She knows it’s a little confusing.
Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall was informed via conference call of the historic agreement between the Greens and the NDP, but it took her a while to get her head around exactly how this is all going to work.
“What we have is an agreement that the NDP and the Greens will work together to put forward an agenda. That’s not to say we’re a coalition — they are their own distinct caucus, and will have the right to disagree with us on a variety of points,” Mungall told the Star.
“But they’ve put it in writing that they will support the New Democrats.”
The next step? All the NDP MLAs, including Mungall, will need to ratify and sign off on the agreement in Victoria. That was scheduled to happen Tuesday, but wasn’t complete by press deadline.
“No doubt Christy Clark will be very upset at this result,” she said.
“More of what she offered is not what British Columbians wanted, and that was clear when they voted overwhelmingly for new government.”
The ball is now in Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon’s court. Once she receives news of the agreement, it will be her call whether she approaches John Horgan or Christy Clark to form government.
“If she approaches Christy Clark, her first order of business will have to be a throne speech. There will be a confidence motion, and we will not support that. So then the Lieutenant Governor can decide whether to approach John Horgan or call an election.”
In other words: “There are still some ifs.”
She said if the NDP are successful, it will be easy to collaborate with the Greens because of the similarities between the two platforms.
“If you listen to Horgan and Weaver talk about their platforms together, it’s interesting to hear them pick distinct things that show how similar they are. For example: investing in the tech industry, rebuilding forestry and working on renewable energies.”
The thing they’re most passionate about? Proportional representation.
“The NDP and the Greens, we have a deep, deep desire to show British Columbians to see proportional representation and to show that minority governments can work, either through coalitions or agreements like they came to today.”