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The Political Death of An Autocratic Spendthrift

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David Eby’s Political Waterloo: How Arrogance, Autocracy and Fiscal Irresponsibility Brought Down British Columbia’s NDP

There is an old lesson in politics that ambitious Premiers, convinced of their own brilliance, have a peculiar habit of learning only when it is too late: the public may forgive a government for making mistakes, but it is considerably less forgiving of a government that refuses to listen, refuses to admit its mistakes, and behaves as though the people who elected it have an obligation to accept whatever their political masters decide is good for them.

David Eby has now learned that lesson the hard way.

On October 24, 2026, British Columbians delivered their verdict on a Premiership that began with considerable promise, but increasingly came to be defined by centralized authority, extravagant spending, an astonishing faith in the righteousness of its own decisions, and a governing style that too often seemed to confuse political leadership with the imposition of one man’s will.

The result was a devastating political defeat for the BC New Democratic Party, leaving it with approximately 27 seats, a diminished caucus, and the unwelcome prospect of rebuilding its credibility from the opposition benches.

Eby had gone to the polls on September 22nd, despite having roughly two years remaining in his mandate. He did so against the reported misgivings of members of his own Cabinet and caucus, wagering that an early election would strengthen his personal authority and give British Columbians a fresh opportunity to endorse his government’s direction.

Instead, he turned an election he did not need to call into a referendum on his own judgment, or lack thereof.

The tragedy for the BC NDP is that its defeat was not inevitable.

Nor was it simply the consequence of an unfavourable political climate, an opposition that found its footing, or a weary electorate looking for change.

David Eby himself supplied his opponents with much of the material they needed.

Eby’s government accumulated grievances among municipal leaders, professional associations, citizens across British Columbia, housing advocates, and ordinary everyday folks who increasingly felt that their concerns were being treated as obstacles to be overcome rather than democratic voices deserving consideration.

The Premier who wanted to demonstrate that he was the smartest person in the room ultimately discovered that the room belonged to the voters.

And the voters were finished listening.

The Arrogance of a Premier Who Believed He Knew Best

To understand the defeat of the David Eby government, it is necessary to look beyond the election campaign and examine the political temperament that shaped his government.

David Eby arrived in provincial politics with a formidable reputation as a lawyer, an advocate for vulnerable people, and a politician prepared to take on difficult problems. His work with Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society, beginning in 2007, reflected a commitment to people whose voices were routinely ignored by those with power.

That background should have served him well as Premier. It should have reminded him that government exists to serve people, not to instruct them on what they ought to want.

Somewhere along the way, however, the advocate became the authority, and the authority became increasingly convinced that his preferred solutions were the only sensible ones.

David Eby could be intellectually formidable, impatient with opposition, and dismissive of arguments he considered uninformed. Those qualities can be assets in a courtroom or a political debate. In government they can become habitual, liabilities of the first order.

A Premier cannot run a province as though every disagreement were an argument to be won and every critic an obstacle to be defeated.

Mayors and Councillors have responsibilities to their communities. Doctors have professional obligations to their patients. Lawyers have duties to their clients and to the administration of justice. Citizens have every right to ask whether the government is spending their money wisely. Members of a governing caucus have a responsibility to question their leader when they believe he is making a mistake.

David Eby’s problem was not that he exercised authority. Every Premier must do so. His problem was that his government increasingly gave the impression that consultation was an inconvenience, dissent was disloyalty, and compromise represented weakness.

The distinction matters.

Strong leadership means making difficult decisions after listening carefully to competing arguments. Arrogance means deciding that listening is unnecessary because the answer is already known.

British Columbians had ample reason to conclude that their Premier was increasingly practicing the latter.

Bills 44, 46 and 47: Victoria’s declaration of war on municipal autonomy

Graphic courtesy of Randy Helten and Stephen Bohus at CityHallWatch

Nowhere was this governing philosophy more evident than in Eby’s sweeping housing legislation.

In late 2023, his government introduced three major pieces of legislation: Bill 44, the Housing Statutes (Residential Development) Amendment Act; Bill 46, the Housing Statutes (Development Financing) Amendment Act; and Bill 47, the Housing Statutes (Transit-Oriented Areas) Amendment Act.

Together, they represented a profound restructuring of the relationship between the provincial government and local governments.

The objective was understandable.

British Columbia faced an increasingly desperate housing affordability crisis. Young people were being priced out of the communities in which they had grown up. Renters struggled with escalating costs. Families found home ownership increasingly unattainable. The province needed more homes, and it needed them faster.

But a worthy objective does not automatically justify every means employed to achieve it.

Bill 44 required municipalities with more than 5,000 residents to permit small-scale, multi-unit housing on lots previously restricted to single-family homes or duplexes. Depending on lot size and location, the legislation permitted three or four units on many properties, with additional density possible near qualifying frequent-transit stops.

It also reduced the scope for public hearings on residential projects consistent with a municipality’s official community plan, while requiring local governments to update their planning documents and housing-needs assessments.

Bill 46 changed the financing framework for growth. It expanded the infrastructure costs that municipalities could recover from development, including certain policing, fire-protection and solid-waste facilities, and introduced amenity cost charges to help fund infrastructure such as parks, recreation facilities and childcare spaces.

Bill 47 went further still. It established mandatory transit-oriented development areas around designated rapid-transit stations and major bus exchanges, requiring municipalities to permit specified minimum building heights and densities and removing minimum residential off-street parking requirements within designated areas.

In practical terms, the province was telling municipalities that decisions historically made through local planning processes would increasingly be governed by provincial rules.

There is a powerful argument for provincial intervention when local zoning practices frustrate the construction of desperately needed homes. Municipal governments cannot indefinitely invoke neighbourhood character to prevent younger and lower-income residents from finding a place to live.

But there is an equally important democratic principle: communities must have a meaningful voice in determining how growth occurs, how infrastructure is financed, and how public services keep pace with development.

David Eby too often treated those principles as though they were mutually exclusive.

The provincial government could have pursued density while engaging municipal leaders in a serious conversation about implementation, infrastructure funding, transit capacity, school places, water and sewer systems, and the timing of new development. Eby could have made a more compelling case for change while acknowledging that municipalities possessed practical knowledge the provincial government did not.

Instead, the legislation became a symbol of a government prepared to impose its preferences and expect local elected officials to make the best of the consequences.

For Mayors and Councillors, the message was unmistakable: you may be elected by your residents, but when David Eby has decided how your community should grow, your discretion has limits.

That approach might produce uniformity. It does not necessarily produce trust.

And trust is not an optional extra in democratic government.

David Eby could have been remembered as the Premier who confronted exclusionary zoning and helped build a more affordable province. Instead, his handling of the housing reforms risked making him a symbol of provincial overreach.

The irony is that housing policy requires co-operation among every level of government, developers, infrastructure providers and the public. No single Premier can decree his way out of a housing crisis.

You cannot legislate homes into existence simply by changing zoning rules. You need financing, construction capacity, skilled workers, infrastructure and a viable economic environment. And you need governments capable of working together.

Eby understood the urgency of the housing problem. What he seemed unwilling to acknowledge was understanding a problem does not mean possessing every answer.

That was the recurring failure of his Premiership: an understandable sense of urgency becoming an excuse for insufficient humility.

When government reaches into the professions

The same pattern emerged in two other consequential areas: the regulation of medical professionals, and the governance of the legal profession.

Bill 36, the Health Professions and Occupations Act, was passed in 2022 and came substantially into force on April 1, 2026. It overhauled the regulatory framework for health professions, including consolidating regulatory colleges and expanding government oversight. The province presented the changes as a means of strengthening accountability, transparency and public protection.

Those objectives deserve to be taken seriously. Professional self-regulation is not infallible, and the public must be protected from misconduct, discrimination and failures of accountability.

But the question is not whether doctors should be accountable. Of course they should. The question is how that accountability can be strengthened without unnecessarily compromising the independence of professional judgment.

When government increases its influence over the bodies responsible for regulating physicians and other health professionals, it must explain how it will prevent political considerations from displacing professional expertise.

It must also demonstrate that the new arrangements will genuinely improve public protection rather than merely transfer authority to Victoria.

David Eby’s government did not escape serious criticism on these questions. The changes were consequential enough to warrant sustained consultation, careful explanation and a willingness to address the profession’s concerns.

Bill 21 removes the right of lawyers to regulate their own profession and was challenged by legal organizations in B.C. Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

The same issue arose with Bill 21, the Legal Professions Act, passed in 2024. It established a framework for bringing lawyers, notaries and paralegals under a unified regulatory structure, changing the governance arrangements that had historically allowed the Law Society of British Columbia to regulate lawyers. The legislation prompted substantial opposition from legal organizations concerned about the independence of the legal profession.

These concerns were not trivial turf battles. An independent bar is an important safeguard in a constitutional democracy because lawyers must be able to represent clients challenging government decisions without fearing that the government itself will exert inappropriate influence over their professional regulator.

Reforming professional regulation is not inherently authoritarian. Neither is requiring greater accountability from doctors or lawyers. But independence, accountability and public oversight must be balanced carefully, especially when the state is restructuring institutions that may have to challenge the state itself.

The political failure lay in the impression that Eby’s government regarded established institutional independence as something to be reorganized from above, rather than a democratic safeguard that required exceptional care.

The more often a government centralizes authority, the more important it becomes for its leader to demonstrate restraint.

David Eby seemed to believe that the merits of his objectives would vindicate his methods. He underestimated how much trust could be lost along the way.

The fiscal recklessness that revived an old NDP stereotype

For decades, British Columbia’s more conservative political forces promoted a familiar accusation: give the New Democrats the keys to the treasury and they will spend the province into trouble. An NDP government, they insisted, couldn’t manage a popsicle stand in the heat of a British Columbia summer.

John Horgan understood that this caricature was politically damaging. Alongside Finance Minister Carole James, and subsequently Finance Minister Selina Robinson, his government sought to demonstrate that progressive government and responsible fiscal management were not mutually exclusive.

The Horgan years included substantial surpluses in several pre-pandemic budgets. That record helped undermine the notion that an NDP government was automatically a threat to the provincial treasury.

David Eby has done considerably less to sustain that achievement.

There is an important accounting distinction here. The audited surplus for 2022–23, the fiscal year in which Eby became Premier, was approximately $704 million, rather than $5.6 billion. His first full fiscal year, 2023–24, ended with an operating deficit of approximately $5 billion. The subsequent 2024–25 deficit reached approximately $7.3 billion.

The precise numbers matter. But so does the broader political question: how did a government that inherited a comparatively strong fiscal position move so quickly into substantial deficits and rising debt?

David Eby inherited major pressures that cannot simply be wished away.

Housing costs, healthcare demands, infrastructure requirements and the economic consequences of international trade disputes all impose genuine obligations on government. Public investment is not inherently wasteful, and borrowing for worthwhile infrastructure is not automatically irresponsible.

But these considerations do not absolve a Premier of the responsibility to establish priorities, assess the long-term costs of his decisions, and explain how public spending will be sustained.

The public is entitled to ask whether the government’s spending commitments were properly sequenced, whether promised benefits justified their costs, and whether the province was building sufficient fiscal resilience against an uncertain future.

David Eby’s government increasingly faced those questions against the backdrop of mounting deficits and debt.

That is how an old political stereotype returns: not necessarily because every expenditure was wrong, but because the government failed to persuade enough people that its spending was disciplined, sustainable and delivering results commensurate with the money being spent.

British Columbians were being asked to trust the Premier with ever-larger financial commitments while confronting affordability pressures in their own lives. For many households, the contrast was difficult to ignore.

A government cannot indefinitely substitute announcements for results, or the moral attractiveness of its objectives for a convincing account of what those objectives cost.

The voters’ verdict suggests that David Eby failed to make that case.

Big promises, disappointing delivery

Consider childcare, one of the most consequential examples of the gap between political ambition and the lived experience of British Columbian families.

The NDP made $10-a-day childcare a signature commitment in 2017. The idea was transformative: reduce the cost of care, help parents return to work if they wished, improve family finances and make early childhood education accessible to more children.

It was precisely the kind of policy that could have defined progressive government.

There has been genuine progress. British Columbia expanded fee-reduction programmes and increased the number of childcare spaces receiving support. The $10-a-day initiative became a real programme for participating families and providers, rather than remaining merely an election slogan.

But universal access to $10-a-day childcare was not achieved. Families continued to encounter shortages of spaces, uneven availability and costs that remained well above the advertised figure when they could not obtain a subsidized place.

The distinction between a programme that exists and a promise that has been fulfilled is not semantic. It is the difference between a government announcing a destination and actually getting people there.

David Eby’s government inherited the childcare commitment, but it also inherited the responsibility to deliver on it. Eight years after the original promise, families were entitled to ask why access to affordable, dependable childcare remained so difficult.

This was the wider weakness of David Eby’s Premiership. Its communications operation could explain the ambition behind its policies, but too often the government struggled to demonstrate that the results matched the rhetoric.

The same question applied to housing. The province could mandate zoning changes, establish density targets and accelerate planning processes, but ordinary British Columbians still needed homes they could afford.

It applied to healthcare, where systemic reform and new investments had to translate into timely access to care.

And it applied to the broader cost of living, where families were not interested in winning an ideological argument. They wanted to know whether their lives were improving.

As BC Green Party leader Emily Lowan put it, in the formulation supplied for this editorial, “Today’s bribe to British Columbians is tomorrow’s broken promise.”

It is a sharp political accusation, but it captures the danger of governing through a succession of attractive announcements without demonstrating consistent delivery.

A promise becomes a liability when it is repeated often enough that the public begins to measure the government by what remains unfinished.

Being “Eby-ed”: a cautionary tale for Canadian politicians

There is another lesson in Eby’s defeat, one that extends well beyond British Columbia.

Former Ontario Premier David Peterson’s 1990 defeat remains a cautionary tale about calling an early election when a government has no compelling reason to do so.

David Peterson had won a majority government in 1987. Three years later, he called an election while still enjoying the advantages of incumbency, only to see Bob Rae’s New Democrats defeat his Liberals and form government.

The decision became an enduring example of how a seemingly confident Premier can transform a manageable political situation into a personal catastrophe.

David Eby had his own reasons for calling an early election. He argued that the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies required a strong mandate. The Conservative opposition had been in turmoil, and its leadership had recently changed. Eby evidently believed the circumstances favoured an early vote.

But the opposition’s difficulties were not a permanent feature of British Columbia politics. They were a temporary advantage, and the Premier’s decision gave his opponents a common target.

Instead of allowing the Conservatives to work through their problems while the NDP governed, Eby gave them an immediate opportunity to unite around a straightforward question: why was the Premier asking British Columbians to vote again when the existing mandate had years left to run?

That question proved damaging because it was so difficult to answer convincingly.

A Premier who calls an unnecessary election assumes responsibility for the consequences. He cannot blame the calendar, the opposition, or the electorate when the gamble fails.

And when the gamble is motivated, even in part, by a desire to consolidate personal authority, the consequences can be especially unforgiving.

In the aftermath of October 24th, the expression “being Eby-ed” may well become shorthand in Canadian political conversation for a leader who mistakes a temporary advantage for a mandate to gamble with his government’s future.

The phrase would be cruelly appropriate.

The Election David Eby Did Not Need to Call

Source: CTV News / James Moore; The Canadian Press

The most consequential decision of Eby’s final months in office was not a housing bill, a budget announcement or a dispute with a professional association.

It was the decision to call the election in the first place.

On September 22nd, David Eby sent British Columbians to the polls with almost two years remaining in the ordinary electoral cycle. He chose to do so while facing concerns within his own political ranks and while municipal leaders had reason to object to the timing, which overlapped with local election campaigns.

Eby framed the election as an opportunity to secure a mandate for defending British Columbia against American economic threats. Yet his opponents had a more immediate question for voters: why should a province already struggling with affordability, healthcare pressures and fiscal uncertainty be asked to endure an unnecessary provincial campaign?

The decision consumed political attention, divided the government from potential allies and placed Eby’s leadership on trial.

In the end, the electorate delivered its judgment.

The preliminary election picture was devastating: the Conservatives emerged with a commanding lead, while the NDP was reduced to approximately 27 or 28 seats in the initial count, with final counting still to come. The Greens retained two seats. Eby announced his resignation as NDP leader, although he won his own seat in Vancouver-Point Grey.

For the New Democrats, the consequences were immense. A party that had governed British Columbia was left to contemplate opposition, renewal and the painful work of explaining how it had squandered its political advantage.

And consider what David Eby and his colleagues will not be able to celebrate as a government in 2027: the anticipated completion of the Millennium Line extension along Broadway to Arbutus Street, and the opening of the new St. Paul’s Hospital.

These are major projects with consequences for transit, healthcare and the future of Vancouver. They will proceed under a new political administration, and their eventual opening will belong to the people of British Columbia, not to any one Premier or party.

That is how government should work. Public achievements belong to the public.

Yet for David Eby, there is a bitter irony in leaving office before the completion of projects that could have formed part of his government’s legacy. He had the opportunity to remain Premier, continue governing, and allow British Columbians to judge his administration on the full record of its accomplishments and failures.

Instead, he chose an early election.

The decision followed him through the campaign, shadowing his announcements and competing with his arguments about the economy, housing and healthcare. Every time he asked voters to trust his judgment, they could ask why that judgment had led him to call an election he did not need.

He could explain his reasons, but he could not make the question disappear.

In that sense, the election became a referendum on something more fundamental than any individual policy: whether British Columbians trusted Eby to make decisions in their interests, even when those decisions were difficult or politically inconvenient.

On October 24, enough voters answered no.

The final lesson is not that strong governments should avoid ambitious reforms, or that premiers should never intervene when local institutions fail to act. British Columbia needs housing, reliable healthcare, affordable childcare and public infrastructure. It needs governments prepared to make difficult decisions.

But it also needs leaders who understand the limits of their own authority.

A Premier is not the province’s proprietor. A legislative majority is not a licence to disregard every objection. And intelligence, however formidable, is no substitute for humility.

David Eby may have been convinced that he possessed the answers British Columbia needed. His mistake was behaving as though the province’s other elected officials, professional institutions and ordinary citizens were simply required to catch up with him.

They were not.

The people of British Columbia had their own judgment to exercise, and they exercised it at the ballot box.

There is a final, melancholy lesson in all of this.

David Eby began his Premiership with the opportunity to show that progressive government could combine social ambition with fiscal discipline, institutional respect and a willingness to listen. He could have demonstrated that a government can pursue transformative housing reform without treating municipalities as adversaries, and that promises are most powerful when they are matched by delivery.

Instead, his final chapter was consumed by the consequences of an unnecessary election and the growing perception that his confidence had hardened into arrogance.

The man who sought a renewed mandate received a political repudiation. The Premier who wanted to demonstrate strength weakened his own party. The leader who believed he could impose his timetable on British Columbia discovered that voters had a timetable of their own.

David Peterson’s snap-election gamble became a cautionary tale for generations of Canadian politicians. David Eby’s has now joined it.

And perhaps that is the most enduring truth of October 24, 2026: no matter how clever the strategist, how persuasive the speechwriter, or how convinced a Premier becomes of his own indispensability, democracy retains the final word.

A leader may call an election to prove that he is right.

The electorate is under no obligation to agree.

Migawd, we thought we were angry about David Eby’s decision to call a snap election, and were concerned about today’s column as coming across as too pointed, critical and unkind to David Eby, and a seemingly mute Cabinet and caucus that allowed him to call a needless election that proved devastating for the provincial New Democratic Party.

We can’t hold a candle to the criticisms, and outright anger, of former Vancouver City Councillor / former Chief of Staff to Premier John Horgan, Geoff Meggs, who is withering in his denunciation of Premier Eby and his woefully inept, failed to deliver on NDP commitments, fiscally irresponsible, and incompetent New Democratic Party government.

In Meggs’s Substack article, Laying the foundations for a post-Eby BC NDP: a tough hill to climb, but we’ve been here before, Meggs writes that the seeds of the October 24 defeat were sown in the near-death experience of David Eby’s one-seat majority victory in 2024, creating a government that never really stabilized.

Meggs’ Substack column may be found here. Definitely worth a read.

Perhaps even more angry and disappointed — and mightily disheartened — is Ron Johnson, a longtime New Democratic Party stalwart and former NDP candidate in Vancouver whose decades of service to both the federal and provincial parties have made him a respected behind-the-scenes political operative.

An eminence grise of the New Democratic Party, Ron Johnson has contributed a wealth of institutional knowledge, strategic insight and political experience to the NDP, helping shape its campaigns, nurture its candidates and sustain its organizational strength. A steadfast New Democrat, Johnson represents the enduring commitment, loyalty and hard-earned wisdom of the party’s grassroots political tradition.

In Johnson’s Substack article, We must build a renewed BC NDP from the bottom up, he writes that social democrats and democratic socialists must work together to forge a revitalized membership-focused working people’s BC NDP and be ready to win in 2030.

Ron Johnson’s must-read Substack column may be found here.

#BCPoli | Prepare for a Change In Government

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On Tuesday, September 22, 2026, BC NDP Premier David Eby — contrary to the demand of his Cabinet, and members of his caucus — announced a snap election, after meeting with Lieutenant-Governor Wendy Cocchia at Government House in Victoria. That means, Election Day is this Saturday, October 24th, one week after  municipal elections across British Columbia this past Saturday, October 17th. The upcoming election this Saturday is our province’s 44th provincial general election since Confederation.

David Eby’s 2026 B.C. election campaign: 20 major promises

David Eby began his campaign for re-election as British Columbia Premier on September 22, 2026, with a central message: protect jobs, make life more affordable, strengthen public services and build a more self-reliant provincial economy amid the trade dispute with the United States.

Two early announcements were particularly significant. On September 18, before formally calling the election, Eby announced a pause in the planned expansion of the provincial sales tax (PST) to professional services and said future BC Ferries vessels would be built in British Columbia. The PST delay was estimated to save businesses, local governments and others approximately $260 million in 2026–27.

Here, then is a curated list of commitments, based on the BC NDP’s published campaign material and election coverage available as of October 21, 2026.

Taxes, affordability and the cost of living

  • 1. Pause the PST expansion. Delay the planned application of the provincial sales tax to professional services until well after the U.S. trade war ends. The initial pause was announced on September 18;
  • 2. Cut gasoline and diesel prices. Suspend 10 cents per litre of the provincial motor fuel tax, with the NDP projecting that its combined measures could reduce pump prices by as much as 30 cents per litre. Plus, cracking down on excessive fuel prices, by giving the BC Utilities Commission a stronger role in enforcing pricing rules and limiting excessive industry margins;
  • 3. Limit grocery markups on essential foods. Cap retail profit margins on products such as milk, eggs, cheese, butter and poultry. As well as combat algorithmic price discrimination. Strengthen consumer-protection and privacy laws to restrict AI-powered pricing practices that charge consumers different prices based on their personal data;
  • 4. Freeze ICBC insurance rates for another three years. Extend the existing rate freeze, bringing the proposed period of frozen rates to a decade;
  • 5. Ask higher-income earners to contribute more. Increase provincial income-tax rates for the top two tax brackets and establish a new bracket for annual income above $1 million. The NDP says the changes would affect fewer than 4% of income earners and raise approximately $1 billion annually.

Jobs, manufacturing and economic independence

  • 6. Build the next generation of BC Ferries in British Columbia. Require future vessels to be built in Canada, expand the provincial shipbuilding industry and develop a Made-in-B.C. shipbuilding strategy, as well as establish a new B.C. shipyward, working with the federal government, shipbuilders and organized labour to develop a new shipyard, with up to $250 million available provincially to leverage private and federal investment;
  • 7. Create dedicated support for forestry manufacturers. Help tariff-affected mills modernize, produce higher-value products, reduce costs and find customers outside the United States;
  • 8. Prioritize B.C. and Canadian-made products. Introduce purchasing rules for provincial ministries, Crown corporations and health authorities to favour locally and nationally produced goods and materials where viable;
  • 9. Double critical-mineral production and exports, while expanding the capacity of the Port of Prince Rupert, doubling B.C.’s critical-mineral production and exports within five years, strengthening trade links beyond the United States;
  • 10. Help small businesses survive tariffs and wildfires. Continue targeted assistance, including interest-free loans of up to $1 million for eligible businesses through the Small Business Tariff & Wildfire Relief Fund. While also helping small businesses hire young workers. Offer a $5,000 refundable tax credit to eligible small businesses hiring a young person aged 18–30 for their first full-time, 12-month job;
  • 11. Expand food processing in B.C. Make use of eligible Agricultural Land Reserve properties poorly suited to primary food production, while protecting prime farmland and creating local processing jobs.

Health care and seniors

  • 12. Triple recruitment of health-care workers from the United States. Expand efforts to attract American doctors, nurses and other health professionals to work in B.C.;
  • 13. Make shingles vaccination free for everyone aged 50 and older. Expand access to vaccination by removing the cost for eligible adults in this age group.

Housing and child care

  • 14. Turn more empty condominiums into affordable homes. Pursue measures to bring more vacant condo units into use as homes people can afford;
  • 15. Add 7,200 before- and after-school child-care spaces. Expand school-based care to help parents find convenient care for school-aged children. While Introducing a universal child-care fee cap on child-care fees, modelled on Ontario’s approach.

Transportation and public infrastructure

  • 16. Give local residents priority in BC Ferries reservations. Introduce a pilot reserving 12% of advance-booking space for local residents;
  • 17. Increase funding for public transit. Add $40 million annually to BC Transit funding to expand bus service, improve connections between communities, while delivering rapid bus transit in Metro Vancouver, making seniors’ bus passes free for low-income seniors and extending free transit passes to an estimated 350,000 eligible seniors across B.C.;
  • 18. Double provincial funding for public libraries. Permanently increase annual provincial library funding from $14 million to $28 million.

Environment, public safety and community support

  • 19. Protect more of B.C.’s land and water. Continue the commitment to protect 30% of the province’s land and water by 2030. Plus, fund climate action through new resource revenues. Dedicate a portion of provincial revenue from new oil and gas development to climate programs, beginning with a proposed $50-million investment;
  • 20. Expand involuntary care options in the Okanagan. Advance plans to increase access to involuntary mental-health and addiction treatment for people who meet the applicable criteria. Also, strengthen protections against gangs, guns and extortion. Make organized crime and extortion a campaign priority, with additional measures aimed at protecting communities and businesses.

For all of the commitments made to the citizens of British Columbia by the David Eby BC NDP government seeking re-election, in all of the polls published in the final week of the election campaign, it would seem David Eby is on his way to ignominious defeat this upcoming Saturday evening.

With each passing day the polls and the projected seat count for what now appears to be the outgoing British Columbia New Democratic government only worsens.

Below you will find the results of intensive polling conducted in all 93 riding across British Columbia. First up, focusing mainly on Metro Vancouver.

Not bad for the BC NDP: 35 NDP; 2 Greens; 12 Conservatives. Next up: the Interior.

The entire rest of the province is turning blue. There are few, if any, safe seats for David Eby’s BC NPD outside of the Metro Vancouver region, with a handful of seats on Vancouver Island, and one on the Sunshine Coast.

The only question that remains is: what will David Eby do on Election Night? Speculation is that if the election is a rout, and Mr. Eby’s party is only able to secure 29 or so seats — a possible outcome according to internal polls conducted by the Conservative Party of British Columbia — Mr. Eby will resign as leader of the BC NPD on Election Night.

VanRamblings would prefer that Mr. Eby tender his resignation in the new year.

Prior to calling the snap election, David Eby made a commitment to the members of his Cabinet and caucus: if he were to win anything less than a comfortable majority on Election Night, he would resign the leadership of the BC NDP this upcoming late winter / early spring, in order that a New Democratic Party leadership contest might be called by the party brass. Chances are the leadership convention would occur in late March, or early April, when a new leader of the party would be chosen by the party membership.

The heir apparent party membership wants: Brad West, the popular three-term Mayor of Port Coquitlam, former Executive Assistant to BC NDP Minister Mike Farnworth and a former communications and political action co-ordinator for the United Steelworkers (USW) union in B.C. There is little doubt that Ravi Kahlon and Christine Boyle would mount effective, well-run, well-financed campaigns for the party leadership, as well.

With the help of her brother-in-law Avi Lewis, the leader of the federal NDP, there is little doubt that Ms. Boyle and her backers and supporters would mount a strong campaign. Not to mention which, Dr. Cailey Lynch, the Premier’s better half, would support a run by Christine Boyle to ascend to the leadership.

Ravi Kahlon — one of the most reliable and most competent Ministers in the BC NDP government this past 9+ years — wants the leadership, feels he is owed the leadership of the party so badly that he can almost taste it.

What does a government led by Conservative Party of British Columbia “interim” leader Lorne Doerkson mean for the people of British Columbia? In a word: chaos.

Lorne Doerkson is not the leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia, he is only the “interim” leader of the party, even if he becomes the Premier.

The constitution of B.C.’s Conservative party requires a leadership contest be held to elect their leader.

The Conservative Party’s Board of Directors have been attempting to convince elected members not to run against Mr. Doerkson, such that he would be acclaimed leader.

If you believe that is a likely scenario, we have a bridge we’d like to sell you, cheap.

You just know the whack job / far right / conspiracy theorist / freedom convoy element in the party will run one of their elected members for the leadership, and mount a campaign to have her or him become the 44th Premier of the province of British Columbia.

So, all the time that a Premier Doerkson should be attempting to put a government into place, rather than focus on the tasks at hand, he’d be traveling across the province during the first five weeks of his new administration, attempting to keep the job British Columbians elected him to.

Only in the wild west of B.C. politics could such a disastrous scenario unfold.

#BCPoli | Kerry-Lynne Findlay, BC Conservatives | Is The Maple MAGA Leader Unfit To Become Premier?

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Kerry-Lynne Findlay, the new B.C. Conservative Party leader

The Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove: The Ascent of Kerry-Lynne Findlay

On May 30, 2026, the Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver played host to an ideological tug-of-war that would reshape the political landscape of British Columbia. When the fourth and final ballot of the Conservative Party of BC leadership race settled, Kerry-Lynne Findlay emerged victorious. But the crown she inherited is heavy, fractured, and forged in the fires of an intense internal civil war.

Ms. Findlay, a 71-year-old veteran of the Stephen Harper era, successfully positioned herself as a “conservative by conviction, not by convenience,” rallying a base that favoured a hard-right ideological shift over centrist moderation.

Yet, as she takes the helm of the province’s Official Opposition, her victory is over-shadowed by a razor-thin mandate, serious federal compliance investigations, and deep fractures within her own ranks.

A Razor-Thin Mandate from the Hinterlands

To understand the challenge ahead for Ms. Findlay is to understand just how narrow her path to victory truly was. Her battle against political commentator and former BC United vice-president Caroline Elliott was an absolute photo finish.


For VanRamblings (and her leadership campaign manager, Kory Teneycke), it is almost impossible to believe that a competent, articulate, younger, electable Caroline Elliott lost to Kerry-Lynne Findlay

As provincial affairs columnist Vaughn Palmer noted in the Vancouver Sun, Ms. Findlay topped Ms. Elliott by a mere 60 raw votes out of more than 22,000 ballots cast. Under the party’s riding-weighted system, this translated to a 51% to 49% victory — the narrowest possible margin for democratic legitimacy.

More telling than the margin is the geographic and demographic divide it exposed:

  • The Urban-Rural Split: Ms. Findlay’s victory was not built in the urban or suburban centres of the Lower Mainland. In Vancouver proper, she captured just 17% of first-round support, and only 14% in West Vancouver-Sea-to-Sky;
  • The Northern Surge: Her true base of power lay in the northern, rural, and resource-dependent heartlands. In ridings like Stikine-Bulkley Valley — a region dotted with heavily Christian towns and areas deeply entangled in resource development debates — Ms. Findlay dominated, capturing 59% of the vote.

By rejecting the more centrist visions put forward by her former rivals — current MLA Peter Miloba, former BC Liberal MLA Iain Black, and Ms. Elliott herself — Ms. Findlay consolidated a populism rooted outside the major metropolitan areas.

The Ghost of 2025: Elections Canada Allegations

Compounding the structural divisions within her party is a serious external vulnerability. Ms. Findlay enters her provincial leadership under a distinct legal and ethical cloud stemming from her recent political past.

During the 2025 federal election, Ms. Findlay lost her seat as the Member of Parliament for South Surrey — White Rock. However, the fallout from that campaign continues to loom large. An ongoing Elections Canada investigation features severe allegations regarding her campaign’s financial and operational conduct:

The Allegations Under Investigation:

  • Undeclared Corporate Benefits: It is alleged that Ms. Findlay’s campaign received $75,000 in undeclared and unpaid services from a private corporation;
  • Quid Pro Quo: Investigators suggest these corporate services were provided in exchange for promises of lucrative federal contracts down the road;
  • Foreign National Canvassing: Perhaps most damagingly, the investigation further suggests that approximately 50 individuals described as foreign nationals without legal status actively canvassed on behalf of Ms. Findlay during the campaign. Ms. Findlay has dismissed the investigation as standard political friction, but the potential for formal sanctions provides constant ammunition for her political opponents.

Pulling the Party to the Right: The Culture War Focus

In a comprehensive profile for the online journal The Tyee, journalist Jen St. Denis highlighted the fundamental shift occurring under the new leadership, run under the stark headline: Findlay Pulls BC Conservatives to the Right.

Ms. Findlay’s platform leans heavily into “faith, family, and freedom,” a rhetorical framework that critics argue mirrors American-style populist movements. Observers describe her as a Trump-adjacent “MAGA Maple” figure, highly focused on divisive culture war issues rather than traditional policy consensus.

The Battle Over SOGI 123

A central pillar of Ms. Findlay’s ideological brand is her fierce opposition to the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI 123) curriculum implemented in British Columbia schools. Ms. Findlay has campaigned on entirely dismantling the programme, aligning herself with anti-trans and parental rights groups.

This position puts her in direct opposition to empirical academic research.

A landmark study led by Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, a professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), demonstrated that SOGI 123 has proved highly effective. Dr. Saewyc’s findings revealed that SOGI-inclusive education successfully reduced bullying and sexual orientation discrimination across B.C. schools, yielding safer environments for both LGBTQ+ and heterosexual students alike.

By entirely rejecting Dr. Saewyc’s findings, Ms. Findlay has signaled that ideological alignment takes precedence over academic consensus.

A House Divided: Internal Purges and Controversial Allies

Upon seizing the leadership, Ms. Findlay wasted no time restructuring the party in her own image, executing an uncompromising internal purge. She immediately fired all legislative and party staff who had any lingering connections to the former BC United / BC Liberal apparatus or its former leader, Kevin Falcon.

Furthermore, Ms. Findlay’s inner circle and candidate roster have drawn intense scrutiny for harboring far-right, anti-vaccine, and conspiracy-driven viewpoints.

The Inner Circle

  • Brent Chapman: Findlay’s own husband, now the MLA for Surrey South, has a well-documented history of controversy. During the 2024 provincial election campaign, a series of his historical social media posts were unearthed, revealing deeply Islamophobic and racist content that generated widespread public condemnation;
  • Sheldon Clare (House Leader): Ms. Findlay appointed the MLA for Prince George-North Cariboo as her newly minted House Leader. Mr. Clare, a reserve army officer and the former president of the National Firearms Association (NFA), briefly ran for the leadership himself before dropping out to back Ms. Findlay. He brings a brand of staunchly uncompromising, hard-right gun-rights populism to the legislative floor;
  • Heather Maahs (Leader of the Opposition): Because Ms. Findlay does not currently hold a seat in the BC Legislature, she cannot personally serve as the Leader of the Official Opposition. To fill this vital constitutional role, she bypassed proven, moderate legislative leaders like former interim leader Trevor Halford and former House Leader Áʼa:líya Warbus — a move provincial affairs columnist Vaughn Palmer criticized as dumping seasoned veterans for her hard-right backers. Instead, she installed Heather Maahs, the MLA for Chilliwack North. Maahs, who spent 16 years on the Chilliwack school board, is an unabashed pro-life advocate who recently drew fire for hosting a legislative session with an advocacy group that explicitly regards homosexuality as “immoral.”

This hard-right consolidation has created what former insiders describe as a hostile environment. Former Conservative MLAs Elenore Sturko and Amelia Boultbee both publicly stepped away from the party apparatus, citing a “toxic work environment” driven by ideological extremism, subsequently becoming vocal critics of Findlay’s direction.

The Actuarial Reality of a 2028 Campaign

Beyond the ideological friction, Ms. Findlay faces an inescapable reality: the passage of time. When the next British Columbia provincial election is called in late 2028, Findlay will be entering her 74th year. Should she win and serve a full four-year term as Premier, she would be in her 78th year by its conclusion.

While age alone does not dictate capability, gerontologists and medical institutions like the Mayo Clinic emphasize the compounding physical and cognitive challenges that accompany leadership at this stage of life, as observed globally in political figures like Joe Biden and Donald Trump, or in our 70s as VanRamblings has experienced ourself approaching our 76th birthday, now only 40 days away.

  • Factor: Potential Impact on High-Stress Leadership;
  • Cognitive Function: Gradual declines in cognitive processing speed, reaction time, and the ability to multitask can affect the management of complex, rapid-fire executive daily tasks.;
  • Physical Vitality. A combination of physical fatigue, chronic health conditions (such as arthritis or cardiovascular changes), and sensory declines in vision and hearing that can restrict mobility and lower overall energy reserves;
  • Neurotransmitter Changes: Age-related reductions in serotonin levels that can increase emotional vulnerability, while chronic pain or fatigue can manifest as heightened irritability or agitation under pressure.

Navigating the grueling, 24-hour news cycle of a provincial election and managing a sprawling government requires physical and mental stamina, posing a practical question mark over her long-term tenure.

The Mainstream Disconnect

Would you vote for the woman pictured above to become British Columbia’s 38th Premier?

Ultimately, Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s political future depends on whether her brand of unapologetic populism can survive outside her rural interior voting base.

British Columbia’s electorate has historically favoured a pragmatic, centrist approach to governance. By leaning so heavily into the culture wars, opposing established Indigenous rights frameworks, and platforming fringe rhetoric, Ms. Findlay risks alienating the vital moderate voters of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island — voters who decide majorities.

Ms. Findlay enters the arena significantly weighed down. The cloud of the federal Elections Canada investigation remains unresolved, her internal mandate is mathematically microscopic, and her party is deeply divided after the alienation of its moderate wing.

In a province currently grappling with an acute affordability crisis — where the cost of housing remains out of reach, grocery prices continue to skyrocket across every community, and gas prices pinch working families at the pumps — Ms. Findlay’s intense focus on social grievances risks looks profoundly out of touch.

If the B.C. Conservative Party cannot offer reassuring solutions to the daily economic anxieties of the mainstream voter, Ms. Findlay’s hard-right experiment may find itself entirely rejected at the ballot box in 2028.

Can Kerry-Lynne Findlay successfully expand her narrow rural coalition to win over moderate urban voters in the 2028 provincial election? We’re not so sure.

#BCPoli | Good-bye John Rustad We Hardly Knew Ya

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Buh-bye, so long, adios: John Rustad, “interim leader” of the Conservative Party of British Columbia

One year from today John Rustad will no longer lead the B.C. Conservative Party.

How to explain VanRamblings’ late 2025 B.C. Conservative leadership projection?

  • B.C. Conservative Party infighting. In his interview with This is Vancolour’s Mo Amir, former BC NDP Premier Glen Clark referred to 20 of the newly-elected B.C. Conservative Party MLAs as “whack jobs” — this adjudication arising from a series of racist, misogynist, homophobic QAnon conspiracy theorist comments made by these, now, sitting B.C. Conservative Party members of the B.C. Legislature.

    From what VanRamblings’ sources tell us, these 20 newly-minted B.C. Conservative MLAs are far from happy with their leader, John Rustad, for having roundly denounced several of their number during the course of the recent provincial election campaign. VanRamblings is told there is a movement afoot to remove Rustad as leader, in favour of a member of the QAnon conspiracy theorist contingent who more rightly align with their “the whole system is rigged and oughta be brought down” far right, People’s Party of Canada, anti-vaxx, Freedom Convoy-loving “philosophy”.

Meanwhile, Premier Eby has drawn what he calls a “bright line”, stating that his NDP government will refuse to work with newly-elected B.C. Conservative MLAs who have expressed “offensive” views on racial and other matters.

Vaughn Palmer, in The Vancouver Sun, has called the …

 “Bright-line test a proverbial line in the sand. It establishes a clearcut, easily recognizable boundary between the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, the pure and the tainted.”

Eby singled out Brent Chapman, newly-elected B.C. Conservative MLA for Surrey South, and author of some deeply offensive social media posts in past years.

“Brent Chapman (is) a hateful man promoting hate and racism in our province,” Eby told host Vijay Saini of CJCN radio last week. “We have a very bright line around that and it is a non-starter for us. We need to fight hate and racism every day. So there are definitely restrictions on our willingness to work with the Conservative party.”

The BC NDP leader has suggested that B.C. Democrats are preparing a list of Conservatives whose utterances have consigned them to the dark side of the line.

“I’ve seen them speaking out with concern on issues that I share concern about — open racism from Conservative candidates, open homophobia, anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-woman sentiment — and those are bright lines. That is non-negotiable for us.”

Premier Eby has created a ‘no win’ situation for B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad: defend his MLAs who have expressed intolerant and hateful views, or denounce them. Smart, divisive NDP politics, set to create much trouble for Rustad.

Elenore Sturko celebrating her B.C. United Party by-election win in 2022, with Kevin Falcon.

  • Elenore Sturko. VanRamblings has been told by our B.C. Conservative Party sources that former B.C. United MLA for Surrey South, now the newly-minted B.C. Conservative MLA representing the riding of Surrey-Cloverdale has formed an exploratory committee to challenge John Rustad for leadership of the Conservative Party of British Columbia. Elenore Sturko: thy name is ambition at all costs, the person in which such picayune considerations such as loyalty will never be vested. Just ask former B.C. United Party leader Kevin Falcon; he’s got a story or two to tell ya.

And, finally, why John Rustad won’t be the leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia, and His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, twelve months from now.

The venerable and exclusive Vancouver Club, on West Hastings in Vancouver.

  • Powers that be who rule our province. The same group of folks who just weeks ago — billionaire developers, and their ilk — convinced, under threat, B.C. United leader Kevin Falcon to fold his and his B.C. United tent in favour of supporting John Rustad’s far right B.C. Conservative Party — never for a moment wanting to see the conspiracy theory amenable Rustad continue on as B.C. Conservative Party leader should he “lose” the election — even as you read this, are meeting behind closed doors deep within the inner sanctum of The Vancouver Club, developing plans to oust John Rustad as B.C. Conservative Party leader — as they did with then B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Wilson, in favour of their hand-picked choice and oh-so-amenable, Gordon Campbell — to be replaced by Ms. Sturko, or Brad West or another potential B.C. Conservative Party leader, who would be acquiescent to their entreaties, a leader not wedded to conspiracy theories, someone more acceptable to the general populace.

So there you have it.

In the face of the chaos that will be wrought in the United States with the (re) election of Donald Trump as President, in British Columbia some degree of sanity will prevail, with the Nuremberg 2.0-compliant John Rustad set to be removed as B.C. Conservative Party leader, in favour of someone more balanced and palatable to a broad swath of the British Columbia electorate. With David Eby at the helm of a progressive British Columbia New Democratic Party, we can look forward to enjoying a government committed to empowering women, empowering members of our Indigenous community, and building the economy, an oasis of political sanity in this crazy old world of ours where stability, in British Columbia, is our friend.