The NDP and the Green party have been in talks since the Oct. 19 B.C., election, as the NDP looks to shore up its narrow majority.
After almost two months of talks, the B.C. NDP have reached a deal for Green MLAs Jeremy Valeriote and Rob Botterell to support the government on confidence votes in exchange for collaboration on key priorities such as health care and environmental protection.
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The new deal, called the “co-operation and responsible government accord,” will give Premier David Eby and his government some stability after they won only a one-seat majority in the October provincial election.
Unlike the confidence-and-supply agreement reached between the NDP and the Greens in 2017, the new deal is set to be reviewed every year instead of a full four-year commitment and will include public quarterly progress reports. It also doesn’t require the Greens to vote with the NDP on every bill.
Both parties agreed that lessons were learned over the three years of the prior agreement, which ended being ripped up a year early by then-Premier John Horgan with the calling of the 2020 election.
“What we struck here was a balance where we focused on key initiatives and key priorities that are deliverables in a way to keep government stable for four years,” said Deputy Premier Niki Sharma.
“I would say all of the things in this agreement are a result of lessons from how we’ve worked together in the past. And I think it’s an important thing to think about a way that we can work together in the future from those lessons.”
Many of the specific policy points in the deal come almost directly from the NDP’s 2024 election platform, including the commitments to build 30,000 non-market housing units over 10 years; prevent clawbacks on the new Canada Disability Benefit; and expand both the shelter aid for elderly renters and the rental assistance programs.
Several items from the Green’s platform that Valeriote and Botterell were able to negotiate into the deal include the establishment of community health centres alongside urgent and primary health centres; the expansion of public medical coverage to include psychologists; and the establishment of regional transit on Vancouver Island and along the Sea to Sky Highway.
There are also provisions for a review of the NDP’s marquee Clean B.C. plan in 2025 by both parties; a review of B.C. forests amid continuing challenges in the forestry sector; and potentially the permanent protection of the Fairy Creek Watershed, although there remains no timeline on when that could happen.
“The agreement draws heavily on our platform’s four key areas: thriving people, resilient communities, a flourishing natural world, and healthy society and good governance,” said Valeriote.
“The structure of the agreement is intentional from both sides. It doesn’t restrict the B.C. Greens from holding government to account, but gives us an active role in delivering on specific priorities for British Columbians.”
One area of potential contention included in the document surrounds the issue of proportional representation, with the Greens having long supported a shift away from the current first-past-the-post system. The stipulation that a referendum be held on proportional representation was included in the 2017 agreement. It was ultimately held in 2018 and rejected by voters.
This time, the Greens have merely gotten the NDP to agree to forming an all-party committee to discuss the topic next year. Valeriote told reporters he hopes to keep the dream of changes to the electoral system alive.
“Our intent is to continue the conversation, to keep this in the public sphere, to continue to talk about solutions that hopefully all parties can agree on that will help increase voter turnout, help increase the amount of engagement and enfranchisement people feel in our democratic system,” he said.
Conservative Leader John Rustad told Postmedia News that the agreement simply shows the NDP have become even more beholden to the “green and woke agenda.”
He said Eby clearly hasn’t gotten the message about voters wanting the government to take a different approach.
“Here he is doing an agreement with the Greens to go even farther on the things that people were voting against on election night,” said Rustad. “The Greens are not interested in removing decriminalization. They want to expand it. The Greens are not interested in involuntary treatment for mental health. The greens are not interested in getting rid of the carbon tax.”