Do you want another B.C. election this year?

Poll: A B.C. election?

Photo: The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

The B.C. legislature is seen in Victoria.

The British Columbia government heads into a legislative session this week with an $11.2 billion deficit, economic uncertainty, and plans to roll back a law on Indigenous rights — and an expert says none of that adds up to "winning conditions" in a potential early election.

David Black, an associate professor Royal Roads University, says an early election is "improbable," even after the B.C. Green Party on Monday terminated its governing accord with the NDP government, which holds a one-seat majority.

Black, who's in the school of communication and culture at the university, says B.C.'s poor fiscal position and concerns about affordability stand in the way of an early election.

He says voters would punish the New Democrats for "rank opportunism" if they set off an election before the opposition B.C. Conservatives choose their new leader in May — two days after the legislature's session is scheduled to end.

Premier David Eby has already said that his government will amend the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in response to two court recent rulings that expand Indigenous rights, even as more than 100 First Nations and their organizations urge him to leave the law alone.

The speech from the throne will be delivered on Thursday, while the budget will be released next Tuesday.

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