Opinion: And a tip of the hat to the dysfunctional B.C. Conservatives for making the fun possible, despite a government with as many failings as this one
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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby was asked recently about the possibility of an early election and admitted that, of course, he has thought of capitalizing on the dysfunctional state of the opposition.
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“There’s total chaos on the Conservative side right now,” Eby told reporters last week. “I won’t rule anything out.”
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The odds of him calling a vote later this year or early next? “I’m not going to speculate,” the premier replied. Then he added, “It’s kind of a fun question.”
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Fun is not a word that comes up often in discussing a government with as many failings as this one — from keeping emergency rooms open, to managing the drug crisis, to supplying the forest industry with fibre.
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Sunrise
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Then came Aug. 25, when the premier was asked about an error in this year’s budget regarding the major source of resource revenue — natural gas royalties.
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“I’m not familiar with any error in our budget related to oil and gas revenues,” replied Eby.
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The next day, the premier’s office put out a late-afternoon statement which confessed to an error approaching $1.5 billion in calculating natural gas royalties over the next five years.
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The largest budget hole in provincial history and the New Democrats tried to blame it all on faulty “arithmetic” and “human error”.
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Yet the premier himself was warned weeks earlier about the presence of “math errors” in the government calculation of natural gas revenues.
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Indigenous leaders, who were helping to develop a new natural gas royalty regime for B.C., put the concern in a letter delivered to Eby on July 14.
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The government admitted nothing publicly until reporter Stefan Labbé of Business In Vancouver smoked out the coverup at the Aug. 25 news conference.
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Still, Eby has every reason to think he can ride out this and other examples of government incompetence. And he can thank the B.C. Conservatives and their new leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay.
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The Conservatives did a good job holding the government to account earlier this year under interim leader Trevor Halford and an able group of MLA critics. Lately, they have mostly generated headlines about their own internal divisions.
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Findlay deserves the blame. She embarked on a purification drive that alienated many of the party’s most effective MLAs, staffers and political organizers.
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The other job of Opposition is to show itself as united and ready to govern. Only the most delusional internet troll would make such a claim for the Findlay-led Conservatives. (Although judging from the evidence online, there are more than a few of those in the ranks of Findlay supporters.)
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Then again, neither are Findlay’s opponents on the same page.
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Five former Conservative MLAs have banded together under the leadership of Peter Milobar to establish themselves as the third-largest party in the legislature when it convenes Oct. 5.
