Selina Robinson announces that she is resigning from the BC NDP caucus to sit as an Independent
Age Old Maxim | A Week is a Lifetime in Politics | The Personal is Political
Yesterday afternoon — former British Columbia Finance Minister Selina Robinson in the administration of Premier John Horgan, and when removed from that post when the BC NDP caucus unanimously moved to make David Eby the leader of the party and British Columbia’s 37th Premier — resigned from the BC NDP caucus to sit as an Independent, citing anti-semitism within the BC NDP caucus.
From Katie DeRosa’s story in The Vancouver Sun …
Selina Robinson, B.C.’s most prominent Jewish politician, said she’s leaving the B.C. NDP caucus over concerns it hasn’t done enough to fight antisemitism among fellow MLAs.
The bombshell announcement Wednesday comes a month after Robinson was forced to resign from cabinet after public backlash to comments that Israel was founded on a “crappy piece of land with nothing on it.”
Robinson said she talked to the NDP caucus last week and then Premier David Eby today about instituting antisemitic and anti-Islamophobia training for all MLAs and opportunities to create a dialogue between the Jewish community and Palestinian and Arab communities amid the division created by the Israel-Hamas war.
Robinson said she was rebuffed.
“That’s really the work that we should be doing. But right now, government isn’t interested in doing that work.”
That’s what led Robinson to decide she “can’t continue to be the only voice speaking up against antisemitism and hatred.” She will sit as an Independent.
Selina Robinson means to burn some bridges on the way out — as Keith Baldrey pointed out on Global BC’s Newshour at 6 — with the release of a “blistering letter” condemning her colleagues for not doing enough to combat anti-semitism.
Says Baldrey, “(Selina Robinson) calls out and names seven of her fellow NDP MLAs for either anti-semitic actions or controversial comments concerning the Jewish community. These are explosive allegations.”
Selina Robinson ends the letter [pdf] to her now former colleagues, writing …
The nine NDP colleagues Ms. Robinson names, and accuses of anti-semitism, either by commission or omission, or she deems to be otherwise unsupportive …
- Aman Singh | Parliamentary Secretary for Environment
MLA for Richmond-Queensborough; - Katrina Chen | MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed;
- Mable Elmore | Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism Initiatives
MLA for Vancouver-Kensington; - Niki Sharma | Attorney General
MLA for Vancouver-Hastings; - Lisa Beare | Minister of Post-Secondary and Future Skills
MLA for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows; - Jennifer Whiteside | Minister of Mental Health and Addictions
MLA for New Westminster; - Jagrup Brar | Minister of State for Trade
MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood; - Janet Routledge | Parliamentary Secretary for Labour
MLA for Burnaby North; - Ronna-Rae Leonard
MLA for Courtenay-Comox
Make no mistake — whether Premier David Eby, his Chief of Staff, Matt Smith, or any of the Premier’s senior advisors choose to acknowledge such — less than 8 months out from the October 19th provincial election, the British Columbia New Democratic Party is in crisis, perhaps not so great as to cost them the election (although, it’s still early), but in bad enough shape with Selina Robinson’s announcement, are now set to win far fewer seats than most polls have predicted to date.
We’ll know the fall-out from the current NDP fiasco when new polling is released.
B.C. United party leader, Kevin Falcon, gleeful at the fortuitous turn of events for his party
The beneficiary of Selina Robinson’s announcement? B.C. United leader, Kevin Falcon, who with Ms. Robinson’s announcement on Wednesday effectively doubled the party’s probable seat count come election night.
Voters won’t vote for a divided party, for a party in crisis or disarray, a party focused on internal politics and not the business of the people.
Examples are legion.
Former Social Credit party leader, and Premier of the province of British Columbia, Bill Vander Zalm
After 36 years in power, from 1952 to 1991, with a brief three-year NDP interregnum from 1972 – 1975, British Columbia’s Social Credit party held the reins of power in Victoria. When the party fell into dysfunction, disorder and vicious internal in-fighting, with the forced resignation of then Socred Premier Bill Vander Zalm mid-term, in 1991 the Socreds lost 40 out of 47 seats, the Social Credit party dying soon after, never again to be seen on the B.C. political spectrum.
Sam Sullivan, one-term Non-Partisan Association, Mayor of the City of Vancouver, 2005 – 2008
In Vancouver, prior to the 2002 municipal election, Jennifer Clarke stole the Non-Partisan Association Mayoral nomination away from popular, sitting NPA Mayor Philip Owen. Ms. Clarke lost her bid to become Mayor in a landslide vote for novice COPE Mayoralty candidate Larry Campbell, the NPA losing 7 of their nine seats, all 7 of those seats won by COPE candidates for Council. The same thing happened to the NPA in 2008, when Peter Ladner took the NPA Mayoral nomination away from sitting Mayor Sam Sullivan. The NPA lost five of their 6 seats on Council.
Premier David Eby has to get his government’s house in order if the New Democratic Party plans on holding power post October 19, 2024.
If David Eby thinks his self-serving, off-putting, scurrilous, poorly conceived “Selina made a mistake” note above will go any way to resolving his and his government’s dispute with Selina Robinson, he’s dreaming in washed out shades of grey.
Anything short of an apology to Ms. Robinson, and the province, won’t do.
Note from VanRamblings: “It’s time to be a mensch, Mr. Premier. You like women. You trust women. You’re a good man. For the sake of your government, and in the interest of the people of British Columbia, you will have to get over of your barely concealed animus for Ms. Robinson, and do right be her. Nothing less will do.”
A Litany of Self-Inflicted, Own Goal BC NDP Disasters
Andrea Reimer, Vancouver-Little Mountain NDP nomination candidate & future Environment Minister
The roll-out of the campaign to elect Andrea Reimer — a certain future Minister of the Environment, should the NDP be re-elected in October — was little short of a disaster, with the unexpected entry of a sitting Vancouver City Councillor in the, now, race to secure the nomination in Vancouver-Little Mountain.
Mitzi Dean, one in a long line of failed British Columbia Ministers of Children and Family Development
Former Minister of Children and Family Development Mitzi Dean’s failure to keep an eye on her Ministry, as two Indigenous children in Chilliwack died on her watch.
The ongoing — not slated to end anytime soon — weeks’ long, badly mishandled by the Premier melodrama of former BC NDP Finance Minister Selina Robinson’s — for whom there is no love loss between the two, on either side — unfortunate and regrettable leave-taking from, first, Cabinet where she was Minister Responsible for Post Secondary Education, and now from the party itself … what a godawful, effin mess … that reflects badly on the Premier, his caucus and his government.
VanRamblings will have more to say on the matter, in the days to come.
A final, kind of sad note: yesterday, March 6th was Selina Robinson’s 60th birthday.