Eby says B.C. Greens not yet ready for minority talks as Furstenau stays Green leader

Premier and NDP Leader David Eby says he’s been told by the B.C. Green Party that it’s too early to begin talks about a minority government agreement after the weekend’s still-undecided provincial election.

Recounts in two ridings and a tally of 49,000 absentee and mail-in ballots that are set to begin this Saturday will hold the key to the outcome, with both the NDP and the B.C. Conservatives falling short of the 47 ridings needed to form a majority after the initial count ended on the weekend.

“It is very likely we would need the support of other MLAs to pass legislation, to do the work we need to do,” Eby said Tuesday at his first news conference since Saturday’s election.

The initial tally has the NDP elected or leading in 46 ridings, John Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives elected or leading in 45, and the Greens winning two ridings in B.C.’s 93-seat legislature.

The closeness of the race raises the prospect of a minority government involving Green support.

“The Greens have advised us that they’re not ready yet to engage in those conversations,” Eby said. “But we’re preparing right now to hit the ground running.”

He said the NDP is getting ready for either a minority or majority government, and “we’ll see where the votes end up.”

“We are organizing and preparing if the count does go towards a minority parliament or a majority parliament, that we are able to deliver for British Columbians,” he said.

“If we’re sent back to parliament with a minority or with a majority my commitment is very straightforward — I’m going to make that parliament work for British Columbians.”

In the ridings of Surrey City Centre and Juan de Fuca-Malahat, NDP candidates hold slim leads of less than 100 votes, forcing manual recounts that will begin this Saturday and could last until Monday. The absentee and mail-in votes will also be counted on the same days.

To win a majority, the Conservatives will likely need to win both recounts and all other ridings they currently lead. Failing that, the NDP would be in a position to attempt to form a minority government with Green support, assuming it doesn’t snatch another riding where the Conservatives hold a lead.

A minority deal between the Greens and Conservatives could be less likely because of ideological differences.

The Greens said in a statement Tuesday before Eby’s news conference that Sonia Furstenau would stay on as party leader, despite losing her seat in the legislature on Saturday.

The party’s two newly elected MLAs, Jeremy Valeriote and Rob Botterell, support Furstenau’s leadership as they “navigate the prospect of having the balance of power in the legislature,” said the statement.

Furstenau later announced a media availability on Wednesday, her first since election night. Eby said he had reached out to her that night with congratulations on the Greens’ showing.

Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives went from taking less than two per cent of the vote in 2020 to the brink of power, and on election night he said the party would look for the first opportunity to topple an NDP minority government and force another election.

Eby suggested the NDP would seek to return to the legislature as soon as possible once the official vote count is decided, but he did not offer a date.

The NDP went into the election with 55 ridings, a comfortable majority in what was previously an 87-seat legislature. The B.C. Conservatives went in with five, all of them having been previously elected under the BC Liberal banner, including Rustad.

His rise came after he was thrown out of the Liberals, joined the Conservatives, was acclaimed leader, and steered them to a level of popularity that led to the collapse of his old party, now called BC United — all in just two years.

On Monday night, Rustad took to social media to describe his origin story as leader of the party, describing how he was kicked out of the Liberals on his birthday in August 2022, over his support for a climate change skeptic.

He says he considered retiring, but his wife, Kim, convinced him to stay in politics and his friend Azim Jiwani suggested a meeting with the Conservatives’ executive director, Angelo Isidorou, at a pub in Vancouver.

Rustad says they “shared a pint of Guinness” and discussed breathing life into a new party that would give “grassroots voters a new option for genuine change.”

— With files by Brenna Owen

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.

Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press