By: Rob Shaw
There are a lot of signs the B.C. NDP is fumbling its own snap election call in this province, but here’s one in particular that stands out: it failed to field a full slate of candidates.
That British Columbia’s governing party of the last nine years, flush with cash and staff and all the advantages of incumbency, couldn’t get 93 candidates in 93 ridings for an election call it planned and sprung on its opponents is remarkable.
Internally, New Democrats were scrambling just to get the required 75 signatures for several northern ridings right up until the 1 p.m. cutoff Saturday. The NDP came up one short, unable to field anyone in Peace River North. It’s believed to be the first time the party has been unable to run a full slate in its history.
New Democrats are brushing that aside.
“We will happily choose a team of 92 excellent candidates than a team of 93 that includes conspiracy theorists like Anna Kindy or Trump apologists like Heather Maahs,” campaign director Cheryl Oates said in a statement. These were shots at B.C. Conservative candidates, but that party, which didn’t even have a leader until 24 hours before the snap call, has managed a full slate of 93 people.
Peace River North is likely not a winnable riding for the NDP. Still, it’s symbolic of the eyebrow-raising miscalculations that seem to have plagued Premier David Eby since choosing to drop the writ just two years into his four-year mandate.
He justified the move by pointing to the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, saying he needed to convert his three-seat majority into something stronger to stand up for the province.
The NDP have leaned into the nationalist imagery, with giant Canadian flags replacing Eby’s face on campaign literature and “Never the 51st state” on the supplied signs handed out to supporters at rallies.
That strategy has landed flat. Numerous polls since the writ drop have placed Trump way down the list of B.C. voter priorities, below cost-of-living, health care, jobs, the economy and public safety, to name just a few. Additionally, the high approval ratings of Prime Minister Mark Carney seem to have somewhat deflated the NDP boogeyman strategy, with British Columbians seemingly satisfied to let Carney handle international affairs while they search for a provincial government that can handle domestic issues like keeping hospital ERs open.
The NDP also counted on unpopular B.C. Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay being a foil, but she was forced out just before the snap campaign started. Her replacement, mild-mannered Lorne Doerkson of Williams Lake, has somewhat stymied the NDP messaging about extremists and chaos within the Conservative ranks.
The on-the-fly political recalculations by the NDP are evident.
New Democrats have abruptly pivoted to populist messaging, pulling pages out of campaigns by Manitoba premier Wab Kinew, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, B.C. Green leader Emily Lowan and federal NDP leader Avi Lewis.
The new villains in B.C.? Housing developers, oil companies, grocery stores and millionaires. At the same time as Eby is encouraging multi-national companies to come in to invest billions in new gas, mining and natural resource projects.
Eby promised to “crack down on gouging by the oil and gas companies” with new caps on gas prices, as well as “crack down on corporate price-gouging and strictly cap profits on everyday essential foods” with weekly government-imposed caps on price increases to staples like bread, poultry and dairy.
He took a shot at B.C. business icon Jimmy Pattison, saying billionaires are profiting off the backs of British Columbians and need to be brought to heel, while brushing aside the fact Pattison has made the largest single medical donation in Canadian history at $75-million towards Eby’s new St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.
On Sunday, he promised a new tax on people who earn more than $1-million annually to help fund health care. (That pledge also included two-percentage-point hikes to the previous two highest tax brackets.)
Eby has long portrayed himself as a smart policy wonk, on top of all the details as he tackles the complex problems of housing regulations and auto insurance.
But the campaign promises lack the same polish.
For example, the NDP promised to cut provincial fuel taxes by 10 cents a litre — except, there isn’t 10 cents a litre of provincial fuel tax in Metro Vancouver, it’s only 1.75 cents a litre, and the rest will come from a cut to the levy for public transit that the government will then have to backfill in the form of cash to the already cash-strapped TransLink organization that runs buses and SkyTrain.
Nobody is clear how it will actually work, but Eby is nonetheless criss-crossing the province talking about saving people $20 a tank.
Meanwhile, the B.C. Conservatives have dramatically exceeded the low expectations for their campaign.
The party didn’t even have a campaign manager until the evening the writ dropped, when it tapped veteran strategist Katy Merrifield, who was most recently communications director for federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
Since then, it has rapidly cobbled together a team of strategists from the John Rustad era of the B.C. Conservatives, the Trevor Halford era, the B.C. business community, federal Liberals and federal Conservatives. They’ve exiled the remnants of disastrous leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, including her husband Brent Chapman.
Doerkson has still been forced to defend controversial past candidates, like the Conservative MLA who is a doctor but didn’t think COVID vaccines were safe, or the MLA who compared LGTBTQ people to groomers. And his policy announcements, including cutting the 10 per cent PST on Canadian liquor, haven’t yet quite broken through the public fog on the election.
But the campaign has crafted a basic message that it is already hammering home in advertisements: almost nothing is better in B.C. after nine years of NDP government, and repeated promises to fix affordability and health care have failed.
It’s a far more competitive election in B.C. than most people thought possible, by a governing party that has never looked weaker and more disorganized, and a Conservative party still making it up on the fly.
The election Oct. 24 is shaping up to be fascinating.
Rob Shaw is the host of Political Capital, a daily podcast on B.C. politics and a weekly analysis show. He’s also a political correspondent for CHEK News TV in Victoria, and writes for Business in Vancouver and Northern Beat. He’s covered B.C. politics for the past 18 years.
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Rob Shaw writes well.
That was a stellar essay.
It was loaded with facts, balanced appropriately, and layered with opinion and context.
It was a pleasure to read.
A surprise election call brings surprises! Note to Eby: fix what ails you, your party, and BC first and then call an election. This election has a bunch of things weird. Surrey mayor candidates saying they will build hospitals, and a wannabe premier saying he will add police in towns, Eby saying he will tame Trump. Mr. Shaw is correct - the voters aren't sure why they are voting on an election about nothing and there most likely will be presenting BC with a government that is weaker, less organized, and power will lie with a few culture warriors. Just what we need for what's happening next door in Alberta and how to instill confidence in Mr. Carney that we have our act together. Not to mention that the civic election is on at the same time.