What a great country and province this is.
In many other places in the world, Tuesday night's election results would have lead to riots in the streets, with supporters of the various parties attacking and possibly killing each other in outrage over what happened.
In some places, the army generals would have decided that this is why democracy doesn't work, installed themselves into power to provide certainty and ordered the immediate arrest of the party leaders as their first edict.
In B.C., Wednesday morning brought a discussion about absentee ballots and judicial recounts, as well as the role the lieutenant-governor has to play in the smooth and legal formation of government.
Take that to the folks who think the Queen's representative is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Regardless of what occurred Tuesday night and what happens in the days and months ahead, the election and its aftermath are why refugees and so many other citizens of the world look to Canada as a place to live in peace.
That's the "everybody wins" spin.
Unfortunately, there are losers in the wake of election and one of the things that took a serious blow Tuesday was Prince George's four-decade influence on politics in Victoria.
Since the 1980s, at least one of the city's MLAs had a seat at the provincial cabinet table and more often than not, both of them did.
In the 1980s, Bruce Strachan was there in the Social Credit government. In the 1990s, Lois Boone and Paul Ramsey were there in the NDP government. For the last 16 years, Shirley Bond has been there, along with Pat Bell and then Mike Morris.
Those days are over.
Even if Christy Clark's Liberals are able to govern with a razor-thin majority or a tight minority, things will be different, starting with cabinet appointments.
Heading into this election, the MLAs for Cariboo North, Prince George Valemount, Prince George Mackenzie and Nechako Lakes all held cabinet posts. All four of those MLAs - Bond, Morris, Coralee Oakes and John Rustad - won their ridings easily.
That means Clark does not need to reward the constituents of these ridings because they're already strong Liberal backers.
Clark needs to put much more emphasis on those Greater Vancouver ridings the Liberals narrowly won, to bolster those candidates and solidify their support for the next provincial election, which could be months, not years away.
Don't be surprised if Morris, Oakes and Rustad are all backbenchers when Clark names her new cabinet, not because she doesn't like them or thinks they did a bad job but because of political realities.
Bond will stay on because of her experience and the other area cabinet post will go to Ellis Ross, the former chief councillor of the Haisla Nation, who won in Skeena.
Why would Rustad keep his post as Minister of Aboriginal Reconciliation when Ross is available?
So even if the Liberals prevail, the Prince George region likely goes from four cabinet ministers down to just one.
And if the Liberals remains in a minority position and are then defeated by an NDP-Green coalition, there will be no cabinet representation from the central and northern interior of the province.
On Wednesday morning many Liberals were suffering from a case of political colour blindness - unable to tell the difference between Green and red, and hopeful that Andrew Weaver and his party will be more willing to work with them than the NDP.
But as a Postmedia analysis Wednesday showed, the Greens are closer to the NDP on 14 of 20 key election platform issues and could go either with the Liberals or the NDP on the other six.
Clark's friendliness towards Weaver and the Greens both before and during the election was for political gain, not because of philosophical harmony.
The more credibility Clark granted to Weaver (like repeatedly calling him by his formal academic title of Dr. Weaver during the leadership debate), the more seats she thought he would steal from the NDP.
Weaver may not like the NDP much, but in a minority where the Greens are needed to bolster the governing party Horgan is a much better position to give Weaver what he wants.
Shut down Site C dam construction? Check.
Oppose the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline? Check.
Subsidize daycare. Check.
Hire more social workers. Check.
Reduce and eventually eliminate MSP premiums. Check.
Eliminate corporate and union donations to political parties. Check.
Build more affordable housing. Check.
Boost educating funding. Check.
Proportional voting. Let's talk about it.
Clark and her supporters said they were willing to work with anyone, including Weaver, for good government but how many of those above items would she agree to in order to secure support from the Greens party?
The question isn't whether Clark is willing to work with Weaver, it's whether Weaver is willing to work with Clark.
That's why he and the Greens hold the balance of power - for now. If Weaver wants real change in the direction of government, as he said he did early Wednesday morning, that change starts with the premier and the governing party.
Furthermore, Weaver propping up Clark would be political suicide. She would appease him just long enough to address her shortcomings in the Lower Mainland and then call another election as soon as this fall to secure a majority.
The Liberals still have lots of money in the bank and could afford to run for election again tomorrow if they had to.
John Horgan's NDP, just like Weaver's Greens, aren't sitting on pots of money, so another election later this year or early next would give the Liberals a huge advantage.
That's a financial incentive for Horgan and Weaver to keep their coalition alive, possibly for several years.
Whoever Weaver sides with in a minority, he will have to make some tough choices for which voters and party supporters will hold him accountable for, something he hasn't had to worry about much as a one-man show in the Legislature for the past four years. He will suddenly have to play politics with two parties and their savvy leaders, both of whom are far more experienced in strategy, tactics, cutthroat bargaining and gamesmanship than he is.
The jubilation expressed by Weaver and the Greens for their historic seat wins and popular vote support may be shortlived.
Regardless of what happens next, surprise and intrigue are the only certainties.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
