The May 9 B.C. election showed the incumbent BC Liberals with 43 seats, the BC NDP with 41 seats and the BC Green Party with three seats – and the balance of power.
Business group advocates sounded uneasy with the result, which is still subject to recounts and the counting of absentee ballots.
“Uncertainty is a big issue,” said BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association CEO Ian Tostenson.
“If the Greens hold the balance of power, I don’t know where they sit on the minimum wage. That’s a major issue.”
Indeed, it is unclear which party the Greens might support or what quid pro quo they might expect in return for that support. Some of the first things that the party may want to extract from the Liberals could be a hike in the carbon tax or a new system of road pricing – policies that play to the party’s political base.
“I think the Kinder Morgan pipeline might go sideways,” said Simon Fraser University marketing and strategy professor Lindsay Meredith.
“If the government’s survival depends on the Green party, guess what? They’re going to be sitting at the table on all key issues.”
