To the Editor,
Unlike some, I’m sorry to see Green party leader Andrew Weaver depart, as I feel B.C. overall has greatly benefited from his political presence.
When the 2017 B.C. election saw the centre-left electorate (about two-thirds of votes cast) split among the provincial Green Party and NDP, I initially saw it as a great misfortune, as it allowed the governing conservative BC Liberal Party to slither up the middle.
Soon after, however, when the elected NDP and Green MLAs joined forces to form an NDP/Green one-seat-majority coalition, I suddenly found it a best-case-scenario election outcome: the merger not only refreshingly replaced 16 long years of increasingly compromised BC Liberal rule with traditionally progressive NDP policies—it also forced the NDP minority government to implement some environmental protection measures I’m not sure it would’ve applied had it won the election on its own. Also, claims that the NDP had to cater to every Green demand were proven wrong when, for example, the controversial Site C Dam project went ahead over the Greens’ protestations.
And of course the corruption known as the B.C. legislature spending scandal came to shameful light only after the NDP/Green coalition unseated the BC Liberals, the party that still resists deeper investigation while long claiming fiscal responsibility.
Sadly, though, such infrequent coalitions are likely the closest we’ll get to a genuinely democratic proportional representative governance.
Frank Sterle Jr.,
White Rock, BC
