In two days, the eight-seven new, and in most cases returning, members of the British Columbia legislature will be sworn into office for the next term.
The newly-elected British Columbia New Democratic Party caucus is comprised of a record 29 distaff members, which means that more than half of the NDP’s 57 member caucus are women — good on the BC NDP, and a hearty congratulations to all new female members of the NDP caucus.
John Horgan has made various announcements leading up to Wednesday …
-
Cabinet, part 1. The new Cabinet, as was the case with the NDP’s most recent Cabinet, will be comprised of 50% women and 50% men — for which we have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his trusted advisors, Gerald Butts and his continuing Chief of Staff, Katie Telford to thank.
- Cabinet, part 2. The new BC NDP Cabinet will be sworn in on Thursday. Here’s what we know for sure as of this writing. Contrary to VanRamblings speculation last month that David Eby would become the new Minister of Housing — well, that’s off the table, given that Premier Horgan let it slip that Selina Robinson will maintain her dual role as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Minister Responsible for Housing. Now, we know for sure that David Eby will not continue as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, given that Mr. Horgan let it slip that newly-elected NDP MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head would take on that role. Where does that leave the NDP caucus’ beloved David Eby? We’ll know on Thursday.
Meanwhile, though, this morning, the hapless B.C. Liberal party will be leaderless, given that Andrew Wilkinson stepped down from that role over the weekend. Update: Shirley Bond was selected as the Interim leader of the B.C. Liberals in a vote of the 28 Liberal caucus, early afternoon Monday.
Let’s use successful example of 2015 Tories post-Harper, who successfully appointed #RonaAmbrose as interim leader.
1. Leader must be a woman
2. Must command respect of the caucus
3. Clear experience in Legislature
4. Likable, media savvy & resilientGuesses? @bcliberals https://t.co/w7jUZ3Nyqp
— Mike Klassen (@MikeKlassen) November 22, 2020
As for the Greens, the party didn’t achieve their much-desired first seat on the Lower Mainland, with the Green candidate for West Vancouver Sea-to-Sky going down to defeat to incumbent B.C. Liberal, Jordan Sturdy, in a close race, confirmed in a recount. Still, there’s good news for B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau, and her Green Party colleague, Adam Olsen — John Horgan has agreed to afford the Green Party official party status in the B.C. Legislature, which means millions of dollars in funding to the party.
How Elections Are Won | Some Reasons for NDP Success
-
Nominated candidates in all 87 electoral districts.
- Created more than 2,000 online ads (in 9 languages).
- Earned more than 47,000,000 views on their digital ads.
- Sent more than 300,000 text messages to British Columbians.
- Trained 750 volunteers to call people all over B.C. and got out the vote during 2,479 volunteer-driven shifts!
- Distributed more than 10,000 lawn signs.
- Printed more than 150,000 leaflets.
- Ran 5 television ads non-stop for a month.
A great deal of work goes into mounting a successful political campaign.
Now onto the stuff you really care about: the $1,000 for couples, and the $500 for individuals that Mr. Horgan had promised during the recent election campaign. Good news? The money is on its way. When the Legislature is called back into session on December 7th, the first order of business will be to enable the government to shovel that money out the door. In the spring, the BC NDP government gave most British Columbians $180 in a non-taxable Climate Action grant to households with a combined of under $125,000, money that was either deposited directly into your bank account, or mailed to you. The expectation is that monies will be deposited into your bank account on Christmas Eve (and, no, we’re not kidding), or will arrive by January 5th by snail mail — happy, happy days!
