Doug Donaldson will be a member of the governing party for the first time as Stikine MLA after the BC Green Party agreed to support a minority BC NDP government with John Horgan as Premier.
“People in B.C. voted overwhelmingly for a change of government and didn’t want to have more years of Christy Clark and the BC Liberals being the government, so I’m looking forward to form a government in partnership with the B.C. Greens,” said Donaldson shortly after landing in Victoria Monday afternoon.
He was on his way to an NDP caucus meeting meant to ratify the agreement. The three Green Party MLAs already signed the deal, according to Green leader Andrew Weaver.
Donaldson said he believed the Greens and NDP were a good fit.
“Most of their policies line up with the ones that we’ve put forward during the campaign. And again, between the number of votes for BC Greens in the province and the number of votes for the NDP and the seats that we have, we’ve got a pretty solid message from the people that they want a change in government, and that’s what we’re going to provide and we’re going to look out for the interests of people on the issues we ran on, and affordability in the North being one of them, for sure,” he said.
Proportional representation was in both parties platforms and Donaldson said that will happen. When asked, he said geographic representation need not be lost in a proportional system meant to give more balance to which party was voted for.
“Well, there’s many ways to get to a different system than the one we have now, and many iterations of proportional representation,” he said, adding details are to be worked out.
“I think that’s exciting too because we need more participation in our electoral system and many people don’t vote because they don’t feel their vote makes a difference. If we can change that then we’ll have more of a participatory democracy.”
The MLA for Stikine, which stretches from the Yukon and Alaskan borders to Quick, said he sees an opportunity for more representation for the North.
“That’s what I’ve been doing for the last eight years, and to be able to be part of a governing minority government is going to enable me to be even more forceful in trying to put forward the interests of the people in the North — and (North Coast NDP MLA) Jennifer Rice as well. We’ve got good representation and I know I have good contacts with people across the North from all backgrounds, so that’s the kind of person I want to be in the new government: is somebody who can represent all viewpoints and put them forward, but northern viewpoints first and foremost,” said Donaldson.
He was then asked if LNG is dead.
Weaver said Monday that he wanted to focus on “21st century” jobs and this year reiterated his belief that the LNG industry is part of the “old economy.”
“Well, I’m not going to comment on the details until we release them tomorrow. So we can talk more on that tomorrow after the caucus meeting, for sure,” said Donaldson.
A lot of details on how the arrangement is going to work has yet to come out, and Donaldson expects to be meeting for the better part of the day Tuesday.