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#BCPoli | David Eby |
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 | A Puzzling, Undecided Election Result

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NDPer David Eby wins but loses, Green Sonia Furstenau loses, Con John Rustad sort of wins, for now

The 2024 British Columbia provincial election has set the stage for an extended period of uncertainty and ongoing and troubling political tension.


B.C. NDP supporter reacts as election night results come in (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

With the BC NDP securing 46 seats, pending a hand count of the ballots in at least two ridings where the vote was close , and the BC Conservatives close behind with 45, the situation is too close to call definitively until the final results, including mail-in ballots, are released on October 28, seven excruciating days from today.

The dynamics are further complicated by the two ridings where Green Party members were elected, and the Saturday night defeat of leader Sonia Furstenau.

David Eby’s path to once again becoming Premier and forming a government hinges on a confidence and supply agreement with the two elected Green MLAs, echoing the 2017 arrangement that brought the BC NDP to power. Eby’s focus on health care reform, particularly the establishment of community clinics, could be a key part of negotiations with the Greens, as Furstenau has made this a priority.

John Rustad and the BC Conservatives’ success, especially in rural areas, positions them as a formidable opposition. Rustad’s call for a new election highlights his confidence in gaining a majority, especially if he manages to unify some of the former BC United candidates who could have tipped the balance in his favour.

The inclusion of controversial conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers among the new BC Conservative MLAs introduces a wildcard element to the Legislature, potentially influencing policy debates and public discourse in unpredictable ways. BC’s political landscape is entering a period of heightened polarization, with urban-rural divides and deep ideological differences set to dominate in the coming months.

For Premier David Eby, the 2024 election marks both a personal victory and a daunting political challenge. His BC NDP narrowly held onto power in key urban ridings, particularly in Vancouver, where they won 11 of 12 seats. This urban dominance, especially in Vancouver, helped stave off what could have been a catastrophic defeat for the British Columbia New Democrats, given the rising popularity of the BC Conservatives. However, the BC NDP fell short of the majority needed to govern outright in the 93-seat legislature, placing Eby in a precarious position where his political future hinges on complex negotiations and compromises.

The Rise of the BC Conservatives and John Rustad’s Ambitions

While the BC NDP barely held their ground, the BC Conservatives, led by John Rustad, surged to unprecedented heights, winning 45 seats and dominating much of the rural and interior regions of the province. This represents a dramatic shift in BC’s political landscape, as the Conservatives capitalized on widespread discontent in regions such as the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, and the North. These areas, which have traditionally felt underrepresented in provincial politics, rallied around Rustad’s message of rural empowerment, deregulation, and resistance to what many see as overreach by the urban-centric NDP.

Rustad’s success is particularly striking given the collapse of BC United, the former centre-right party that was once a dominant force in provincial politics.

Many former BC United voters shifted their support to the BC Conservatives, and Rustad has positioned himself as the new leader of the province’s right-wing movement. Rustad has been vocal in calling for a new election, believing that with just a few more seats, he could secure a majority government. Indeed, had Rustad allowed key figures like Lumby Mayor Kevin Acton and Josh Stein in Vancouver-Langara to run as BC Conservative candidates rather than Independents, he might very well have been in a position to become Premier, and govern British Columbia.

As BC citizens await the final results, the province stands at a political crossroads.


Juan de Fuca-Malahat: 23 votes separate NDPer Dana Lajeunesse & Conservative Marina Sapozhnikov.

Note should be made that, at present, there are 49,000 outstanding mail-in votes that are yet to be counted. The count of the mail-in ballots and the hand count in two ridings could very well alter the outcome of the British Columbia election.

  • The B.C. Conservatives were leading in Surrey-Guildford by a margin of 0.6 per cent late on election night. That party’s candidate, Honveer Singh Randhawa, was ahead of NDP incumbent Garry Begg by 102 votes;
  • The rookie candidates for both parties in Kelowna-Centre were separated by only 0.6 per cent. Conservative, realtor Kristina Loewen was leading the City Councillor, the NDP’s Loyal Woodridge by only 148 votes;
  • Meanwhile, the difference in the race in Courtenay-Comox, between NDP incumbent Ronna-Rae Leonard and the Conservatives’ Brennan Day was 0.7 per cent, with the Conservatives ahead by 232 votes, in that traditionally swing riding.

When the results of the hand count, and the inclusion of the mail-in ballots are announced on October 28th, we’ll know the true outcome of Election 2024.


Surrey City Centre. 96 votes separate the BC NDP’s Amna Shaw and the Conservatives’ Zeeshan Wahla.

The urban-rural divide has deepened, and the ideological gap between the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives will lead to polarization and a contentious Legislature. In the coming months, the province’s political leaders will need to navigate these divisions carefully, as the future of British Columbia hangs in the balance.

How Do Other Political Observers Feel About Saturday’s Election Results?

Business in Vancouver Legislative reporter Rob Shaw: David Eby lost the election.

Despite running with all the advantages of government right up until the writ drop on September 21 — in the form of near-infinite money — resources and power, the Eby administration managed to squander the massive majority and record popularity left to it by predecessor John Horgan.

The NDP was brought to its knees by a BC Conservative party it argued was full of racist, homophobic, science-denying whackos, unfit to even run for public office, let alone hold it. Turns out, not everyone sees the world through the lens of moral superiority that New Democrats do.

Rob Shaw is must reading, with the best post-election political analysis you’ll read anywhere, as he tags Eby for the bare win, but actual loss.


John Rustad and wife Kim at the Conservative after-election event. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG.

PostMedia Legislative columnist Vaughn Palmer also blames Eby for the bare win, actual loss, and ponders whether Eby can hold on as leader of the BC NDP.

“Never lacking confidence in himself,” Palmer writes, “Eby vowed to govern until the scheduled election date and show results people could see, feel, touch and experience.

“How’s that working out?” One imagines more than a few New Democrats saying that as they saw their party once again thrown into the arms of the Greens to preserve its hold on power.

The second thing that some might question is Eby’s take-no-prisoners personal attacks on Rustad and the Conservatives.

Eby never seemed to allow that voters might have greater concerns — crime, the drug crisis, housing prices, overcrowded emergency rooms — than a seven-year-old social media posting, however appalling.

Had he toned down the moral superiority, he might have done better with voters who were wanting change.

Yet after presiding over a campaign dominated by vicious, personal attacks, on Saturday night he proclaimed himself “a Premier to bring us together, not drive us apart.’”

Can Eby, having done so badly, survive as leader of an NDP that has done in leaders that disappointed it in the past?”


BC Conservative Leader John Rustad poses for an election night photo. Ethan Cairns | Canadian Press.

Veteran Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason sticks to the facts, and how David Eby must move forward to retain power in the Legislative assembly in Victoria.

“Barring a change from the current results, the NDP holds a one-seat advantage over the Conservatives,” writes Mason.

“To form a majority it needed 47 seats, so the party will need the help of the two B.C. Green Party MLAs to make a legislative agenda work. The NDP would almost assuredly have to sacrifice one MLA to the position of Speaker, which would make its hold on power even more tenuous.

It’s hard to imagine the Greens ever agreeing to work with Mr. Rustad to give his party a shot at governing, given the Conservatives’ views on climate change and environmental matters more generally.

Mr. Rustad is a proud climate denier. While that seems astonishing in this day and age, I’m certain his skepticism around the science of climate change and COVID vaccines helped boost his popularity. There are many people in B.C., especially in rural parts of the province, that cheered Mr. Rustad on around these issues.

There are others who aren’t likely thrilled over those stands, or even cringe when they think of possibly being governed by a man who is stuck in the dark ages when it comes to climate change, but were willing to set those feelings aside to vote for change.

There was definitely an anti-David Eby sentiment that was pervasive in this election.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, Mr. Eby will need to take a hard look at his progressive agenda over the past two years and ask: Was it too much, too fast?”

Press Progress editor Luke LeBrun writes a must-read article on the Far-Right BC Conservative Candidates who are now BC legislators.

For instance, Tara Armstrong (Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream), who claimed a medical doctor who was encouraging the public to get vaccinated was “bought and paid for by big pharma” and a “total fraud.”

Suffice to say, we live in troubling times.

Let all those who cast themselves as progressives hope that David Eby can get his act together, and the BC NDP — when the next election rolls around — runs a more energetic and inspiring campaign, rather than the lacklustre, lethargic, utterly enervating, tone deaf, and uninspiring campaign the party chose to run in 2024.

For those of you who can’t get enough of democracy, and the elections which decide the nature of governance, you will be heartened to know that the 2024 New Brunswick general election is being held today, Monday, October 21st, 2024, where 49 members will be elected to the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly. The election was called at the dissolution of the 60th Assembly, September 19, 2024.

The incumbent Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick (PC) government — which has proved to be hardly that, progressive we mean — led by Premier Blaine Higgs since 2018, is seeking a third consecutive term in office.

Higgs’ government has been mired in controversy over the past couple of years, with one high profile Minister after enough resigning from Higgs’ Cabinet in disgust, arising from Higgs’ intolerant decision to jettison New Brunswick’s version of the SOGI 123 programme that, you know, actually treats gender variant / LGBTQ+ children as if they matter — looks to be headed for defeat tonight.

Even if BC voters don’t have their heads screwed on straight — Higgs = Rustad — at least New Brunswickers of conscience do. Yay, is all we can say.

The PCs’ primary opponent is the New Brunswick Liberal Association led by Susan Holt, who is looking tonight to become the province’s 61st Premier.

VanRamblings will take a much needed break, through until late on October 28th.

#BCPoli | A Re-Elected David Eby and a BC NDP Majority Government

BC Election 2024, BC Politics, BC Votes 2024, Canada, canadian politics, Essay, News, Politics, , , , , , , ,

The Angus Reid Institute surveyed 2863 citizens in every riding across the province — online, on the phone and in focus groups — a statistically valid sampling of a representative group of voters in each riding / region of the province, and predicts a majority NDP government will be elected on October 19.

Come 9pm this upcoming Saturday night — October 19th, 2024 — incorporating an up-to-date riding by riding analysis, and a representative cross-sampling of the twenty most reliable polling companies which have weighed in and reported out on the 2024 British Columbia election, VanRamblings has come to believe the good citizens of British Columbia will elect David Eby to a full term of office, as our province’s duly-elected Premier-designate, as the British Columbia New Democratic Party is set to enjoy majority government through the autumn of 2028, with a good prospect of being re-elected to office again that year.


The Honourable Thomas R. Berger, leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party in 1969.

For a good long while, VanRamblings believed that the BC NDP’s 2024 campaign for office bore a distinct relation to Tom Berger’s failed and far too “intellectual”, professorial and “coldly calculating” NDP campaign for office, in 1969.

VanRamblings no longer believes that to be the case.

Over the course of the past 10 days — in the post-debate period — the conditions of the 2024 BC NDP campaign have been radically reset, as a warmer David Eby has emerged on the campaign trail, no longer providing deadly boring lectur-y and utterly enervating policy pronouncements devoid of humanity.

Instead what British Columbians have seen in televised press conferences held in, for example, Courtenay-Comox, Campbell River and Surrey, is a David Eby who radiates warmth, the David Eby many of us know so well — the David Eby who consistently polled at a 53% approval rating for the past two years, as Canada’s most popular Premier — once again emerging on B.C.’s political stage, humble and comfortable in his skin — not to mention, affable and engaging — while providing the information British Columbians need to know before they cast their ballot.

VanRamblings advised B.C. NDP leader David Eby to be more aggressive on the campaign trail. David Eby, wisely, ignored VanRamblings’ advice, instead saying to himself, “Well, if I’m going to lose this campaign, I’m going to lose it being me, not as some automaton the campaign created.” David Eby has, as we expected would be the case, taken charge of his campaign for re-election over the course of the past ten days, his waggish sense of humour and his love of the province and all of its citizens front and centre in a rejuvenated and re-energized B.C. NDP campaign.


BC NDP leader Glen Clark emerges victorious and Premier-designate in 1996’s British Columbia election

Then we got to thinking, “If the correlation between the failed 1969 BC NDP campaign and the 2024 BC NDP campaign for office doesn’t hold water, what about the 1996 election, when Glen Clark became Premier, in spite of the fact that Gordon Campbell’s insurgent B.C. Liberal party garnered 43% of the popular vote to Mr. Clark’s 39% of the vote, yet due to ‘voter efficiency,’  the British Columbia New Democratic Party would form and hold government from 1996 through 2001?”

The BC NDP in 2024 have consistently polled five points ahead of the BC Conservatives. What if a situation occurred in 2024 that, although the BC NDP is polling ahead of the BC Conservatives, on a riding-by-riding basis and in the targeted riding campaign BC Conservative co-campaign manager, Dimitri  Pantazopoulos has run, BC Conservatives pull ahead on the seat count on election night to form government, despite winning fewer votes than their BC NDP rival?

Nah, we concluded. Too many differences between the 1996 and 2024 campaigns.

The upstart BC Conservatives are running a seat-of-their-pants election, devoid of a GOTV (Get Out the Vote) electoral machine necessary to win government, with much less money, many more untried candidates, and in a campaign that is rife with … see below as to what we believe to be a more relevant campaign correlation that may well inform the outcome of the 2024 British Columbia election.

On March 26th of this year, VanRamblings published a prescient column titled, Bozo Eruptions Disrupt Election Campaign, where we tracked then Alberta Wildrose party leader Danielle Smith’s failed bid for office.

See if you don’t think that there’s a correlation between Danielle Smith’s failed 2012 campaign for office, and the BC Conservative’s calamitous 2024 campaign.

As Stuart Thompson wrote, at the time, in The National Post …

It is a surefire rule of politics that at any given moment, somewhere in Canada a bozo is about to erupt.

Just as a political campaign is looking to flip the script, or turn the corner, or recapture the narrative, some bozo will ruin it for them, prompting damage control, tearful apologies, or, in the most severe cases, a resignation.

The bozos simply can’t stop themselves from erupting.

Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan, who ran Smith’s 2012 campaign, oversaw one of the most memorable stretches of bozo eruptions in Canadian political history: Smith wanted a big tent party, and open and unvetted candidate nominations.

Two days after the 2012 election was called, a Wildrose candidate’s year-old blog post was unearthed declaring that all gays were destined for a “lake of fire”. Smith refused to rebuke her candidate, saying the party “accepts a wide range of views.” And the hits just kept on comin’ for the Wildrose campaign, as day after day after day, a new candidate bozo eruption garnered front page coverage, and the lead story status on the evening news.

Danielle Smith’s dreams of becoming the Wildrose Premier were dashed, the party 20 points behind their polling on Election Day.

Danielle Smith’s failure to rebuke a candidate. Kind of sounds like BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad, who has consistently refused to censure any racist, intolerant, misogynist and homophobic utterance by any of his candidates.

What does the above have to do with British Columbia’s October 19th election?

Everything.

From the day after the Leaders’ Debate through until today, the BC Conservative campaign has been dogged by the shocking controversy surrounding their Surrey South candidate, Brent Chapman, such that the entire focus of leader John Rustad’s campaign for office has not been on the issues he’s raised at the daily press conferences he has held over the past week. Talk about being off message.


Brent Chapman, the B.C. Conservative Party’s Surrey South candidate, has said that what happened at residential schools is a “massive fraud”, called for a “boycott” of Air Canada to stop airlifts of Syrian refugees, questioned high profile mass shootings such as Sandy Hook elementary school where 20 children were murdered, while denying the white nationalist terrorist attack on a Québec City mosque.

Think of Rustad’s BC Ferries press conference, which got buried in an avalanche of questions put to the leader about whether Brent Chapman would be allowed to continue as a candidate for the BC Conservative Party in the riding of Surrey South.

The entire focus of reporter questions related to the ongoing, disastrous Brent Chapman fiasco, with no questions whatsoever on the BC Conservative plan for BC Ferries, or on subsequent days on the BC Conservative issue of the day, as the BC Conservative campaign was consistently held off message.

Can you say, devastating, calamitous, detrimental, hapless and noxious?

Chapman also shared a graphic posted by a far-right meme account.

The graphic features images of two handguns and the silhouettes of two heads.

“To those liberals who said they would kill themselves if Trump were elected,” the graphic states. “Don’t fuck this up too.”

The graphic suggests “liberals” should aim the gun at the centre of their brain rather than at their chin, an apparent reference to how best to commit suicide.

The most damning Chapman post — and destructive to the BC Conservative campaign — occurred surrounding the resurfacing of past statements demonizing Muslims and Palestinians, accusing them of “inbreeding.”

Why destructive to the BC Conservative campaign? Well, just see above.

Also, because 43% of the voters in the Surrey-Cloverdale riding where former BC United MLA, Elenore Sturko, who joined the BC Conservatives in June — who, only two weeks ago was polling at 56% in the riding, as Brent Chapman’s extremist anti-Muslim rants came to light has seen her potential to win the riding evaporate, as NDP incumbent Mike Starchuk, with the full support of the 43% Muslim electorate, is now set to win the riding Saturday night, and re-election to the BC Legislature.


Keith Baldrey, veteran Global BC Legislative reporter

On Mike Smyth’s CKNW talk show, Global BC reporter Keith Baldrey stated that Elenore Sturko was fully aware of Brent Chapman’s extreme views before she decided to run alongside him, as Ms. Sturko described Chapman as “an extremist” and a “QAnon conspiracy theorist” shortly before she defected.

“A week before Sturko made her jump, her announcement that she’s going to join the BC Conservatives, I ran into her in the Legislature library. And in my Facebook feed was suddenly a video from Brent Chapman and it was sort of about his candidacy. And I didn’t know him, I didn’t know he was married to (federal Conservative MP) Kerry-Lynne Findlay … I said to Sturko, “Oh, so you’re running against an actor?” And she says, “Oh, this guy, he’s a…” and she called him “an extremist,” said he was a ‘QAnon conspiracy theorist, that he’s crazy, you know.’ And at that point, she was still a member of BC United.” (CKNW, Oct 10)

All of the unsettling and disturbing news that has emanated from the BC Conservative campaign, following a dreadful — what CHEK-TV reporter Rob Shaw called a cadaver-like — Leaders’ Debate performance by John Rustad, giving the “win” to David Eby at 48%, with only 32% support for John Rustad, has caused the BC Conservative campaign not only to stall, as the party continues to lose momentum and more and more voter support with each passing day, but to recede, or perhaps even collapse, making a BC Conservative win on Saturday, at best unlikely.

As occurred in 2012 during that year’s Alberta election, come Election Day when Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Party lost 16 percentage points in support due to the day after day, drip by drip revelations of racism, intolerance and the hate espoused by many of her candidates, VanRamblings believes, come Saturday, when the vast majority of British Columbians will cast their ballot at the polls, British Columbians of conscience will make the decision to cast their ballot for the principled candidate for Premier, David Eby, and a British Columbia New Democratic Party where you have heard nary a whisper of intolerance, because as British Columbians we realize when we enter our local polling station, the only reasonable political party to vote for to form government will be the British Columbia New Democratic Party.

You’ll want to watch / listen to what former BC NDP Premier Glen Clark has to say about the 2024 British Columbia provincial election. If you don’t see the Hotel Pacifico podcast YouTube video above, you can listen to it here or here or here.