Green party only thinking of their salaries
Andrew Weaver and Sonia Furstenau are two of a kind. Why? The B.C. Green party held the balance of power in the current legislature after the last B.C. provincial election.
Green party leader, Andrew Weaver, was elected to the legislature in 2013 and had four years of MLA service to his record, before the next election call in 2017. An MLA needs to serve at least six years as an MLA in the legislature to qualify for basic MLA pension. Andrew Weaver won his MLA seat in the 2017 provincial election and would now qualify for basic MLA pension after another two years in the legislature. Andrew Weaver made sure that he did not want another provincial election until he qualified for MLA pension.
This is the reason that he allowed John Horgan to proceed with all of the financial mess that the NDP minority government has created. Now that he qualifies for MLA pension, he has resigned as leader of the B.C. Green party. B.C. Green party MLA Sonia Furstenau has made public announcements that she is considering to put her name forward in competition for Green party members to elect a new leader. Once again, Sonia is only putting her name forward because of the extra increase in her taxpayer funded wage salary. Presently she earns $111,024.19 for her MLA seat and an extra $11,102.42 for the duties of the third party house leader. Total wages for her is $122,126.61. If she wins the nomination for leader of the B.C. Green party, her wage salary will increase another $16,653.63 to total wages of $138,780.24. In the political history in B.C., the third party in the legislature had to have at least four elected MLAs to get extra wages, as third party leader, and third party house leader.
As premier John Horgan is premier of a minority government with only a two seat majority which includes three Green party MLAs over the opposition party, B.C. Liberal party, John Horgan changed the four seat ruling for third party and approved the four seat ruling to apply to the three Green MLA seats. Why? With a minority government, this was good insurance for himself to consider the Green party not to defeat his government and for B.C. to have another provincial election.
It seems that the NDP have no consideration of how they spend taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers in the electoral ridings of Saanich North and the Gulf Islands, Oak Bay-Gordon Head, and the Cowichan Valley elected B.C. Green party MLAs to obtain a third party say in the legislature. This did not happen with the performance of the three Green party MLAs as they were selfish only thinking of their taxpayer funded wages, and agreeing to letting the NDP do as they wish. Their performance guarantees that B.C. will not elect one B.C. Green party MLA in the next provincial election. Why? With the Green party holding the balance of power they could have stopped John Horgan right in his tracks, in preventing outrageous, non researched tax increases, now being absorbed by B.C. taxpayers.
Number one issue with Weaver was to make sure he qualified for basic MLA pension and Furstenau only thinking of more pay in her wages if she was to become leader of the B.C. Green party. The term, “Once a sucker, always a sucker”, applies to all B.C. taxpayers that voted for the B.C. Green party in the above mentioned electoral ridings with Green party MLAs, being elected. Unbelievable!
Joe Sawchuk
Duncan