All is not necessarily roses & sunshine for B.C. New Democratic land, tho.
When party headquarters appointed Aaron Sumexheltza as the B.C. NDP standard-bearer in Fraser-Nicola, in the upcoming election — a key battleground riding on the eve of a potential election — the entire 13-person riding association resigned en masse, accusing B.C. NDP president Craig Keating and executive director Raj Sihota of “disrespectful behaviour” by thwarting the wishes of local members, each member who quit pledging to work against the election of Aaron Sumexheltza to office.
Gosh, you just gotta love politics. Not.

What was that? Raj Sihota, you say? Twenty-five year activist resident of Vancouver-Hastings, and current B.C. NDP executive director, that Raj Sihota, the nomination candidate in Shane Simpson’s riding who is challenging the party’s chosen candidate, the very bright and young and gifted climate change activist Niki Sharma for the nomination in Vancouver-Hastings? The Raj Sihota who so alienated the B.C. NDP riding executive in Fraser-Nicola that they all just up and quit? You mean that Raj Sihota?
And what else has that fella, Craig Keating, been up to, you ask?

Well, it seems that the party is none-too-thrilled with either Morgane Oger, and her former best friend and riding president, Catherine Jenkins, seeking the B.C. NDP nomination in Vancouver-False Creek. So, what does the party do? Yep, identify a disaffected B.C. Liberal, Brenda Bailey, and with party support, talk her into seeking the nomination to run against Sam Sullivan.
As Irish Liberal leader Pat Cox told the Irish Times back in 2014, “All’s fair in love, war … and politics.” And so it seems in B.C. NDP politics, as well.
There are a few few more points to be made, as we wend our way towards the end of today’s overlong VanRamblings column.
B.C. New Democrats Believe They Can Pick Up 19 Seats
B.C. New Democrat internal polls show them with such a commanding lead across Vancouver Island that the party could very well sweep the entire Island, picking up four seats, taking B.C. Liberal Michelle Stilwell’s riding of Parksville-Qualicum, former B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver’s soon-to-be-vacated seat in Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Green Party house leader Adam Olsen’s Saanich North and the Islands seat, as well as the riding of Cowichan Valley, the seat currently held by new B.C. Green leader Sonia Furstenau — little wonder Ms. Furstenau doesn’t want a provincial election.
Across the Metro Vancouver region and the Fraser Valley, the NDP look to turn several B.C. Liberal seats orange, defeating Stephanie-Cadieux (Surrey South), Joan Isaacs (Coquitlam-Burke Mountain), Ian Paton (Delta South), Mary Polak (Langley), Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission), Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Cloverdale), Jane Thornthwaite (North Vancouver-Seymour), Sam Sullivan (Vancouver-False Creek), and taking both seats in Chilliwack, sending Laurie Throness and John Martin onto the scrapheap of history.
In the Interior, Peter Milobar (Kamloops-North Thompson) is gettable the NDP believe; the same goes for Jackie Tegart in Fraser-Nicola. Tom Shypitka (Kootenay East) also looks to be on his way out, as does Linda Larson (Boundary-Similkameen), and Ellis Ross (Skeena).
With B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson’s low approval rating (21%), a silver-spoon, elitist leader absolutely lacking in anything approaching the ‘common touch’, and a provincial party leader possessed of the charisma of a kumquat, the B.C. Liberals will accept winning only 25 seats come October 24th, if it means ridding themselves of their Howe Street harridan.
One can easily see why pundits on the right are expressing concern about a pending election: the B.C. Liberals are all but going to be wiped out.
Why the B.C. NDP May Want to Hold Off on Calling an Election

Every Friday for more than a year, protesters — to a one, longtime members of the B.C. New Democratic Party — gathered outside Vancouver-Point Grey MLA David Eby’s office to protest the John Horgan government moving forward on the Site C dam project. The strong contingent of climate action B.C. New Democrats are also vehemently opposed to the $40B Shell Global liquid natural gas project in northern B.C., the fracking, and the environmental harm associated with the LNG project.

A significant number of VanRamblings’ friends with whom we’ve worked on the left for 50 years — folks once associated with In Struggle, the Workers’ Communist Party, Maoists, Trotskyites, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, Black Flag anarchists, and more — have told us that under no circumstances will they cast a vote for the NDP in the next provincial election. Although VanRamblings believes David Eby will win again in Vancouver-Point Grey, it will likely be by a much slimmer margin than in 2017, due in no small part to the B.C. NDP’s position on Site C and LNG.

At the outset of their mandate in 2017, the John Horgan government made the decision to prioritize the seismic upgrading, or where necessary replacement, of schools across the province, and complete this work by 2022. Well, whaddya know — a political party that actually keeps its promise, in the process keeping our children (and teachers) safe. Kind of.
Parents, students and teachers across the province have continued to express grave concerns about the B.C. NDP government’s back to school plan. Daily, on social media, one can read one horror story after the other (following Patti Bacchus on Twitter oughta come with a disclaimer).

VanRamblings was around when Premier Dave Barrett went to the polls in December 1975, only three years and a bit into his government’s mandate. The NDP lost that election — even though they increased their vote, and during their term in office had transformed our province for the better.
In 1990, Ontario Premier David Peterson, much loved by the electorate, even with his majority government, decided to go to the polls on September 6th, dropping 59 seats, losing to Ontario NDP leader, Bob Rae.
For some weeks now, VanRamblings has told anyone who would listen that John Horgan would be foolish to go to the polls.
We no longer believe that panjandrum. Why?
For the first time in modern British Columbia political history, we have a government in Victoria that is utterly (and thankfully) scandal free. Imagine. John Horgan, his Ministers and the NDP caucus go to work for us, and never conduct themselves in a foolish or self-serving manner.
In John Horgan, we have a Premier — a true working class man of the people, and how unusual is that? — who allows his Ministers to get the job they’ve been assigned to do to get done, to find their efforts well-financed, the B.C. NDP caucus united, and ready and prepared always to get to work to make B.C. a better place to live, an inclusive and fairer place to live for everyone, no matter their nationality, country of origin, gender, or home community across our far flung province, a government committed to ensuring fair wages for working people, well on their way to constructing 110,000 units of affordable housing across British Columbia where citizens would pay no more than 30% of their income for housing, a government that removed tolls on our bridges, and payments for our medical services plan, who have met their commitment to the people all across our province.
As well, B.C. Health Minister, Adrian Dix has emerged as the hero we have always known him to be, steady, incredibly bright, compassionate, organized, a communicator who instills confidence each and every day.
Even while addressing the pandemic, Adrian Dix has assured what the B.C. Liberal party said was impossible: ensuring that every British Columbian has a family doctor, no matter where they live in our province, no matter what community they live in across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, or on Vancouver Island, where in every community across the province of British Columbia, the government of John Horgan has committed to constructing 24-hour urgent care centres, staffed by doctors and nurse practitioners, and are well on their way to meeting that commitment.
Where Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and Québec Premier François Legault have put themselves out front on COVID-19, taking to the airwaves daily, in British Columbia Premier John Horgan has encouraged Adrian Dix and Dr. Bonnie Henry to emerge as the faces of the fight against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that has all of us and the world in its unforgiving grip.
The government of John Horgan moved forward on the construction of a new Patullo bridge — which seemed for the longest time as if it would never get built — is moving forward on the twinning of the George Massey tunnel, has funded an extension of the Millennium Skytrain line, first to Arbutus, and next to UBC, has begun a discussion on a new crossing to Metro Vancouver’s North Shore, has completed the construction of a new and much safer Island highway, while engaging in an an historic initiative that has brought the Premier, First Nations, and local decision makers together to discuss the Island Rail corridor the B.C. Liberal party had mothballed.

On the evening of Monday, September 14th, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs won a majority government mandate from the people of his province.
In the last provincial election in New Brunswick, in 2018, the New Brunswick Liberal party under leader Brian Gallant won 42.72% of the vote, to Blaine Higgs’ 34.64% of the vote for his Progressive Conservative Party. Even so, as was the case in 2017 in British Columbia when John Horgan signed a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the B.C. Green Party, Mr. Higgs was able to cobble together a working minority government.
Even so, mid-pandemic, Premier Higgs decided to call an election, and go to the polls, in order that he might feel assured that he had the confidence of the people — because, let’s face it, when one lives in a democracy, as we do, it is critical that the government has the support of the populace, particularly during these very trying, unprecedented times, in order that government might function effectively, in the best interests of the people.
And that is why — because John Horgan is a democrat to his core — our Premier will call for an election this autumn in British Columbia, at some point over the next week, to allow John Horgan and his British Columbia New Democratic Party to lead our province towards the safety and prosperity we all desire, to build the housing we need, to fund $10-a-day child care as an economic and a feminist initiative, to move our province forward towards a fairer, more just and inclusive, and more secure future.
When the people of New Brunswick were asked on election night why they voted for a majority Blaine Higgs government, the answer was a simple, straightforward one: stability. The people of New Brunswick wanted good government, steady, competent & caring, with a true leader at the helm.

“A lot of people wondered why Mr. Higgs called a general election during a global health crisis when he could have called the necessary by-elections and continued to govern with the support of the People’s Alliance. A steady hand at the wheel, Mr. Higgs turned the election into a referendum on managerial competence,” writes Donald Wright, a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick, in an opinion piece published in The Globe and Mail this past Tuesday.

“Voters trusted Elections New Brunswick to run a safe election. Mail-in ballots were sent to anyone who wanted one, and record numbers voted at the advance polls. Providing masks, ensuring physical distancing and cleaning contact surfaces, returning officers ran a tight ship.

At the end of the day, Mr. Higgs got what he wanted when, half an hour after the polls closed, it was clear that his party would form a majority government with just under 40% of the popular vote.

Mr. Higgs won because he could credibly say that he had steered the province through the worst of the pandemic, something Liberal opposition leader Kevin Vickers, who failed to win a seat and resigned as leader, couldn’t say.”