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#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 | An Autocrat No More | 2024 Election | Eby Emerges As a Humbled and Chastened Politician

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David Eby: chastened, humbled, reflective, willing to listen, refocusing his government’s priorities.

Barely scraping by with the slimmest of majority governments, Premier David Eby has emerged from the bruising 2024 British Columbia election campaign a humbled and chastened man, a provincial leader prepared to change his government’s legislative priorities, to listen more, to be more collaborative in his approach, and to refocus on the priorities identified by the British Columbia electorate.

In the two years since assuming power in the Premier’s office, David Eby proved to be the provincial equivalent of the energizer bunny, going off in 10,000 different directions at once, unfocused, taking on far too much with little prospect of changing anything at all, Eby’s imperious, autocratic, top down approach alienating broad swaths of British Columbia’s citizenry, at odds with municipal administrations across the province, all the while racking up debt and ill will, and a cry to please just slow the merry-go-round down a bit, the change David Eby sought to achieve dizzying and disquietening in the breadth and depth of its unachievable scope.


British Columbia’s 31st (BC NDP) Premier, Glen Clark, pictured above in 2024, at 66 years of age.

During the course of the election, broadcaster Mo Amir conducted an extensive, thoughtful and engaging interview on his This is Vancolour podcast with British Columbia’s 31st Premier, the original B.C. political energizer bunny, the British Columbia New Democrat’s Glen Clark, now a senior citizen at the ripe old age of 66 (soon to be 67, given that his birthday is coming up on November 22nd).

This is the advice that the older, and now wiser, Mr. Clark has for David Eby …

“David tried to accomplish too much in his two-year term as Premier, with little in the way of definable outcomes that people could see and feel. In the coming term, my advice to the Premier would be to refocus his government on four or five achievable goals: fulfill the government’s promise of $10-a-day child care; when it comes to health care, make a firm commitment that by 2026 the Interior region of the province will no longer experience emergency room closures, all while committing to reducing wait times and ensuring every B.C. citizen has a family physician.

Focus his government’s priority on achieving public safety, while ensuring that the indigent population are well-housed; and build social housing, high quality co-operative housing constructed on Crown land, a commitment to opening the doors on 10,000 units of housing for families, by 2027, in every region across our province.”

In the 2017 British Columbia election campaign, the BC NDP committed to building 100,000 units of affordable housing by 2025. In point of fact, the government has achieved only 20% of that goal. British Columbia’s NDP government has got to stop making promises that they have no real and palpable intention of fulfilling.

Throughout the course of the recent 28-day election campaign, David Eby championed his government’s near fulfilled commitment to achieving $10-a-day child care for families who live in every region across B.C., when in point of fact his government is a very long way from achieving that goal. Most irritating to VanRamblings was the Premier’s championing of how his government had cut child care fees in half during their term of government (note: not $10-a-day child care), when David Eby’s government had no role to play in halving child care fees: doing so was entirely a federally funded initiative of the Trudeau government.

The key to a successful, full-term David Eby-led British Columbia New Democratic Party government is, as we write above, collaboration, consultation, respect for the municipal partners in the change movement to build the much needed housing the public has demanded, an ability to listen and to act, and be seen to act, on the input that will be provided by the stakeholders in the movement for change (read: citizens), who desire change as much as David Eby wants change, but change reflected in the wants and needs of the populace, rather than the autocratic imposition of a “I know best what you need” British Columbia provincial government.

Now for the good news — good news, that is, if you’re a fan of Premier David Eby (as is the case with VanRamblings) and the B.C. New Democratic Party government he leads with vision, and an unwavering commitment to the public good.

If Premier Eby can hold onto government for the next three years — for which the prospects are good, given that negotiations between Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau and David Eby, to work collaboratively, are moving ahead well for both concerned parties — a number of salutary events will unfold for the BC NDP …

  • The Broadway Millennium Line Skytrain extension to Arbutus Street will open in late 2027, along with the 13-storey social housing seniors facility at 7th and Arbutus. Governments that get things done always wears well with the public;

  • The new Pattullo Bridge, connecting New Westminster to Surrey, will also open, as yet another feather in the cap of the B.C. New Democratic Party government;
  • And, best of all, a far-right, chaos driven, extremely unpopular Pierre Poilevre government will have been in power for two years come late 2027, which will have a number of salutary impacts: the re-birth of a renewed B.C. Liberal Party, a very unpopular B.C. Conservative opposition following on the coattails of a hated Pierre Poilievre, a Trumpian nightmare of a Prime Minister — you wonder why Nova Scotia Conservative Premier Tim Houston is going to the polls early, as will soon be the case with Ontario Conservative Premier, Doug Ford … cuz they know, even if you don’t, that Pierre Poilievre will be held in such disrepute that their respective chances for re-election would be fatally wounded with Poilievre in power. And what does this have to do with the cost of tea in China, and the prospects of David Eby being re-elected to a second full term, with a much increased majority, in 2027-2028? An upstart B.C. Liberal Party garnering 23% of the vote, a B.C. Conservative Party also registering at 23% in the polls, and our beloved David Eby-led British Columbia New Democratic Party government coming up the middle in 2027-2028, in a B.C. provincial election that will give them a comfortable majority in the British Columbia legislature.

And, yes, we’re aware that we’re driving you nuts with our criticism of the BC NDP, while touting their majority government re-election, three or four years hence.

All part of the invaluable service we provide to you, most days, at VanRamblings!