Lawsuit claims BC NDP Leader John Horgan’s snap election call broke the law

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A non-partisan group plans to argue in court that BC NDP Leader John Horgan broke the law when he made the “hypocritical, self-interested move” to call a snap election this fall.

Democracy Watch will file a petition in B.C. Supreme Court this week, asking a judge to declare Horgan violated a section of the province’s Constitution Act that requires fixed elections every four years, according to the group’s co-founder, Duff Conacher.

He said the lawsuit won’t try to stop the election from going ahead this Saturday, but he hopes it sets a precedent future premiers have to follow.

“Hopefully the courts will find that it’s illegal, because by calling a snap election instead of waiting for the fixed election date a year from now, Premier Horgan is acting like an old dictator, not a New Democrat,” Conacher said.

If the court rules Horgan’s advice to the lieutenant governor requesting a snap election was legal, he said the law will need to be strengthened to prevent any future unscheduled votes, Conacher said.

Democracy Watch filed a similar lawsuit in 2009, asking the Federal Court to declare former prime minister Stephen Harper’s 2008 snap election call violated a fixed election law passed by Parliament the previous year. The lawsuit failed, in part, because the court ruled there was no constitutional convention of fixed elections because the new law had not yet been put into practice.

Conacher said he hopes his B.C. lawsuit is more successful because the province’s fixed-election legislation has been in place and followed for four elections since 2001 – bolstering his argument that there’s a constitutional convention.

He also said he plans to file a lawsuit in New Brunswick, where Premier Blaine Higgs called a snap election that returned his Progressive Conservative Party to power last month.

But Simon Fraser University political science professor Stewart Prest said he expects the lawsuit to fail.

While the Constitution Act does state an election “must occur on the third Saturday in October in the fourth calendar year” after the last vote, he said the preceding clause, which states the lieutenant governor can dissolved the Legislature and call an election when she or he “sees fit” is ultimately what matters.

Prest said the dismissal of the 2008 case may not be fully binding in the B.C. lawsuit, but it does make it unlikely to succeed.

“The case was dealt with quite summarily, so there’s precedent there,” he said.

Questions of constitutional convention are not usually arbitrated in the courts, Prest said. Instead, they’re solved at the ballot box.

Both the Greens and Liberals have criticized Horgan for calling an election during the COVID-19 pandemic and have argued it shows his New Democrats don’t deserve to be given a majority in the Legislature.