The third paragraph has me alternating between rolling my eyes and weeping for Canadian elections. I don't live BC, so I suppose that I shouldn't comment, but really. How can people confuse a provincial election with a federal election?
I am pretty sure that there weren't many people who thought that. Sure, there are people who don't understand the issues or candidates, but saying that that's a major reason the Cons won seats is utter hogwash.
Because they're not following politics at all, rely on snippets of "info" they happen to come across. One young person I know didn't know who Eby was. Some of these people vote, based on what?
Better to go the other way. Restrict voting to people who own real property In their own right. This is the only way to keep the mob from looting the Treasury for themselves and giving other people’s property away to whomever shouts the loudest.
So renters would not be allowed to vote? That’s a very classist attitude. Why should my university educated sister, a 31 year old born and raised Canadian not get a voice? Or the legions of seniors living in care homes?
Yes, of course it’s a classist attitude. That’s the whole point. People who don’t own Canadian real property don’t have skin in the game as to who owns the land and who gets to usurp it. If the only voters were property owners you wouldn’t see the NDP trying to give land away. There wouldn’t even *be* an NDP, and the federal government wouldn’t be able to “defend incompetently” against land claims. There would be no voting constituency favouring these treasonous actions against the Canadian polity. Seniors in care homes do own property in the form of their retirement savings which usually include some real property— if not now then during the time they were growing. But if they are living only on the OAS and GIS, then no, they shouldn’t have a say in running the country. Part of why we can’t reform the pension-welfare-healthcare system is because of all those old people voting their self-interest against younger taxpayers who can’t afford houses, ...or rent.
The difficulty is that people who have defined-benefit pension plans (now mostly public sector workers) don’t have skin in the game because the pension fund must pay them that benefit no matter how poorly the investments perform: the plans are ultimately backstopped by the taxpayers. So a teacher whose only real property is in her pension fund, no, I would not let her vote.
Shares in a business could qualify as property for the purpose of voting eligibility because the business generates wealth.
Other possessions—“chattels”—depreciate and so aren’t worth anything durably. Even if you own a Porsche but rent your apartment you’re not really invested in the country the way you are if you are a landowner or an investor.
Of course this will never happen because none of those current voters would agree to be disenfranchised even if they contribute nothing to the country and demand handouts. I’m only demonstrating why universal suffrage leads to Marxism.
That's not what she said and I don't think it's what she meant.
She said "real property" which is a highly specific term meaning real estate. So quite literally, anyone who doesn't own real estate doesn't get to vote. Rich people only going forward.
Rob, a) I agree with you; and b) we have ample evidence that so, so many of the electors simply don't think. Prime (please excuse that word) evidence of that non-thinking is the continued re-election (albeit with small pluralities) of the Face Painter.
I suspect the B.C. Liberals were losing around 3% to 5% of their vote in the last 8 years just because their name was "The B.C. Liberals." Kudos to the right in B.C. for finally fixing this problem, even if it was a little bumpy this time around.
As for the premise of the column above: I disagree vehemently. Left wing parties will probably be shut out of B.C. politics for the next 15 years now that the right has gotten their shit together. NDP & Greens must be aware these next 4 years will be their only chance to get anything done for a long time.
And if you mean by 'getting anything done' you mean destroying businesses, bowing to FN, bringing in more dubious policies around the homeless and drug addicts...etc etc. I think that is exactly what Eby and the NDP will do. They are activists in an echo chamber who truly believe that anyone who does not agree with them 100% is 'homophobic, mean spirited, racist, chauvinists'...I can't think of any more, but you get my drift.
When you consider the wreck that is the Federal Liberal Party and the fact that 20% of Canadians still whole-heartedly support it AND Trudeau - anything, no matter how ridiculous, is possible from within the electorate.
The Castanet story doesn't explicitly say that they thought they were voting against Justin Trudeau. Instead, it says "Two voters said they cast a ballot for the BC Conservatives out of disdain for the federal Liberals and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, suggesting the Conservative effort to link the BC NDP to the federal Liberals—which are not on the provincial ballot—has seen some success." So, did they think they were voting out Trudeau, or were they voting against an NDP government that they saw as excessively aligned with Trudeau?
All in all, I think the driving factor here is "cope" by NDP supporters who want to rationalize their poor showing by blaming it on voters too stupid to know they were voting in a provincial election, not a federal one.
Canada's NDP is one party, not completely separated federally and provincially. Therefore, a voter might very well vote against Eby to stick it to Singh/Trudeau. Or they might vote for EBy to stick it to the Conservative brand as an anti-Poilievre move.
...who are not good mating material, if you get my drift.
Gotta hand it to JD Vance. It might not have helped his boss’s campaign when the Dems dug up that cat lady reference, but it is a helluva memorable line.
There is no formal data on that . It smells like someone canvassing heard it from two people, and like anything on the internet these days , it gets massively amplified to try to upset people or create clicks and debate.
Always amazed at the scurrilous mud the NDP and those of its ilk are able to hurl at anybody who opposes them or their viewpoints. I assume they’re all pure of thought and mind which seems unlikely based upon the accusations they make about the character of their opponents.
There isn’t a party with hands unblemished from hurling scurrilous mud; partisan (and most often hypocritical) attacks are a distressing side of politics these days. I wouldn’t say the Conservatives (Rustad or Poilievre types) are “filled” with racist, climate-denying, science-skeptic homophobes, but there’s enough of them in MLA/MP candidate positions to make any reasonable person worry.
Rustad’s vow to bring the govt down at first opportunity is typical sour-grapes pettiness we’ve come to expect among major parties. Not to mention the public expense, risk of blowback and utter absurdity of his acting as a petulant child. What would be the downside of his (gasp) trying to fulfill his role as leader of the opposition, and providing actual leadership to his constituents & followers by working to solve the issues of the day. We’re not going to help solve the housing, healthcare, or affordability crises if all he does is throw sticks in the spokes of people pedalling towards better days.
You’re assuming that governments who primly purge themselves of racists, homophobes, and climate deniers can actually bring about better days by solving housing, healthcare, and affordability just by being allowed to pedal without interference from an Opposition.
A good opposition can add value by holding the ruling government to account, by negotiating positive change, and by tempering tendencies to swing too far from what the bulk of the voting public wants. A good opposition party demonstrates how they would address challenging issues, and understands they’re auditioning for the chance to lead in the next election cycle.
A good opposition doesn’t crosscheck their opponents from behind, pick up the puck and threaten to stop the game because they’re down a goal.
However Paul...there has to be a modicum of intelligent discourse and, dare I say it, gentlemanly respect for your opponent, something you just don't see any more.
Of course I see it. To a point. A few BC Conservative MLA candidates have pole-vaulted across the chasm between intelligent discourse and blatant asshattery, erasing any chance of gentlemanly respect. See: Bryan Breguet & Brent Chapman’s comments, and Jody Toor pretending to be a doctor.
All those epithets are in the eye of the beholder and are up to the voters to decide. If the people in a riding want to elect someone you think is racist (or homophobic or climate-sceptical), that should be up to them. They might not think his views are racist by their lights, or they may look past his racist views because they want him for other reasons where his racist views aren’t relevant, or they may sympathize with him and support him because he is racist like them. Doesn’t matter. He’s still their choice as MLA. The only one who gets to disqualify him is the party leader who might judge that his views make it hard for the party to get elected in other ridings. But that’s a political calculation, not a moral one. If the only people whom those views upset aren’t going to vote for that party anyway, then you might as well keep him in caucus. No need to purge him as long as he’s loyal.
(I don’t know any of these people personally so I’m not defending any specific views. I just take an amoral approach to politics. It’s about power.)
Hey, I think that Eby would probably have said the same thing if he had the fewer vote count. And I did vote for Eby but with great with reluctance. He pushed Cabinet Minister Selina Robinson out of the Cabinet thanks to a campaign led mainly by the terrorist group Samidoun. She is Jewish and this had been their goal for sometime.
Eby caved to the mob and showed himself to be without a spine and no principles. But there are far more Muslim voters in BC. you see.
. I certainly don’t mean to suggest that he is an antisemite, I really don’t think he is, but the NDP party has quite a few.
Peter, you write in part, "... I assume they’re all pure of thought and mind ..."
Please tell me that you are making that comment tongue in cheek as I cannot conceive of any sentient being actually believing that of that grouping of total ilk.
Congratulations to BC for voting in more "safe supply" and more homeless encampments. Also congratulations to them for continuing to be Climate Solution Deniers by keeping the ban on nuclear power. Well done BC!
what makes you think that ? All he did was move back, sort of, to allowing police to remove people from using in public spaces. He also rejected Dr Henry's proposal to have fentanyl in local cannabis stores without a doctors oversight and and anyone can get it with ID. Those were both in response to anger growing Rustads support of course. But neither of that is "killing safe supply".
I will be furious if Eby backtracks on the policies that he lifted, without even a blush of embarrassment, from the Conservatives. It is because he suddenly became a convert to some of their policies, that I was willing to vote NDP again and I’ve supported the NDP for years.
Incumbents are in trouble throughout Canada - note the change in government in NB. They now, gasp, have a Liberal Government in place of a Conservative. We note the upheaval in BC. Manitoba got a new NDP Government. In Saskatchewan the governing party, the Sask Party (a party that assumes the name of the province should be forbidden, I digress) is taking hits from the NDP. I'm fairly sure that the Sask Party will win given their preponderance in rural ridings but they're getting a run for their money as the campaign winds down. Federally, of course, we have what we have. The common thread is 'throw the beggars out and let's try something different'. Importantly, from my perch, is the absence of any coherent political philosophy in all this desire for change. The political philosophy of the parties in contention is seemingly of less importance than the characters in power and those who wish to supplant them.
Yep. After Covid (not just the pandemic but the impact on housing, inflation, and interest rates), voters are in a punishing mood. Outside Canada, a number of incumbent leaders have stepped down or been defeated, whether left or right: Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Scott Morrison in Australia, Rishi Sunak in the UK, Joe Biden in the US.
If David Eby and the BC NDP are able to hang on, they'll have overcome an extremely strong trend.
I was a member of the BC Greens when Andrew Weaver was the leader and I still get their emails.
Based on what they say, I'd put the chances of the BC Greens backing a BC Conservative government at absolute zero. Not a chance. And that means the NDP don't need to go "cap in hand" to the Greens because they know the Greens can either accept whatever the NDP does or have another election.
Sure, the Greens might roll the dice, but I doubt it. Ms. Furstenau lost soundly. The two Greens that won weren't terribly tight, but the BC Conservatives aren't too much behind in those ridings either. And I don't see the independent vote increasing either... that likely favours the BC Conservatives.
Like Rob, and Peter below, I weap for Canada. Remember Rick Mercer going down to the USA with his "Talking to Americans" and the liberals scoffed at the answers from street? The USA equivalent could come to BC and interview its residents and laugh at the lack of common sense. Furthermore, the NDP are socialists and Margaret Thatcher has wonderful quotes about socialists running out other people's money. They are soft socialists, and will not tolerate dissent and will castigate anyone who wishes to disagree with their world view. Very dangerous people when looking at a high standard of living for the populace.
I am not weeping for Canada. I am weeping for Canadian elections because there seemed to have been a fair portion of the BC population who cannot distinguish between a provincial and federal election.
Yes, it's a virtual tie at the moment, but the trend line should be clear to everyone. The conservatives are on the way up, and the NDP is on the way down; the two trajectories have just intersected momentarily.
David Eby has professed......"there was a clear majority for progressive values", says a guy whose barely visible majority rests on 119 votes. The people have spoken!
The election was close, but the old “free-enterprise coalition” did not coalesce behind the BC Conservatives. Traditionally, the NDP gets +/- 40% and if there is a single viable “free-enterprise” option” (Liberal/Conservative coalition, Social Credit, BC Liberals) they usually get 4 or 5 points more than the NDP. This time, the NDP got 45% or 1 point more than the BC Conservatives. This indicates that the extra 5% of votes the NDP received came from BC Liberals who found the BC Conservatives “too extreme”.
Also, in two ridings, Vernon-Lumby and Richmond-Steveston, the BC Conservative would have won had the BC United candidate not run as an independent. If these candidates felt comfortable with the BC Conservatives and not run, the BC Conservatives would now be in a slim majority.
Will the BC Conservatives professionalize their operations before the next election and attract the more liberal free-enterprise voters? Or will they still be viewed by them as a collection of cranks? Or will BC United turn things around?
This may end up being an election that the NDP will wish they'd lost. They barely eked out a win against a party that basically didn't exist before the past couple of years. Eby's performance was obtained with the advantage of incumbency against a rookie party with a rookie leader and a number of candidates who weren't exactly ready for prime time. Now even if Eby manages to form a government, it's going to be teetering on the edge of non-confidence and he'll be forced to flip-flop on a number of policies *again* to keep the Green Party onside (obviously the carbon tax, but there'll be others.) As we've seen with the Ontario Liberals (and probably the federal Liberals), narrowly winning one more election can lead to a much bigger punishment in the next election that can threaten the long-term viability of the party. That's also the history of the BC NDP: Glen Clark's win with his "fudge-it budget" in 1996 led to a punishing defeat in 2001 and 16 years of BC Liberal rule.
Hopefully, the Independents do the right thing in the next election and ‘step aside’. Their egos cost us. What kind of bribe will the Greens accept? The cost will be huge and wholly destructive of our finances whatever it is.
“We are going to make it as difficult as possible for the NDP to do any more destruction in this province,” he said in his election-night address. And there we have the very problem that faces politics and resonable governance not only provincially and federally; but, internationally as well . One political party denying cooperation with the others based on the Trumprinciple of I lost so you will suffer. Rather than be interested in what is best for the province, parties now seem to be like the spoiled child in the supermarket throwing a tantrum because mommy said not this time.
Well Bill...my interpretation is that it is best for the province to bring Eby and the NDP down. They have done just so much damage to the province and I just don't believe that Eby 'will do better' in the future. So another election would be OK with me.
I truly hope that the Greens have taken notes from ex-leader Weaver's capitulation to Horgan and from Singh's ongoing humiliation from their respective CASAs and use this chance to twist the NDP's arm hard. Electoral reform should be the table stakes for any kind of agreement, it would at least ensure that when the next election is called, it would reduce the chance of the Conmen completely sweeping (and it would help ensure that all future progressive-wannabes have to actually compromise and get things done rather than moralize).
Reform it how? Like TMU’s med school with their DEI admissions requirements? To believe that BC residents cannot distinguish between the Provincial and Federal Conservatives is utter nonsense. (Although, not impossible to believe if some are acually too stupid to know who David Eby is). Eby ran a completely ugly campaign - besmirching the Conservatives candidates with all manner of lies. He certainly couldn’t tout his record because it is dismal. Sonia Furstenau, while the darling of the debate, has her head in the clouds while standing atop an imaginary money tree when it comes to policy. Not one of the tantrum-ing former Liberal/BCUnited Independent candidates earned enough votes to get a single seat, but they managed to peel off enough votes to cause a Cnservative candidate’s defeat. Liberal egos abound and cause problems right across the country with their selfishness. In the latter days of the campaign, the media and the NDP tried to make much of Pierre Poilievre’s neutrality on Rustad. In today’s climate of ignorance and loud voices, Pierre was wise to not conflate the two parties. BC lower mainland and mid to South Island are sappy “nanny state” voters. Nanaimo should definitely have voted Conservative in view of the lack of health care facilities (despite promises, promises, and more promises), the increased homelessness and addiction issues that have all worsened under the NDP and their appointed Bonnie Henry. I expect none of Eby’s current promises for Nanaimo to come to fruition before the next election when he promises the same all over again. Dix is a lost cause whose ego exceeds his IQ. The people who sit comfortably in Victoria and the lower mainland (and whine about traffic) have no clue what it’s like to have to travel for urgent medical care over hazardous highways and the expense of accommodation. There is no joy in Mudville…or BC.
I agree with most of what you said, apart from Sonia Furstenau being the darling of the debate. I found her interruptions annoying. And it's easy to make all sorts of promises when one will absolutely not be premier.
The “darling of the debate” should have had quotations around it and had reference to being the “media’s darling”. Other than she speaks pretty well, and clearly believes her own jabber, she has nothing else to offer.
‘Atmospheric River’ LOL. Its been happening for a very, very, very long time. We used to call it the Pineapple Express back in more reasonable times. It's also known as heavy rain. Not unusual at all and unworthy of such an evocative moniker.
The stupid options that were presented last time are no more appealing now! Too many conniving weasels trying to figure out how to set things up so that the mediocre rises instead of the best.
🤣🤣. Countering is not necessarily complaining. Why are you trying to change my mind? I have an NDP MLA, a new one but will be same virtue-signalling socialist, woke, DEI, progressive as for the last many, many years.
Respectfully, I have said nothing against your original points apart from pointing out that your statement about the Greens platform missed the fact that they did put out a costed platform, and the only thing I would want to change your mind about at this point is the utility of complaining (yes, that's what it is) to me about the dismal state of BC politics, which I still assert you're doing based on your own comments. Again, if you have such problems with these issues, I'm not the one you should be engaging with.
Not when it is something as fundamental as how we elect our representatives. The voters will want to be consulted. And no one was campaigning on changing the electoral system. No one has a mandate to mess around with that.
Bonus, the NDP weren't campaigning on expanding LNG, and they still did, and the LPC campaigned on reform in 2015, do those also count as anti-democratic?
25% of the population doesn't want it, I'd hardly call that representative of "the population", and I'd also call it a fitting microcosm for why reform is warranted. If we aspire to embodying a democratic society, we should be willing to critique and reconfigure our electoral systems accordingly.
Expanding LNG is not fundamental to how we choose our representatives and govern ourselves. The Liberals paid electorally for campaigning on PR then reneging afterwards.
It’s telling than many PR advocates are against referenda because they know PR is unpopular and the “unwashed” find it complicated. They always want to sneak it in to fool the plebes.
If it improves democratic representation (which it would) and a party gets slammed for reneging on it (like you attest the LPC did, which is questionable, but I won't deny it), that just sounds like two points in its favour to me.
Consider... Their leader lost soundly. She's not going to win. Their two MPs won, but have the BC Conservatives not far behind. Remember how low voter turnout was... there's a lot more people to get out. The independents are clearly not going to win, so that'll help the BC Conservatives. (Although independents didn't really factor into either BC Green win.)
And the NDP know that the BC Greens really, really, really don't want a BC Conservative government.
True. That is some leverage. They could threaten to make the legislature ineffective. I’m not sure that would help them speak to voters, but the NDP sure wouldn’t like it.
On the other hand, the NDP could declare anything that was in their platform as a confidence motion.
I take your point that they have some leverage, but I don’t think it’s much.
Let's have another provincial election then. When you realize that BC United pulled the plug on their party just shortly before the writ was dropped, and hardly giving the BC Conservatives time to run hard. Also the Conservatives did not benefit from the automatic funding given from government coffers based on their party's last showing in an election. The last election prior to this one was a no show for the party, basically. I think if we do have another election, the Conservatives and Rustad will take it.
The third paragraph has me alternating between rolling my eyes and weeping for Canadian elections. I don't live BC, so I suppose that I shouldn't comment, but really. How can people confuse a provincial election with a federal election?
I am pretty sure that there weren't many people who thought that. Sure, there are people who don't understand the issues or candidates, but saying that that's a major reason the Cons won seats is utter hogwash.
Because they're not following politics at all, rely on snippets of "info" they happen to come across. One young person I know didn't know who Eby was. Some of these people vote, based on what?
This is why I'm against mandatory voting lol
Better to go the other way. Restrict voting to people who own real property In their own right. This is the only way to keep the mob from looting the Treasury for themselves and giving other people’s property away to whomever shouts the loudest.
So renters would not be allowed to vote? That’s a very classist attitude. Why should my university educated sister, a 31 year old born and raised Canadian not get a voice? Or the legions of seniors living in care homes?
Yes, of course it’s a classist attitude. That’s the whole point. People who don’t own Canadian real property don’t have skin in the game as to who owns the land and who gets to usurp it. If the only voters were property owners you wouldn’t see the NDP trying to give land away. There wouldn’t even *be* an NDP, and the federal government wouldn’t be able to “defend incompetently” against land claims. There would be no voting constituency favouring these treasonous actions against the Canadian polity. Seniors in care homes do own property in the form of their retirement savings which usually include some real property— if not now then during the time they were growing. But if they are living only on the OAS and GIS, then no, they shouldn’t have a say in running the country. Part of why we can’t reform the pension-welfare-healthcare system is because of all those old people voting their self-interest against younger taxpayers who can’t afford houses, ...or rent.
The difficulty is that people who have defined-benefit pension plans (now mostly public sector workers) don’t have skin in the game because the pension fund must pay them that benefit no matter how poorly the investments perform: the plans are ultimately backstopped by the taxpayers. So a teacher whose only real property is in her pension fund, no, I would not let her vote.
Shares in a business could qualify as property for the purpose of voting eligibility because the business generates wealth.
Other possessions—“chattels”—depreciate and so aren’t worth anything durably. Even if you own a Porsche but rent your apartment you’re not really invested in the country the way you are if you are a landowner or an investor.
Of course this will never happen because none of those current voters would agree to be disenfranchised even if they contribute nothing to the country and demand handouts. I’m only demonstrating why universal suffrage leads to Marxism.
Property as in belongings/objects/businesses, not real estate.
That's not what she said and I don't think it's what she meant.
She said "real property" which is a highly specific term meaning real estate. So quite literally, anyone who doesn't own real estate doesn't get to vote. Rich people only going forward.
Rob, a) I agree with you; and b) we have ample evidence that so, so many of the electors simply don't think. Prime (please excuse that word) evidence of that non-thinking is the continued re-election (albeit with small pluralities) of the Face Painter.
I suspect the B.C. Liberals were losing around 3% to 5% of their vote in the last 8 years just because their name was "The B.C. Liberals." Kudos to the right in B.C. for finally fixing this problem, even if it was a little bumpy this time around.
As for the premise of the column above: I disagree vehemently. Left wing parties will probably be shut out of B.C. politics for the next 15 years now that the right has gotten their shit together. NDP & Greens must be aware these next 4 years will be their only chance to get anything done for a long time.
And if you mean by 'getting anything done' you mean destroying businesses, bowing to FN, bringing in more dubious policies around the homeless and drug addicts...etc etc. I think that is exactly what Eby and the NDP will do. They are activists in an echo chamber who truly believe that anyone who does not agree with them 100% is 'homophobic, mean spirited, racist, chauvinists'...I can't think of any more, but you get my drift.
When you consider the wreck that is the Federal Liberal Party and the fact that 20% of Canadians still whole-heartedly support it AND Trudeau - anything, no matter how ridiculous, is possible from within the electorate.
Apparently the sourcing for this is a story from Castanet (a Kelowna news outlet) where they were talking to voters casting early ballots: https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/511943/On-the-Street-Who-are-you-voting-for-in-the-provincial-election
The Castanet story doesn't explicitly say that they thought they were voting against Justin Trudeau. Instead, it says "Two voters said they cast a ballot for the BC Conservatives out of disdain for the federal Liberals and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, suggesting the Conservative effort to link the BC NDP to the federal Liberals—which are not on the provincial ballot—has seen some success." So, did they think they were voting out Trudeau, or were they voting against an NDP government that they saw as excessively aligned with Trudeau?
All in all, I think the driving factor here is "cope" by NDP supporters who want to rationalize their poor showing by blaming it on voters too stupid to know they were voting in a provincial election, not a federal one.
Canada's NDP is one party, not completely separated federally and provincially. Therefore, a voter might very well vote against Eby to stick it to Singh/Trudeau. Or they might vote for EBy to stick it to the Conservative brand as an anti-Poilievre move.
Thank you for taking the trouble to track that down. That’s a much more plausible explanation.
Lack of education. Civics is not a very big course in most provinces. It should be but it isn't and that leads to these sorts of messes.
It’s the result of too much education from liberal woke single cat lady teachers
...who are not good mating material, if you get my drift.
Gotta hand it to JD Vance. It might not have helped his boss’s campaign when the Dems dug up that cat lady reference, but it is a helluva memorable line.
There is no formal data on that . It smells like someone canvassing heard it from two people, and like anything on the internet these days , it gets massively amplified to try to upset people or create clicks and debate.
My thought exactly, Rob. I live in BC. It's hard to believe what I read. Yet, there it is glaring at me from my computer screen.
Always amazed at the scurrilous mud the NDP and those of its ilk are able to hurl at anybody who opposes them or their viewpoints. I assume they’re all pure of thought and mind which seems unlikely based upon the accusations they make about the character of their opponents.
There isn’t a party with hands unblemished from hurling scurrilous mud; partisan (and most often hypocritical) attacks are a distressing side of politics these days. I wouldn’t say the Conservatives (Rustad or Poilievre types) are “filled” with racist, climate-denying, science-skeptic homophobes, but there’s enough of them in MLA/MP candidate positions to make any reasonable person worry.
Rustad’s vow to bring the govt down at first opportunity is typical sour-grapes pettiness we’ve come to expect among major parties. Not to mention the public expense, risk of blowback and utter absurdity of his acting as a petulant child. What would be the downside of his (gasp) trying to fulfill his role as leader of the opposition, and providing actual leadership to his constituents & followers by working to solve the issues of the day. We’re not going to help solve the housing, healthcare, or affordability crises if all he does is throw sticks in the spokes of people pedalling towards better days.
Ah, at least Rustad types aren’t pro-Hamas.
You’re assuming that governments who primly purge themselves of racists, homophobes, and climate deniers can actually bring about better days by solving housing, healthcare, and affordability just by being allowed to pedal without interference from an Opposition.
Well…yeah.
A good opposition can add value by holding the ruling government to account, by negotiating positive change, and by tempering tendencies to swing too far from what the bulk of the voting public wants. A good opposition party demonstrates how they would address challenging issues, and understands they’re auditioning for the chance to lead in the next election cycle.
A good opposition doesn’t crosscheck their opponents from behind, pick up the puck and threaten to stop the game because they’re down a goal.
However Paul...there has to be a modicum of intelligent discourse and, dare I say it, gentlemanly respect for your opponent, something you just don't see any more.
Of course I see it. To a point. A few BC Conservative MLA candidates have pole-vaulted across the chasm between intelligent discourse and blatant asshattery, erasing any chance of gentlemanly respect. See: Bryan Breguet & Brent Chapman’s comments, and Jody Toor pretending to be a doctor.
So no, no I don’t respect that behaviour.
By the way, “primly” purge themselves from racists, homophobes and climate deniers?
Like it’s considered improper to banish such people from representing the Canadian public as elected officials?
All those epithets are in the eye of the beholder and are up to the voters to decide. If the people in a riding want to elect someone you think is racist (or homophobic or climate-sceptical), that should be up to them. They might not think his views are racist by their lights, or they may look past his racist views because they want him for other reasons where his racist views aren’t relevant, or they may sympathize with him and support him because he is racist like them. Doesn’t matter. He’s still their choice as MLA. The only one who gets to disqualify him is the party leader who might judge that his views make it hard for the party to get elected in other ridings. But that’s a political calculation, not a moral one. If the only people whom those views upset aren’t going to vote for that party anyway, then you might as well keep him in caucus. No need to purge him as long as he’s loyal.
(I don’t know any of these people personally so I’m not defending any specific views. I just take an amoral approach to politics. It’s about power.)
Hey, I think that Eby would probably have said the same thing if he had the fewer vote count. And I did vote for Eby but with great with reluctance. He pushed Cabinet Minister Selina Robinson out of the Cabinet thanks to a campaign led mainly by the terrorist group Samidoun. She is Jewish and this had been their goal for sometime.
Eby caved to the mob and showed himself to be without a spine and no principles. But there are far more Muslim voters in BC. you see.
. I certainly don’t mean to suggest that he is an antisemite, I really don’t think he is, but the NDP party has quite a few.
Peter, you write in part, "... I assume they’re all pure of thought and mind ..."
Please tell me that you are making that comment tongue in cheek as I cannot conceive of any sentient being actually believing that of that grouping of total ilk.
Congratulations to BC for voting in more "safe supply" and more homeless encampments. Also congratulations to them for continuing to be Climate Solution Deniers by keeping the ban on nuclear power. Well done BC!
Eby killed safe supply.
what makes you think that ? All he did was move back, sort of, to allowing police to remove people from using in public spaces. He also rejected Dr Henry's proposal to have fentanyl in local cannabis stores without a doctors oversight and and anyone can get it with ID. Those were both in response to anger growing Rustads support of course. But neither of that is "killing safe supply".
If you believe that...well???
He asked the feds to re criminalize it months ago.
I will be furious if Eby backtracks on the policies that he lifted, without even a blush of embarrassment, from the Conservatives. It is because he suddenly became a convert to some of their policies, that I was willing to vote NDP again and I’ve supported the NDP for years.
Incumbents are in trouble throughout Canada - note the change in government in NB. They now, gasp, have a Liberal Government in place of a Conservative. We note the upheaval in BC. Manitoba got a new NDP Government. In Saskatchewan the governing party, the Sask Party (a party that assumes the name of the province should be forbidden, I digress) is taking hits from the NDP. I'm fairly sure that the Sask Party will win given their preponderance in rural ridings but they're getting a run for their money as the campaign winds down. Federally, of course, we have what we have. The common thread is 'throw the beggars out and let's try something different'. Importantly, from my perch, is the absence of any coherent political philosophy in all this desire for change. The political philosophy of the parties in contention is seemingly of less importance than the characters in power and those who wish to supplant them.
Interesting to witness.
Yep. After Covid (not just the pandemic but the impact on housing, inflation, and interest rates), voters are in a punishing mood. Outside Canada, a number of incumbent leaders have stepped down or been defeated, whether left or right: Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Scott Morrison in Australia, Rishi Sunak in the UK, Joe Biden in the US.
If David Eby and the BC NDP are able to hang on, they'll have overcome an extremely strong trend.
I was a member of the BC Greens when Andrew Weaver was the leader and I still get their emails.
Based on what they say, I'd put the chances of the BC Greens backing a BC Conservative government at absolute zero. Not a chance. And that means the NDP don't need to go "cap in hand" to the Greens because they know the Greens can either accept whatever the NDP does or have another election.
Sure, the Greens might roll the dice, but I doubt it. Ms. Furstenau lost soundly. The two Greens that won weren't terribly tight, but the BC Conservatives aren't too much behind in those ridings either. And I don't see the independent vote increasing either... that likely favours the BC Conservatives.
Like Rob, and Peter below, I weap for Canada. Remember Rick Mercer going down to the USA with his "Talking to Americans" and the liberals scoffed at the answers from street? The USA equivalent could come to BC and interview its residents and laugh at the lack of common sense. Furthermore, the NDP are socialists and Margaret Thatcher has wonderful quotes about socialists running out other people's money. They are soft socialists, and will not tolerate dissent and will castigate anyone who wishes to disagree with their world view. Very dangerous people when looking at a high standard of living for the populace.
I am not weeping for Canada. I am weeping for Canadian elections because there seemed to have been a fair portion of the BC population who cannot distinguish between a provincial and federal election.
I live here in BC. These comments are the first I’ve heard . I think it insulting and rare.
Yes, it's a virtual tie at the moment, but the trend line should be clear to everyone. The conservatives are on the way up, and the NDP is on the way down; the two trajectories have just intersected momentarily.
David Eby has professed......"there was a clear majority for progressive values", says a guy whose barely visible majority rests on 119 votes. The people have spoken!
I don't understand how anti-semitism has become a "progressive value." I am hoping that caused at least some of the vote loss, but who knows?
Agree
Very Trudeau level of arrogance. I was angry and dismayed he said that. He barely scraped by. And I voted for him. Good grief!
The election was close, but the old “free-enterprise coalition” did not coalesce behind the BC Conservatives. Traditionally, the NDP gets +/- 40% and if there is a single viable “free-enterprise” option” (Liberal/Conservative coalition, Social Credit, BC Liberals) they usually get 4 or 5 points more than the NDP. This time, the NDP got 45% or 1 point more than the BC Conservatives. This indicates that the extra 5% of votes the NDP received came from BC Liberals who found the BC Conservatives “too extreme”.
Also, in two ridings, Vernon-Lumby and Richmond-Steveston, the BC Conservative would have won had the BC United candidate not run as an independent. If these candidates felt comfortable with the BC Conservatives and not run, the BC Conservatives would now be in a slim majority.
Will the BC Conservatives professionalize their operations before the next election and attract the more liberal free-enterprise voters? Or will they still be viewed by them as a collection of cranks? Or will BC United turn things around?
This may end up being an election that the NDP will wish they'd lost. They barely eked out a win against a party that basically didn't exist before the past couple of years. Eby's performance was obtained with the advantage of incumbency against a rookie party with a rookie leader and a number of candidates who weren't exactly ready for prime time. Now even if Eby manages to form a government, it's going to be teetering on the edge of non-confidence and he'll be forced to flip-flop on a number of policies *again* to keep the Green Party onside (obviously the carbon tax, but there'll be others.) As we've seen with the Ontario Liberals (and probably the federal Liberals), narrowly winning one more election can lead to a much bigger punishment in the next election that can threaten the long-term viability of the party. That's also the history of the BC NDP: Glen Clark's win with his "fudge-it budget" in 1996 led to a punishing defeat in 2001 and 16 years of BC Liberal rule.
During the campaign, Eby also flip-flopped and adopted some of Rustad's proposals. Who knows which policies he'll actually bring to the table?
Hopefully, the Independents do the right thing in the next election and ‘step aside’. Their egos cost us. What kind of bribe will the Greens accept? The cost will be huge and wholly destructive of our finances whatever it is.
The cost will probably be proportional representation voting pushed on the voters without a referendum.
Hopefully the results will stop the Indigenous giveaway by the NDP.
“We are going to make it as difficult as possible for the NDP to do any more destruction in this province,” he said in his election-night address. And there we have the very problem that faces politics and resonable governance not only provincially and federally; but, internationally as well . One political party denying cooperation with the others based on the Trumprinciple of I lost so you will suffer. Rather than be interested in what is best for the province, parties now seem to be like the spoiled child in the supermarket throwing a tantrum because mommy said not this time.
Well Bill...my interpretation is that it is best for the province to bring Eby and the NDP down. They have done just so much damage to the province and I just don't believe that Eby 'will do better' in the future. So another election would be OK with me.
Well, half the province said “Not this time.” So there is that.
I truly hope that the Greens have taken notes from ex-leader Weaver's capitulation to Horgan and from Singh's ongoing humiliation from their respective CASAs and use this chance to twist the NDP's arm hard. Electoral reform should be the table stakes for any kind of agreement, it would at least ensure that when the next election is called, it would reduce the chance of the Conmen completely sweeping (and it would help ensure that all future progressive-wannabes have to actually compromise and get things done rather than moralize).
Reform it how? Like TMU’s med school with their DEI admissions requirements? To believe that BC residents cannot distinguish between the Provincial and Federal Conservatives is utter nonsense. (Although, not impossible to believe if some are acually too stupid to know who David Eby is). Eby ran a completely ugly campaign - besmirching the Conservatives candidates with all manner of lies. He certainly couldn’t tout his record because it is dismal. Sonia Furstenau, while the darling of the debate, has her head in the clouds while standing atop an imaginary money tree when it comes to policy. Not one of the tantrum-ing former Liberal/BCUnited Independent candidates earned enough votes to get a single seat, but they managed to peel off enough votes to cause a Cnservative candidate’s defeat. Liberal egos abound and cause problems right across the country with their selfishness. In the latter days of the campaign, the media and the NDP tried to make much of Pierre Poilievre’s neutrality on Rustad. In today’s climate of ignorance and loud voices, Pierre was wise to not conflate the two parties. BC lower mainland and mid to South Island are sappy “nanny state” voters. Nanaimo should definitely have voted Conservative in view of the lack of health care facilities (despite promises, promises, and more promises), the increased homelessness and addiction issues that have all worsened under the NDP and their appointed Bonnie Henry. I expect none of Eby’s current promises for Nanaimo to come to fruition before the next election when he promises the same all over again. Dix is a lost cause whose ego exceeds his IQ. The people who sit comfortably in Victoria and the lower mainland (and whine about traffic) have no clue what it’s like to have to travel for urgent medical care over hazardous highways and the expense of accommodation. There is no joy in Mudville…or BC.
I agree with most of what you said, apart from Sonia Furstenau being the darling of the debate. I found her interruptions annoying. And it's easy to make all sorts of promises when one will absolutely not be premier.
The “darling of the debate” should have had quotations around it and had reference to being the “media’s darling”. Other than she speaks pretty well, and clearly believes her own jabber, she has nothing else to offer.
Best comment IMHO. Thanks Penny.
The Greens released a coherent costed platform which would improve people's lives, which is more than can be said for the other parties.
Plus, we all had our heads in the clouds, there was an atmospheric river the whole weekend.
Edit: also, if you have this many grievances (many of which I agree with) with BC politics, you may as well join me in calling for reform :D
‘Atmospheric River’ LOL. Its been happening for a very, very, very long time. We used to call it the Pineapple Express back in more reasonable times. It's also known as heavy rain. Not unusual at all and unworthy of such an evocative moniker.
I might be wrong, but I thought that term is the one meteorologists call the Pineapple Express.
Gonna fix the world’s climate all by yourselves in little BC, are you? Good luck!
?
The stupid options that were presented last time are no more appealing now! Too many conniving weasels trying to figure out how to set things up so that the mediocre rises instead of the best.
So why complain about it to me? I'm not in government, and your MLA has an email address.
🤣🤣. Countering is not necessarily complaining. Why are you trying to change my mind? I have an NDP MLA, a new one but will be same virtue-signalling socialist, woke, DEI, progressive as for the last many, many years.
Me too and I voted but could not affect the pathetic outcome (the NDP won my riding).
Respectfully, I have said nothing against your original points apart from pointing out that your statement about the Greens platform missed the fact that they did put out a costed platform, and the only thing I would want to change your mind about at this point is the utility of complaining (yes, that's what it is) to me about the dismal state of BC politics, which I still assert you're doing based on your own comments. Again, if you have such problems with these issues, I'm not the one you should be engaging with.
The people of British Columbia voted twice against electoral reform. To impose it without their input would be anti-democratic.
Using that as the standard of anti-democratic would make every legislative action anti-democratic by definition.
Not when it is something as fundamental as how we elect our representatives. The voters will want to be consulted. And no one was campaigning on changing the electoral system. No one has a mandate to mess around with that.
Our governments have mandates by virtue of forming government. Furthermore, our current system is itself anti-democratic by the same standard you set earlier, and you don't need to take it from me: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=eim/issue1&document=p4&lang=e
Bonus, the NDP weren't campaigning on expanding LNG, and they still did, and the LPC campaigned on reform in 2015, do those also count as anti-democratic?
At the end of the day you seem to want to impose an electoral system on a population that doesn't want it.
So ... I have to ask... why do you want to force an unwanted electoral system on a population?
25% of the population doesn't want it, I'd hardly call that representative of "the population", and I'd also call it a fitting microcosm for why reform is warranted. If we aspire to embodying a democratic society, we should be willing to critique and reconfigure our electoral systems accordingly.
Expanding LNG is not fundamental to how we choose our representatives and govern ourselves. The Liberals paid electorally for campaigning on PR then reneging afterwards.
It’s telling than many PR advocates are against referenda because they know PR is unpopular and the “unwashed” find it complicated. They always want to sneak it in to fool the plebes.
If it improves democratic representation (which it would) and a party gets slammed for reneging on it (like you attest the LPC did, which is questionable, but I won't deny it), that just sounds like two points in its favour to me.
Do you think the BC Greens have any leverage?
Consider... Their leader lost soundly. She's not going to win. Their two MPs won, but have the BC Conservatives not far behind. Remember how low voter turnout was... there's a lot more people to get out. The independents are clearly not going to win, so that'll help the BC Conservatives. (Although independents didn't really factor into either BC Green win.)
And the NDP know that the BC Greens really, really, really don't want a BC Conservative government.
So what leverage do you think the BC Greens have?
If they're necessary for any legislation to pass... leverage.
True. That is some leverage. They could threaten to make the legislature ineffective. I’m not sure that would help them speak to voters, but the NDP sure wouldn’t like it.
On the other hand, the NDP could declare anything that was in their platform as a confidence motion.
I take your point that they have some leverage, but I don’t think it’s much.
Let's have another provincial election then. When you realize that BC United pulled the plug on their party just shortly before the writ was dropped, and hardly giving the BC Conservatives time to run hard. Also the Conservatives did not benefit from the automatic funding given from government coffers based on their party's last showing in an election. The last election prior to this one was a no show for the party, basically. I think if we do have another election, the Conservatives and Rustad will take it.
Whatever the outcome, the worst job in BC politics will be that of the government whip...