Maybe it was the approach of Canada Day, which always induces mushiness in me, but that long Thursday last week that built to a change of government around about 8:23 p.m. was kind of moving.
There are lots of places around the world where this kind of thing involves violence. Here, all we had to endure was a comical obsession with arcane constitutional stuff for a few weeks. Then an official in what has been a figurehead role for generations made the decision of a lifetime, sent out a mass email and it was all over.
Everybody headed for the bars, not the weapons caches.
When your crisis involves passionate arguments on things such as whether the standing orders allow the Speaker to take part in committee-of-the-whole debates, you know this will play out safely in the end.
There were only two threats that I was aware of to the Canadian values of ‘‘peace, order and good government.” One was from irate Fairfield residents who wanted to shoot down the news chopper circling Government House during the drama of Premier Christy Clark’s meeting with Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon. The other was Times Colonist reporter Lindsay Kines’ fear during the stakeout that the dozens of curious Victorians milling around the front yard would start pelting us with Tilley hats if they didn’t like the decision.
Neither threat materialized. The worse we had to face was classic Victoria: a long harangue from a neighbour about the “real problem” everyone was ignoring — the deer at Government House.
Later, there was jubilation in some bars and resignation in others. There were two common feelings in all: exhaustion and a sense of marvel at what B.C. has just been through. B.C. set more Canadian political firsts in the few weeks leading up to the national birthday than it has in the 146 years since we signed on to Confederation. We deserved an extra slice of the cake during weekend festivities.
Last Thursday opened with BC Liberals running out the clock in the legislature, with their time in power being measured in hours, not days. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver tried to tackle Clark on her view the legislature doesn’t work any more with the one-seat margin. When he tried to encourage the BC Liberals to “read the columns in the paper today,” he got hooted down. Note to Weaver: That never works.
Earlier, Clark said Weaver had “decided to sit there and take orders from one of the major parties rather than making up his own mind. Nobody believes you any more.” They’ll probably patch things up in the new arrangement. Not.
She closed down the throne speech debate by saying it was a “sincere acknowledgment we didn’t get it all right.”
Her last words as premier in the 41st parliament were a defence of a plan that “reflects the best ideas from across the political spectrum… grounded in a commitment to keep people working, in a firm understanding that a strong economy provides the makings of a fair and equal and a compassionate society, one that makes us all proud to call ourselves British Columbians.”
It was rejected. So was she, three hours later.
She departed Government House. Moments later, NDP leader John Horgan, summoned by Guichon’s office the moment Clark was out the door, dropped by for a chat. He said: “She’s asked me if I have the confidence of the legislature to form a government, and I’ve told her that I do.” He’ll be sworn in shortly and the 41st parliament (2.0) will resume in September. Everybody in it will be shaped and changed by the election that took 51 days to produce a winner.
• Just so you know: BC Liberals were the big losers but they can take heart in the first email I got from a reader last Friday: “Just remember, it has taken two men to replace one woman.”
Les Leyne is a columnist with the Victoria Times Colonist.
