Vaughn Palmer: Amelia Boultbee jumping B.C. Conservative ship gives David Eby breathing room

Former Conservative MLA Amelia Boultbee has joined the B.C. NDP. Photo by Chad Hipolito /POSTMEDIA

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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby acquired some breathing room Friday with the announcement that Amelia Boultbee, a former Conservative MLA turned independent, is joining the NDP government caucus.

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Boultbee’s floor-crossing gets the NDP to 48 seats, three more than the combined B.C. Conservatives, Greens and remaining independents.

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It means Eby will have less need to rely on Speaker Raj Chouhan to cast tie-breaking votes on budget legislation and other designated matters of confidence.

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Boultbee quit the Conservatives last year, saying she had lost confidence in then-leader John Rustad. This year, she hinted she might return to the Opposition caucus under a new boss.

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On Friday, she said she was going with the NDP because of the Conservatives’ hard-right turn under new leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay.

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“What was promised as a big-tent party is getting smaller every day, with a new leader consumed with divisive Donald Trump-style populism than with the things that actually matter to people,” she told reporters.

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Eby paid tribute to Boultbee for “standing up for principle” and for her constituents in the riding of Penticton-Summerland.

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Her voting record in the recent legislative session is difficult to square with her sudden embrace of the NDP.

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Take what happened with the enabling law for the government’s landmark treaty with the K’omoks First Nation. Some Conservatives voted with the New Democrats on that one, but Boultbee did not.

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Boutbee also angered the Conservatives by supporting a government procedural motion to cut off debate on legislation to water down the Freedom of Information law.

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Then on final vote on the bill, she abandoned the NDP and sided with the Opposition parties, necessitating another tie-breaking vote from the Speaker.

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Amelia Boultbee

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Boultbee cast her most telling votes with the Opposition parties and against the NDP budget and related legislation — confidence matters by definition. Both times, the Speaker was pressed into service.

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She denounced the NDP budget and fiscal plan in scathing detail.

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“This budget asks British Columbians to accept a projected $13-billion-plus deficit as business as usual. It asks families to accept mounting debt as inevitable. And it asks small businesses, already struggling under inflation, rising input costs and public safety challenges, to accept new taxes on the very services they rely on to survive.

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“This is now one of the largest deficits in British Columbia’s history. Debt is climbing. Interest payments, money that does not build a single hospital bed or hire a single police officer, are consuming billions of dollars that could otherwise go to front-line services. That is not sustainable, it is not compassionate, and it is not responsible.”