When will the next BC election be

[DL]

There is zero chance the Greens will force an election until after the referendum on electoral reform takes place and if it passes it will take a year or more for the new PR system to be implemented and proclaimed. For that reason I predict the next BC election will be in 2020

[DL]

Meanwhile, the Green Party will be EXTREMELY reluctant to cause an early election anytime before the electoral reform referendum and if the referendum passes they will be even more reluctant to cause an early election before the new PR system is implemented and ready to go...meaning that barring an NDP or Green MLA from a marginal seat suddenly dying - this government may well last right up to October 2021!

[DL]

The doomsday clock has just moved way back from midnight...the BC NDP managed to convince a BC Liberal Daryl Plecas to be speaker! Plecas has been expelled from the Liberal caucus, but what does he care, he gets a $50,000 raise lots of perks and probably had no intention of running again in the next election. This now gives the NDP and Greens even more breathing room since between Plecas being speaker and Christy Clark having resigned her seat the NDP+Greens now have 44 MLAS and BC Liberals have 41 (and it won't be 42 again for about 7 more months when Clark's Kelowna seat gets filled in a byelection).

So much for all the predictions about how impossible it would be for the NDP to form a stable government. I don't expect another BC election until 2020 at the earliest and maybe not until 2021!

[DL]

I saw an article by Martyn Brown suggesting the Greens-NDP agree to a 2020 fall election if the BC Liberals put up a speaker so I wonder if they cut that deal but we shall see. 

Clearly no "deal" was cut with the BC Liberals since they are all fuming and have apparently expelled Plecas from their caucus!

[DL]

Keep in mind that you cannot launch a recall petition until 18 months after the election AND the threshold is very high...meaning that even if Plecas was successfully recalled the earliest it could realistically happen would be summer 2019.

To the extent there was any deal between the NDP and Plecas personally, the deal would have been "you be agree to be speaker and in exchange you get a cushy job and an extra $50k per year" and if you are Plecas and already on the outs with your party - what's not to like?

[DL]

True enough on a personal level, but if you are someone who strongly believes in the principles of the BC Liberals philosophically, I fail to see how doing this is helpful that way nonetheless a lot of politicians are opportunists and no doubt the extra 50K is a big thing to encourage someone to do this. 

Yeah right and what "principles" are those??? We already learned in Clark's "clone speech" that she was more than willing to adopt the entire NDP platform in a desperate bid to stay in power and her party was willing to go along with it! Plecas sounds like a small "l" liberal federal Liberal type who probably just wants to side with whoever is in power.

[DL]

Considering how hyper partisan BC is, I suspect if you had the reverse where the BC Conservatives were propping up the BC Liberals and the NDP got more seats but not a majority and one of their members did this, they would be pretty outraged. 

If you had the reverse situation, could you ever imagine the outgoing NDP premier presenting a Throne Speech that was full of ultra rightwing measures from the BC Conservatives had in their platform? I can't