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Vaughn Palmer: Speaker breaks tie to advance NDP's mess of a budget

Opinion: Vote shows that, however bad this budget is, the B.C. NDP can manage with its bare, one-seat majority

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VICTORIA — The motion approved by the B.C. legislature shortly before noon on Thursday did not, on the face of it, communicate what was at stake for the NDP government and its budget.

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Framed in the arcane language of parliament, the motion said that “the Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into the committee of supply.”

Vaughn Palmer: Speaker breaks tie to advance NDP's mess of a budget Back to video

But “supply” meant a supply of money. The Speaker’s departure from the chair cleared the way for the house to tackle detailed debate on Budget 2026, having, in effect, approved it in principle overall.

Thus translated, the motion constituted the first and, in many ways, the key vote on the NDP budget.

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When passed, it confirmed that the government had the confidence of the house and could go on. If defeated, the government would have fallen, and B.C. would have been into an election.

All 46 New Democrats voted in favour. All 46 members on the opposition side — 39 Conservatives, two Greens and five independents — voted thumbs down.

That set the stage for Speaker Raj Chouhan to vote, something the speaker of the legislature only does in the event of a tie.

“The votes being equal, the chair must make a casting vote,” said Chouhan. “The motion is a confidence matter, and confidence of the house should not be decided at the sole vote of the chair. Therefore, the chair votes in favour of the motion, and the motion, therefore, is carried.”

While most MLAs cast their votes in person on the floor of the legislature, a half dozen voted by video-conferencing technology from their home offices under new rules adopted two years ago.

The change benefited members on both sides, particularly those who are ailing. On Thursday, three of those who voted from home — one government MLA and two from the Opposition side — had been reported on the sick list over the past year.

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Thursday’s outcome confirmed that for all the speculation that the government could be forced into an election by losing a vote, the NDP majority can carry the day on every vote.

Since the government decides when votes are called, the only way they would be defeated is if they can’t count. (But, in legislative practice, a government cannot be defeated by accident. If an NDP MLA misses a vote at the last minute, the government can conduct a do-over the next day.)

With that out of the way, NDP house leader Mike Farnworth reminded the house that there are three more confidence votes on the budget to come.

One is a Supply Act, authorizing the government to spend the first quarter of the budget, roughly $21 billion, on an interim basis. It has to pass by the March 31 end of the budget year.

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Also at stake are two Budget Measures Implementation Acts. One puts $400 million at cabinet’s disposal for favoured “strategic investments,” on grounds to be defined later.

The other, when passed, will implement a series of tax increases that will raise $4.2 billion over the next three years.

The biggest is the expansion of the provincial sales tax to professional services and some consumer goods, budgeted to bring in $1.5 billion. Then come increases in the base income tax rate and the end to indexing of brackets and credits. Together they are expected to net $2 billion.

Smaller but still significant changes in property-related taxes will collect much of the remaining $4 billion plus.

When passed, the Act will also “dissolve” the office of the merit commissioner, independent overseer of hiring, promotions and firing in the public service.

The bill also requires that “all the records of the office of the merit commissioner are transferred to the Ministry of Finance.” Including any confidential material from public servants bold enough to challenge the NDP decisions on hiring, firing and promotion?

Finance Minister Brenda Bailey has insisted that the office is no longer needed because it is no longer turning up evidence of abuse.

Never mind that the merit commissioner recently reported the highest level in a decade of hirings and promotions without merit and with other procedural errors.

When asked about those critical findings, Bailey won’t even acknowledge them. She takes refuge in a single finding that there were no cases of out and out patronage.

This from a finance minister who promised in advance of budget day that the deficit would be going down “year over year.” Instead, it went up and not by a small amount — almost $4 billion or 40 per cent.

She further suggested that she’d rejected advice to raise taxes, then went ahead and raised them by billions. She also said that spending was down, when it actually went up by $4 billion.

No wonder, when Bailey stumbled during question period last week and referred to the budget as “balanced,” the house hooted with derisive laughter.

She and her colleagues on the government side have the votes to get the budget and related legislation through the house. But not for decades has B.C. seen a budget this poorly communicated, confused, mismanaged and lacking in vision.

vpalmer@postmedia.com 

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