BC; where things stand

On Thursday, the BC government will almost certainly fall to a VONC.

As outlined earlier, this is all part of the plan.

Yesterday the Coalition (of the Greens and BC NDP) voted down some bills proposed by the Liberals, including one to ban union and corporate donations.

The rationale is simple on both sides.

Clark wants another election. Horgan wants a working majority within this legislature.

I will attempt to write this as a flowchart.


VONC -> Speaker Resigns

This is all but certain, and has been addressed.

This is where things get complicated

VONC and Speaker Resigns
|
Clark suggests a snap election
OR
Nobody steps forward to be new speaker; this will result in a snap election
OR
Coalition puts forward a speaker

IF there is a coalition speaker, the following may happen:

Coalition puts forward a speaker
|
Speaker votes in favour of enough bills to all the Coalition to govern
OR
Speaker votes against all bills including budgets and causes government to collapse
OR
Speaker votes for budgets, throne speeches, and VOCs but against all else
OR
MLA resignation, death, or defection causes the Coalition to gain a majority
OR
MLA resignation, death, or defection causes the Liberals to hold a majority of non-speaker seats (if this happens they will almost certainly call an election)

Of these options, the first would be extremely controversial. The second would be highly likely, and cause an election, and the third is a possibility and could see an election avoided for the time being.

However, Clark is attempting to rule out some of these options. To do this she will have the current Liberal speaker make a ruling on how the next speaker should act.

Clark's objective is to get into an election without being seen as forcing one. Ruling out having a speaker vote for Coalition bills is perhaps the best way to do that as it leaves very few other options for the Coalition.


In short, nearly every possible path this could take lead to "snap election" and the 'drama' of the situation is in seeing if the Coalition can possibly avoid that outcome.