More than a week since the spring session of the British Columbia Legislature closed, and B.C. Greens leader Andrew Weaver is still shaking his head at the antics of the BC Liberal opposition.
The BC Liberals spent half the session on a misinformation campaign to blame Premier John Horgan for high gas prices. On May 30, the final day, they renewed their bid to overthrow Speaker Darryl Plecas while he was taking steps to protect information after data and documents had gone missing amid a police investigation of corruption at the Legislature.
BC Liberal house leader Mary Polak released notes from a private meeting she had the night before with Plecas and representatives of the other two parties.
“I don’t know how you rebuild trust when something like that happened,” Weaver said in an interview with theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin.
The Andrew Wilkinson-led party unsuccessfully offered to replace Plecas with one of their own.
Rookie MLA and assistant deputy speaker Joan Isaacs drew NDP jeers for defying Plecas (Hansard)
“As if somehow at this 11th hour the Legislature is going to trust the BC Liberals to do the right thing here, in light of the fact they’ve tried to politicize that position for so long,” Weaver said.
When that didn’t work, 37 BC Liberal MLAs read the same script to denounce Plecas. Four were absent and Penticton’s Dan Ashton ad libbed a plea for all parties to work together to rescue the Legislature.
Assistant Deputy Speaker Joan Isaacs, wearing her official robes, parroted the words first read by Abbotsford West MLA Mike de Jong.
Weaver has called for Isaacs to resign for disrespecting the office of the speaker. Isaacs did not respond to theBreaker for comment.
“Wearing the robes to essentially say that you’re distancing yourself from your office, leaves only one question: why are you still in that office? Frankly I don’t see how she can continue to serve as assistant deputy speaker.”
Listen to more from Weaver, the leader of the party that helped the NDP put an end to the BC Liberal dynasty almost two years ago. Weaver is also the MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head who occupies the same seat in the chamber that the late Rafe Mair occupied in the latter half of the 1970s.
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