{"id":105822,"date":"2017-06-16T00:39:18","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T04:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=105822"},"modified":"2017-06-16T00:39:18","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T04:39:18","slug":"b-c-liberals-wont-prop-up-ndp-government-with-a-speaker-de-jong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/06\/16\/b-c-liberals-wont-prop-up-ndp-government-with-a-speaker-de-jong\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. Liberals won’t ‘prop up’ NDP government with a Speaker: De Jong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"De<\/a>
De Jong (pictured) said outside the Vancouver cabinet offices Thursday that the request is `”bizarre” and signals a sense of desperation from the opposition. (Photo<\/a>: Michael De Jong\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VANCOUVER\u2014British Columbia Liberal House Leader Mike de Jong says it is not his party’s responsibility to provide a Speaker in order to \u201cprop up\u201d an arrangement between the NDP and Greens.<\/p>\n

New Democrat Leader John Horgan has suggested that if his party were to form a minority government with the support of the Greens, a Liberal Speaker could remain in the seat to avoid tie votes in the legislature.<\/p>\n

De Jong said outside the Vancouver cabinet offices Thursday that the request is \u201cbizarre\u201d and signals a sense of desperation from the opposition.<\/p>\n

He said he thinks the NDP and Greens are now realizing how unstable a government would be if they go ahead with plans to vote out the Liberals in a confidence motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe practical workability of that agreement is very much in doubt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

No party won a majority of seats in the 87-member legislature in last month’s election. Because the Liberals won the most seats, at 43, the party gets the first chance at forming government.<\/p>\n

The New Democrats won 41 seats, while the Greens took three, and the two parties reached an agreement to work together in a minority government.<\/p>\n

If another election is called because the government fails, de Jong said it would stem from the instability created by the NDP-Green agreement.<\/p>\n

At a news conference in Victoria, Green Leader Andrew Weaver said a Speaker is supposed to be an independent officer of the legislature and de Jong’s assertions that the Speaker would either help or hinder a governing party is an example of the Liberals’ political games.<\/p>\n

Weaver said the Liberals are creating a \u201cdistraction\u201d by raising issue with who should fill the role in a transition government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is nothing more than to work the people of British Columbia in to a tizzy about a non-existent crisis. The whole issue of the Speaker is irrelevant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

De Jong also denied Horgan and Weaver’s claims that the Liberals are dragging their feet to reconvene the legislature, saying the session is beginning early compared with other May elections.<\/p>\n

He noted that two weeks were needed to recount votes for close ridings and confirm which party formed government.<\/p>\n

Once a Speaker is selected, de Jong said a priority will be to deliver the throne speech, followed by the required debate before the expected confidence vote for the Liberal government.<\/p>\n

But Weaver said there’s no reason why a vote couldn’t be held the day after the throne speech is delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all about the deliberate political ploy to distract and delay from the inevitable. It’s a government desperate to hold on to power it has lost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER\u2014British Columbia Liberal House Leader Mike de Jong says it is not his party’s responsibility to provide a Speaker in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":105823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","category-politics","mauthors-linda-givetash","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}