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His options include a formal coalition in which partner parties could be given cabinet posts, or confidence agreements where other parties promise to support throne speeches, budgets and confidence votes to avoid a new election but retain freedom to vote against other legislation.

The federal Liberals have the most seats, “so that’s a big difference from the scenario we were in,” said Dewar. “I think they have an opportunity to go for one-off (votes) if they want to.

“The prime minister is going to have to figure out what he wants to do. The math is there for getting the NDP on side.”

What goes unspoken at the negotiating table, said Dewar, are the practical realities that none of the parties want to admit publicly, such as being broke after an expensive election campaign and knowing that a fatigued electorate would react angrily if they had to go back to the polls again quickly.

Deputy premier Carole James, who helped steer the NDP’s 2017 negotiating team, said the next step is finding shared values and election platform items to use as a foundation for talks.

“That’s why it is important to make sure the communication is there and you find what you can agree on,” said James. “If you can start there you can get through the bumps along the way.”

B.C.’s 2017 negotiations also took time. After the May 9 vote, it was another 20 days before an NDP-Green deal was publicly announced. The Clark government fell on June 28, and the NDP assumed power on July 18.

“It will take some time,” said James. “It certainly will require a lot of conversations, a lot of working together, a lot of looking at your commonalities. It will be a long week or couple of weeks, that’s also what I remember as well.

“People often say minority governments have a short shelf life, I think we’ve proven here in British Columbia that when you work together and focus on the people of the province you can get great things done.”

rshaw@postmedia.com

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