Despite the next provincial election being scheduled for May 2013, Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett confirms she recently received her provincial campaign package.
Barnett was asked to name her campaign team for the next election. However, the first-term MLA says she doesn’t think that’s an indication there will be a fall 2011 election.
It’s “normal” to receive those documents three or four months ahead to prepare just in case there is an election, Barnett explains.
“[Premier Christy Clark] doesn’t know if she is going to call a fall election, so I guess she just wants to be prepared because there’s a lot of [related] work to do. So, who knows whether there will be a fall election or not?”
With the recent failed recall attempts and the BC Liberal Party’s popularity running neck-and-neck with the opposition, and even if the government’s Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) survives the referendum, Barnett says she doesn’t know if these circumstances will affect Clark’s election decision.
The outcome of the HST referendum will be known in September, but Barnett says she expects the results will be close to an even split, and, therefore, it wouldn’t give her party the political confidence it might if 75 per cent of those who mailed in ballots voted in favour of retaining the HST.
Barnett didn’t comment on whether the party’s popularity polls would have an impact on the premier’s decision.
“I don’t pay much attention to them; polls can change overnight.”
It would be difficult to call an election this fall, she explains, as many people she has talked to in her travels working with the rural caucus committee have indicated they are “sick of elections.”
Barnett says she doesn’t want to see another election this year either.
“I don’t want an election. I feel we have a mandate and we have a job to do, and we should do it.”
