Frankly Speaking

CBC photo Premier John Horgan celebrates with new Nanaimo MLA Sheila Malcolmson, who won the Wednesday byelection with almost 50 percent of the vote. There are a few significant lessons to be pondered from the results of Wednesday’s byelection in Nanaimo. First and foremost - the NDP government is here to stay, likely for at least another year. Winning NDP candidate Sheila Malcolmson won almost 50 per cent of the vote, with final figures from the counting on Wednesday giving her 10,538 votes. Liberal candidate Tony Harris has 40.5 per cent of the vote, with 8,665. The most surprising and significant vote totals were posted by Michele Ney of the Green Party. She comes from a well-known political family, and the Green Party had close to 20 per cent of the vote in 2017. Her vote percentage was just over seven per cent, and she gained just 1,579 votes. It is obvious that most of the Green vote from 2017 migrated to the NDP and Liberals. Many Green voters from 201...

Darryl Plecas Update: Darryl Plecas spoke to The Abbotsford News' Tyler Olsen about his decision to become Speaker, shedding new light on how it all happened and on his conversation with BC Liberal interim leader Rich Coleman the night before the Legislature resumed sitting. The whole story can be read here . Darryl Plecas, MLA for Abbotsford South, surprised just about everyone today by running for and being elected Speaker of the B.C. Legislature. He represents Aldergrove in the legislature, as well as a large portion of Abbotsford. I think he will do a good job as Speaker. He has not joined the NDP or Greens - he is the Speaker, which is a non-partisan position and involves managing how the legislature operates. I have run into Darryl many times over the years, going back to our days at Douglas College in the 1970s. His family has a long history in the Fleetwood area of Surrey. He has had a great career as a criminology professor at the University of the Fr...

Grace McCarthy was one of the most influential B.C. politicians from 1966 to 1994, and a trailblazer for women in politics. Her death Wednesday comes at a time when B.C. politics is in turmoil. She was one of the last living persons to have served in the cabinet of Premier W.A.C. Bennett, who first came to power the last time B.C. voters elected a minority government - in 1952. It is symbolic that results of the closest election in B.C. history were finally confirmed on Wednesday, just hours before news of the death of Grace McCarthy became public. A younger generation won’t know McCarthy’s name, but she played a key role in B.C. politics for many years and almost certainly blazed the trail for the current generation of female politicians. Her work in uniting the right after the NDP were elected in 1972 under Dave Barrett was absolutely critical to the future of the Social Credit Party and its ideological successor, the BC Liberals. She served as deputy premier under Bill ...

Assessments on Surrey homes rose dramatically, due to a red-hot real estate market in the first part of 2016. Assessments are based on the actual value of homes as of July 1, 2016. It is a rare occasion when the homeowners’ grant becomes a hot political issue, but it was shaping up to do so in the run-up to the May 9 provincial election - until today. The reason is that many Metro Vancouver home owners, including a substantial number in Delta, Surrey and Langley and an even higher percentage in high-demand areas like White Rock, South Surrey, Tsawwassen and Fort Langley, could have lost their homeowner grants due to soaring assessments. In many areas of the South Fraser region, assessments rose close to 40 per cent over the 2016 figures. Some homeowners saw their assessments rise by much higher amounts. On Tuesday morning, the provincial government eased that possibility. (In my own neighbourhood, assessments rose dramatically. Interestingly, on one side of the street, the...