The former leader of the BC Greens said the province only narrowly avoided an early election.
In a Saturday night tweet, Andrew Weaver said his former colleagues Sonia Furstenau and interim party leader Adam Olsen were unwilling to force an election over the LNG Canada development in northern B.C. The Coastal GasLink pipeline, part of an LNG Canada development that would bring natural gas to an export facility in Kitimat, caused months of protests and railway blockades sparked by the Wet’suwet’en, whose traditional territory the development travelled through.
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“I was ready to go to election, but in my opinion, they were more interested in re-election than they were about standing up for @BCGreen principles,” Weaver said.
My former colleagues @AdamPOlsen & @SoniaFurstenau were afraid to stand up to the BC NDP wrt to the LNG development. I was ready to go to election, but in my opinion, they were more interested in re-election than they were about standing up for @BCGreen principles.
— Andrew Weaver (@AJWVictoriaBC) May 24, 2020
The former party leader’s comments came shortly after he blasted Furstenau’s comments on Twitter. The Cowichan Valley MLA expressed support for New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s idea for a four-day work week amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is an absolutely kooky idea. We aren’t New Zealand,” Weaver said, accusing Furstenau of not having thought out her comments and calling it “classic decision-based evidence-making.”
Weaver left the Greens in January to sit as an independent in his Oak Bay-Gordon Head riding. At the time, he said sitting as an independent would better allow him to balance work and health demands that were affecting his family. He said he would remain committed to the stability of the NDP minority government and the Confidence and Supply Agreement, a deal signed between the NDP and the Greens in 2017 when the current government was formed.
“I remain committed to the stability of this minority government and to CASA [Confidence and Supply Agreement],” he said in a January statement.
READ MORE: BC Green Party MLA Andrew Weaver to step away from party, will sit as independent
Neither Olsen nor Furstenau have responded publicly to Weaver’s comments.
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