Skip to main content

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

THE ARMCHAIR MAYOR -- If Horgan calls a snap election, he doesn’t deserve to win

The last provincial election in BC was just over 3 years ago ...
 

 

Shared with permission – originally posted in CFJC Today


SPECULATION IS RAMPANT that Premier John Horgan will announce a provincial election tomorrow. It might just be the media feeding off each other but it certainly feels like a possibility.

Only a couple of weeks ago I was predicting that Horgan wouldn’t be so foolish, but let’s look at the implications of an early election.

He doesn’t have to face a provincial vote for another year, so why would he pull the trigger now? Because, the pundits say, he’s so far ahead in public opinion surveys that even if there was a backlash against an election, he has enough cushion to get a comfortable majority.

New Brunswick went to the polls this week and handed the incumbent minority government of Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs a fresh majority. Obviously, a snap election in the middle of the pandemic wasn’t a concern for voters there.

The thinking goes that this will embolden Horgan to follow suit.

A majority would unfetter him from his alliance with the BC Greens, who would lose their disproportional clout and return to the wilderness.

All this must be very tempting to Horgan, who has refused either to rule out an election call or to confirm one.


Until now.

But those reasons are about opportunistically grabbing power for another full term, not about the best interests of British Columbians. 

New Brunswick is a tiny province with less than a fifth of the population of BC — the challenges of holding an election here during this (COVID-19) pandemic are much greater than in New Brunswick.

That said, Dr. Bonnie Henry says BC can handle an election. The main objection, though, is that there’s no obvious rationale for it.

Horgan can certainly manufacture some phoney baloney about needing a new mandate in troubled times, but we all know that would be BS.

If he calls an election now, he doesn’t deserve to win.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger ... is a former mayor of Kamloops and former newspaper editor. He publishes the Armchair Mayor opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GORDON F. D. WILSON: When The Trick Masquerades as The Treat

Thirty-seven years ago, Halloween 1987, I became the leader of the BC Liberal Party.   British Columbia was badly polarized. Social Credit held one side and the NDP the other. It had been twelve years, 1975, since Liberal MLAs Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Alan Williams had walked away from their party to join Social Credit, one year after the lone Progressive Conservative MLA Hugh Curtis had abandoned his party to sit with Bill Bennett, the son and heir apparent to long-serving BC Premier, WAC Bennett.   An unwritten agreement by the biggest Canadian political shareholders, the federal Liberals and Conservatives, decided that if British Columbia was to remain a lucrative franchise from a revenue perspective, they couldn’t risk splitting the electoral vote and electing the real enemy, the NDP, so no resources would be used to finance either a Liberal or Conservative party provincially.   “There are two sides to every street,” I was told by a very prominent Canadian businessman who cont

FORSETH: As a BC Conservative member, and campaign worker, I will again state that the fact these errors were found -- AND brought to light BY Elections BC -- shows the system IS working

Sadly, two and a half weeks after the BC provincial election campaign, those who want to undermine our political process are still at.  PLUS, we also have one who doesn’t even live in our country, never mind our province. I speak of the buffoon running for President of the United States, who has poisoned the well when it comes to faith in the electoral process. Just today alone, comments such as the following, were being made of posts that I shared online: ... all the votes they keep finding has just favoured NDP on in all critical ridings and soon they will flip another riding in favour of NDP, Come on. ... Elections BC has ridiculed British Columbians, and I no longer have confidence or trust in their process and competence regarding the results Then there are others online, with comments like these – who are claiming fraud in the October 19th election: ... Who is the oversight for Elections BC? They should be investigated for election fraud! ... Fraudulent election ... should be red

Rob Shaw: Eby should be worried why mudslinging missed the mark in B.C. election

  Why did a BC NDP election campaign overwhelmingly focused on attacking the character of the BC Conservatives fail to prevent a blue wave that came within 27 votes of toppling the governing party? Partly because voters didn’t much care for, or about, all the New Democrat mudslinging. They were just hopping mad about some very specific issues ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Labels

Show more