Like James Brown doing his famous cape routine during a closing number of “Please, Please, Please,” Premier Christy Clark just doesn’t seem ready to leave the stage.
This week, Clark appointed her cabinet, including our own West Vancouver-Sea to Sky MLA Jordan Sturdy as environment minister. The new ministers get a commensurate bump in salary but they’ll likely all be fired before their new business cards get back from the printers. The legislature will convene for a speech from the throne on June 22 – six weeks since the election – and it’s been made amply clear John Horgan’s NDP and Andrew Weaver’s Green MLAs will defeat the government and form a new one at the first available opportunity.
This new Kabuki throne speech is promising a new “urban agenda” totally contrary to what the Liberals campaigned on just one month ago. Our new minister for TransLink Sam Sullivan has done an about face on the Liberals’ insistence that new TransLink funding would require another referendum. So why the conversion on the SkyTrain to Damascus?
One could speculate the premier still has some procedural judo in mind that might extend the life of her government, even by a few months. It could be she is trying desperately to poach just one opposition MLA, giving her a majority government. Most likely is that Clark sees the fragility of the government in waiting and wants to position herself better for the next election, which could be just months away. Indeed, even the NDP is asking donors for election money.
In any case, we should leave the long goodbyes and theatrics to performance artists.
It’s time to get down to business.
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