It has been a month of amateurish politics starting with the government posting the auditor-general’s job. Then this week the government backed down several steps to keep from ejecting the well-respected A-G John Doyle from his chair with an attempt at saving face by changing the legislation surrounding his appointment. As if they meant to do that anyway.

But there’s something fishing about how the premier backed down this week. Take a look:

In a move described by critics as a massive flip-flop and policy making on the fly, Clark on Wednesday proposed legislative changes to the Auditor General’s Act while also expressing her “hope” that the three Liberal MLAs on the committee would vote to reappoint Doyle for another two years.

– via B.C. Premier Clark asks auditor-general John Doyle to stay on for two more years

The A-G appointment must be done by unanimous consent of the responsible legislative committee, that is majority-led by the government. Yet the premier indicated [in bold above] that she hopes her MLAs on the committee will reappoint Doyle for the remainder of his new legislatively extended term.

Hope? Let’s examine that.

1. If she has control of her caucus she can direct her MLAs to vote as she wants in a committee. This means she approved of the committee expiring Doyle in the first place and now she is responding to the backlash by trying to fix the error. In this case, her “hope” that her MLAs will vote to retain Doyle is just spin and fluff.
2. Or, she does not have control of her caucus and the committee dumped Doyle on their own and now she is responding to the backlash to fix the optics problem and she quite honestly hopes they’ll keep Doyle.
3. Or, she knew about but didn’t care about the committee expiring Doyle, and now she has decided to back down on that.
4. Or, legislative committees always operate independently of party whipping, but I’ve seen no evidence of this.
5. Or, other options?

Regardless of which of the above options is the truth, this whole affair is bad for a credibility-challenged government struggling to look professional and competent, while getting caught up in commenting way too much on MILFs.

May 14 is election day. Make sure you are registered to vote and that Elections BC HAS YOUR CURRENT ADDRESS!