speaker of the House, NDP MLA Raj Chouhan, repeatedly breaking ties to vote in favour of legislation, which is atypical.
The Greens, meanwhile, have secured progress on many important priorities while making the agreement “as politically painful as possible for the NDP to walk away from,” Dr. Prest said Friday.