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Kootenay West MLA Katrine Conroy responds to final count

The final results of the B.C. election are in, but it’s unclear who will form government.
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Kootenay West MLA Katrine Conroy anxiously awaited the election results back on election night, and she’s still waiting to find out what will happen now that the Liberals are officially one seat short of a majority government. (Chelsea Novak/file photo)

With files from Tom Fletcher

The final results of the B.C. election are in, but it’s unclear who will form government.

After 15 days of waiting for the final vote count, not much changed: the BC Liberals have 43 seats, the BC NDP has 41 and the BC Greens are counting three seats and hold the balance of power.

Now everyone is waiting to see which of the other parties the Greens will side with, including our local MLA, Katrine Conroy.

“We still aren’t sure what’s going to happen because the negotiations are still happening about what the three Green members are going to do. Whether they’re going to back up a Christie Clark government or whether they want to support a John Horgan government, so we’re just waiting to see,” she said.

Conroy says the BC NDP and BC Greens started meeting last Friday and have continued to meet.

For his part, BC Greens leader Andre Weaver has said that he wants to provide “certainty” for voters by the time the writs of election are officially returned next Wednesday.

In the event that the Greens side with the NDP, it’s expected that the two parties would vote to defeat the Liberals’ pre-election budget.

Conroy says the NDP have a caucus meeting scheduled for next week and the budget will be discussed, but for her part, she finds there’s a lot to be desired.

“It didn’t address a lot of the issues, especially with education in our region, with post-secondary education. It didn’t address issues around health care, you know, the actual operating issues around health care — things like waiting lists,” she said. “It didn’t really address issues with the forest industry. There was nothing there for… what are they going to do about softwood lumber.”

In a statement released after the final count, Christie Clark said, “The final result reinforces that British Columbians want us to work together, across party lines, to get things done for them.”

But Conroy isn’t convinced.

“I’ve been in the legislature since 2005 and I watched Gordon Campbell and I’ve watched Christie Clark and also I’ve watched the Liberals for a number of years, and to hear her start to say that we have to all work together, when she wouldn’t do that — like they’ve never done that,” she said. “We’ve introduced a number of really good bills in the legislature and they’ve never supported them.”