B.C. NDP Leader David Eby prepares to board a plane at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, B.C., to travel to Terrace for campaign stops on Sept. 24.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The B.C. election is now officially under way, although like most elections these days, it really began weeks, if not months ago.
No one waits until the “writ period” to begin lambasting their opponent or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on negative advertising. Those were the old days. Now, political parties are almost in perpetual campaign mode (just ask Pierre Poilievre).
B.C.’s election is being deemed “too close to call” at this point. Polls seem to be in universal agreement that the incumbent New Democratic Party and its leader, Premier David Eby, have their hands full with the upstart Conservative Party, led by John Rustad.
Even if the Conservatives end up losing to the NDP, it’s likely they will form a healthy Opposition. That, in itself, would represent a seismic reshaping of the political landscape in the province. It would also represent the death of the Liberal brand in B.C., a fate that, not that long ago, seemed unimaginable.
The BC Liberals, who governed the province for 16 years from 2001 until 2017, was a coalition of liberal-minded and conservative voters. A purely conservative party never really took shape in the province over all those years, despite the best efforts of many. But then the Liberals lost power, and the party was taken over in 2022 by a leader, Kevin Falcon, who thought the best idea was to change the name to BC United. Before you knew it, the party was in a precipitous freefall.
That opened the door for Mr. Rustad, formerly of the BC Liberals, to revive the moribund provincial Conservatives and ride the coattails of the federal party’s resurgence led by Mr. Poilievre.
Mike McDonald, a lifelong BC Liberal who was a senior adviser to former premier Christy Clark and now, among other things, is co-host of the popular political podcast Hotel Pacifico, sees the seven-year government of the NDP starting to show its age, “and really struggling to deal with some profound issues,” he told me. “Principally, their fiscal situation, health care and public order.”
And those are certainly the three big issues keeping Mr. Eby awake at night. Health care in the province is under siege, with emergency rooms either unable to safely cope with surging demand leading to hours-long waits, or in some cases, having some ERs being forced to close for stretches because of a lack of staff.
B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad pauses as he speaks in Surrey B.C., on Sept. 23.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
The fact is, hospitals are being overwhelmed by demand, which is being fuelled in part by the influx of people pouring into the province. It’s a problem being stoked by the federal Liberal government’s gross mismanagement of the immigration file. And provinces like B.C. are being forced to deal with the mess.
Mr. Eby’s government has also racked up an enormous amount of debt in a relatively short period of time. Taxpayer-supported debt will rise from just over $71-billion in 2023-24 to more than $126-billion in three years under the NDP’s fiscal plan. Economists have sounded the alarm over the completely irresponsible pace at which the government is accumulating debt, with University of Calgary professor Trevor Tombe forecasting a fiscal future bleaker than Newfoundland and Labrador.
This gives the Conservatives a massive opening to exploit.
Then there is the perennial challenge of drug addiction and the associated public disorder that it’s brought to many parts of the province. Mr. Eby has recently talked about introducing involuntary hospitalization for mentally ill people on the streets, for those judged to pose a threat to the public and themselves. The Conservatives, on the other hand, oppose just about everything the NDP has done or is doing – see: decriminalization – on the drug file. They are advocating for a less empathetic, more tough-love approach to the problem, with an emphasis on treatment and recovery.
This could become a pivotal campaign issue. While many British Columbians are sympathetic to those with drug problems, a growing swath of the public is fed up with the impact that the drug-addicted population is having on downtown cores, parks and other public spaces.
There is little doubt Mr. Eby has been chastened by the challenges he’s faced in the last couple of years. He’s become far less politically idealistic than he used to be. Evidence of this would be his recent declaration that, if elected, his government would eliminate the province’s signature and much-lauded carbon tax if the federal tax is quashed by a new government in Ottawa. Even six months ago that seemed impossible to consider. But that’s what tightening polls can do to a person.
Meantime, if the Conservatives get in, with as little governing experience as they would have, who knows what to expect?
That will be a matter for voters to consider.