The Decibel - B.C.’s election: a party’s implosion and an unlikely face-off

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

British Columbia heads to the polls this Saturday, October 19th. It’s been an election campaign full of surprises — from the collapse of one established party, to the meteoric rise of a nearly defunct one. With the ongoing challenges of housing, affordability, healthcare and the toxic drug crisis, polling has BC Conservatives and the incumbent BC NDP in a dead heat.  The Globe’s B.C. politics reporter, Justine Hunter, walks us through the province’s unpredictable election, what both the campaign and the result could tell us about the forthcoming federal election.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

British Columbia heads to the polls this Saturday, October 19th. And this election has been unpredictable. We have had the landscape in British Columbia transformed by a stunning decision in late August when the BC United leader Kevin Falcon pulled the plug on his party and withdrew from the election campaign. Justine Hunter is The Globe's BC politics reporter. This mighty party that was kind of a natural governing party in BC has fallen. And this has led to an unexpected face-off. When you hear from John Rustad, conspiracy theories, division, cuts, it's not going to solve the problems that we face.

We need to make sure that we bring an end to decriminalization and safe supply. We need to bring an end to the government being a drug dealer, quite frankly. Now, the recently revived B.C. Conservative Party is in a tight race against the incumbent NDP. So today, Justine is here to explain the political surprises we've seen, the major voting issues, and what the B.C. campaign could tell us about the next federal election. I'm Menaka Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Justine, thank you so much for being back on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Manika.

I know it's a busy week there. There's a lot going on in preparation for the election. So I do appreciate your time. And I think I'd really just like to start with you kind of giving us a lay of the land, if that's possible. Like, what is BC's political landscape? Who are the parties in play? What's going on?

Yeah, we've got an interesting election. And of course it is because it's British Columbia. We have three parties that were elected in the 2020 election. We had the B.C. liberals, who then rebranded as the B.C. United. And we had the NDP that formed government, a majority government. And then we had the two Green Party MLAs. By the time the legislature dissolved this spring, ahead of this election campaign, there was another party.

There was the BC Conservatives. And they earned about less than 2% of the popular vote in the last election, but they've become this kind of outsized force here in British Columbia, overtaking both the Greens and BC United in popularity. So it's really shifted the landscape here. So you've got an NDP government that has been in power since 2017. That's kind of our centre-left party that we've always had a centre-left party and generally one centre-right party. And the name of the centre-right party has morphed over time, way back when it was Conservative, then became Social Credit, and then it became the BC Liberals and now BC United. But generally, you've got this sort of coalition party that represents

federal Liberals, federal Conservatives, anybody but the NDP. And it's interesting, this is important because in other parts of the country, liberal is seen as more left, central left. But in B.C., it's actually more center right. the reason why they decided to rebrand was because they felt that there were people that were uncomfortable with the name liberal for that reason, that it was associated with something that was not as conservative as some voters in BC would like. So they tried to pick this neutral name, BC United, but they didn't really manage to land it. They didn't stick the landing with rebranding. People didn't recognize them. And at the same time, you had a party, BC Conservative, just kind of reviving over the past year. And voters went, yeah, okay, that's the party for me. So that's how you've got this

sort of meteoric rise of a party that had been, we haven't elected a conservative government here in British Columbia in 96 years. So they really have come out of nowhere. So yeah, let's talk about this because they're in contention this time around. As you said, the last election, they didn't even have anyone voted into the legislature. They had less than 2% of the vote. So how did this happen? How did we see this incredible rise of the conservative party? A couple of things I would say. One is sheer luck by John Rustad to have been kicked out of the BC Liberal Party. And if you're wondering why, it was because he insisted on denying the science of climate change. So this is the current Conservative leader, used to be a Liberal MLA, now he's a leader of the

Conservatives. John Rustad was elected five times under the liberal banner. And then he gets kicked out of caucus. And then he decides to take over the BC Conservative Party, which was really just, there wasn't really a machine there. There wasn't a big fundraising arm. They didn't really have staff. But his timing was impeccable because the federal conservatives were suddenly rising in prominence. And John Rustad would echo a lot of the same. You'll hear him talk about common sense change. And when Polyev started talking about drug dens in British Columbia, Mr. Rustad adopted that language. So the other thing that happened, though, was that the BC United Party under Kevin Falcon just wasn't, they hadn't kept the coalition together.

When they rebranded, it didn't take off. And so once the conservatives started rising in public popularity, the people that bankroll these parties, the business community in particular, started saying, wait a second here, we want somebody that can defeat the NDP. We want them out of government. We need one party representing the center right, and it's going to be the conservatives. Can we just kind of talk through the details of this a little bit, Justine? So what happened then with BC United? How did they kind of dissolve and end up also putting their support behind the Conservatives? Yeah, it was very surprising because there was a lot of bad blood between the BC United Party and Kevin Falcon and the Conservatives under John Rustad because Mr. Rustad had been kicked out. So the two of them had been

trading shots. It was far more vitriolic than really the scraps with the NDP. So you've got the leaders of these two center-right parties sit down and have a private stealthy meeting where they start working out the details of what's going to happen, how they're going to end up with one party. And Kevin Falcon, the leader of the BC United, ends up basically collapsing his tent. They got virtually nothing. I think he had hoped that they would have something that looked more like a merger, where his incumbents would still have a seat. And so some of the conservatives who had been nominated in different ridings would have to step down. John Rustad was having none of that. They did end up cherry picking a few of the more conservative minded members of Kevin Falcon's caucus, but most of those incumbents were dumped. And they learned

about it just minutes before Kevin Falcon and John Rustad held a surprise news conference in August to announce this decision. Wow. This is all going down just a few weeks before the scheduled election. How did people respond? Yeah, it was very surprising. They're not even trying to maintain their name in this election. And nobody was more shocked than his caucus. The people that had been loyal to him and to the party, were suddenly told, no, that's the end of your political career unless John Rustad wants you. But the other people that were very surprised and caught off guard were the NDP. For two years under their leader, David Eby, they had been working towards this election date in October with the understanding that they were going to be facing two major opponents. And that gave them an advantage because it really would likely split

the center-right vote, and that gave them a strong hand in this election. Their popularity was a solid, you know, 45% of the vote. It's enough to win in B.C. if you've got the rest of the vote being split. And all of a sudden that wasn't the case anymore. So where do things stand now then? We've got the NDP basically against the conservatives. How tight is this race? From all the public polls I've seen, it's very tight. I would also say watching the leaders and how they're behaving this final week of the campaign, it is

clearly tight. We've seen David Eby and the NDP going back to seats that are NDP ridings to try and shore up their support there. And the other wild card we've got, of course, is whether the Greens are going to pull a significant part of the vote away. That would be not entirely at the expense of the NDP, but on balance, most of it. And then you've got all these independents. Some of them are former BC Liberal incumbents who are running in seats where they should be strong. Typically, independents don't do very well in British Columbia. We've only had one person who ever managed to win as an independent. But they could be enough to sort of skew the vote and split the vote.

Yeah. And if it ends up being a really close race, I don't know, a minority government, those independents or green MLAs actually could play a significant role. That has been the main selling point of the NDP and the independents in this race. They're saying we could have another scenario like we had in 2017, where neither of the two major parties had enough support to form a majority government. And in that case, the Greens were in this very unusual position of basically holding the balance of power. They played the role of kingmakers, and they negotiated with both parties, which was then the NDP and the Liberals, and ended up choosing to support the NDP.

And they worked out a deal where they got some things that they wanted out of the NDP. So that's how we had a government for more than three years here in British Columbia that was a functioning government with a minority. So if that happens again, then it would be a slightly different scenario because you don't have necessarily one caucus that can negotiate with a government. You might have a bunch of independents or a few independents that might not want to do a deal with either party, but might just say, well, we're going to see vote by vote how we feel about things. And that will make it very interesting in BC politics.

We'll be back in a moment. That kind of gives us a lay of the land here, Justine, about how things are looking in B.C. Let's actually talk about the two main party leaders right now. So we'll start with the conservatives, the leader John Rustad. We heard a little bit about how he used to be a liberal. Now he's the leader of the conservatives. Can you tell us a little bit more about his politics and what he himself stands for? John Rustad has been elected five times as a liberal. He was mostly on the back bench, although he did serve as Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Minister for a few years in Christy Clark's cabinet. So he was always a bit of a maverick.

And one of the things he was getting a name for was denying the science of climate change. And that was something that the BC liberals, they were advocates for the carbon pricing. They brought in the first broad based carbon tax in North America here in BC. They were not going to have somebody going out there saying climate change isn't real or we don't need to do anything about it. And so that's how he ended up getting dumped from the Liberal caucus. But he went out and decided he's not going to sit as an independent or leave. He went and ran for and was elected the leader of the BC Conservative Party in March of last year and started building a party from scratch. He's brought in his own staff. He is in charge of

vetting those that, you know, he's responsible for the people that are on the ticket right now. He's from Prince George. He's a rural leader who could be the premier, but we will not have a lot of understanding of how he would lead until he gets in because he hasn't been tested. He's been a distant third MLA in the House, and he's not had the chance to run as a leader on a ticket before. And you mentioned something a bit earlier about how the conservatives under him have kind of maybe benefited from the popularity of the federal conservatives right now. Can you tell me a bit more about that? Yeah. So there's one pundit I was speaking to describe Mr. Rustad as the luckiest politician in BC in 25 years. And what he meant by that is that this wasn't a party that was naturally going to build itself, except for the fact that we had this brand recognition at a time when Canadians, a lot of Canadians are interested in Polyev and the federal conservatives. So we had suddenly the

one party on the ticket that people could recognize their name. And if they didn't like the NDP, they said, well, I know those guys. I know the conservatives. And so you'll see John Rustad mimicking a lot of the same lines that Pierre Polyev has delivered around common sense change and talking about some of the same issues around problems with the opioid crisis and how it affects public safety and whether people feel safe. They've attacked the NDP government on some of the same issues you'll hear federally, where the Conservatives say that things have fallen apart under the current government and that they're offering a change for Canadians. They just feel that there's something wrong and somebody's offering change that's well-timed.

Okay, so now let's switch gears and talk about the NDP. So the current premier, David Eby, is an NDP member. He's been in office for about two years now, but the NDP actually came into power in 2017. So they've had a bit of a stretch in office. What's actually defined their time in power? Well, since 2017, under the former leader, John Horgan, we had a government out here in British Columbia that was pretty careful and moderate. They kept the budget in balance under John Horgan. They resisted pressure to shut down old growth logging because they were supporting the resource industries. And every budget I covered under the John Horgan government,

the business community would grudgingly mumble something about, yeah, these guys are fiscally prudent. And the bond rating agencies kept BC as their top rated province in the country. But then David Eby took over two years ago and things started to change. And how did they change? David Eby is a much more activist. He's still, I would say, a pragmatic politician. And when you look at his roots as somebody who came out of the Civil Liberties Association, he was an anti-poverty activist. The conservatives love to remind you that he once wrote a handbook on how to sue the police.

So he was seen as this kind of firebrand. He gets into power through acclimation when John Horgan stepped down two years ago and said he'd had enough. He'd had some health challenges. He was no longer going to run. And so Eby was the heir apparent. He was a powerful cabinet minister under John Horgan. He was attorney general. He was a powerful cabinet minister under John Horgan. He was attorney general. He handled a lot of the big files for Mr. Horgan that were difficult. The idea of balancing the budget's gone out the window. We have a record deficit in the budget they introduced in February, and that's grown up

to now a $9 billion deficit, according to the last fiscal update. The other thing he's done is he pushed forward this pilot project with decriminalization of illicit drugs. And then when that went sour, he canceled the pilot project. So he's shown his ability, his willingness to take activist positions, but he's also been pragmatic when it's come to saying, well, that's not working, and I'm taking too much heat, so we're going to pull the plug on that. Interesting. Yeah. Well, this brings us to kind of some of the current issues of the election, Justine.

So let's let's talk about this. I want to start with affordability and housing affordability specifically. Of course, this is an issue everywhere in the country, but B.C. is feeling this quite acutely. Where do the NDP and the conservatives stand on this from their platforms and what the leaders have said? So on affordability, there's been this kind of dueling, buying votes with your money kind of, it's a classic thing, right? Both the parties have now agreed that they would like to tear up the carbon tax. They've got different approaches to it, but essentially they're both talking about, yes, we understand people are feeling stretched. Inflation and high interest rates are eating into people's standard of living. On housing, there's a lot of similarities there, again, in that they both agree that we need more

housing stock. But how they get there is different. John Rustad says the problem is that government's getting in the way and what we need to do is free up the private sector to build. But he's also offering money for infrastructure to help cities deal with more density. So if you want to allow more density in my neighborhood in Victoria, you might need to upgrade the sewer lines and the water lines and the electricity lines. So that's something that the mayors would have been happy to hear about. The NDP have gone all in on housing. They committed billions of dollars over the last few years. It's been a big project for David Eby. And they've got a number of initiatives that involve the public sector duplexes or triplexes without a whole bunch of delays in permitting.

So they're pushing that, but it's taking a long time to actually see the results. What about health care, Justine? This is also a big issue, of course, across the country. How do the NDP and conservative approaches to health care differ? NDP and the conservatives in their platform are both promising to spend more money on health care. What the NDP have done is they have addressed the shortage of family doctors by renegotiating the compensation agreement between themselves and the doctors who are willing to do family practice. And they basically gave the doctors what they want. The doctors are a lot more happy now, and there's a lot more family doctors that have gone back to family practice. There's also the recruitment and retention, so on. Nursing and doctors, both parties agree,

we need to bring in more people from other jurisdictions. But the NDP have already been working on this. So the NDP can actually point to what they've done. The Conservatives can only say what they plan to do. Yeah. And I have to ask, because I've heard that Rustad, the Conservative leader, has actually made some comments about COVID as well. Can you just give us a sense of what that conversation is about? Yeah. So when the pandemic first arrived in BC, every single MLA in the legislature rolled up their sleeves, got their COVID vaccine, supported the public health officer, Bonnie Henry. And then Mr. Rustad has since then come out and said, well, I actually regret getting the vaccine. He's been triple vaccinated, but he now says that the, you know, the so-called vaccine and he's questioned

whether or not this was about a public safety crisis or whether this was just some effort by the government to control people. So he's come out now against vaccine mandates. And he's sided with the people that were running the convoys on the idea that the government was trying to overstep its authority in making people do the vaccines and mask mandates. So there's an interesting sort of evolution of John Rustad on that. When you were asking me earlier about who is he, and I said, I don't really know. There's the John Rustad that did not make a fuss at the time about getting vaccinated. But he's now as a conservative leader, being telling people, well, actually, I didn't agree with that policy. And one of my first things I want to do is fire the provincial health officers that brought you those vaccine mandates.

Okay. Also, really quickly, Justine, I also want to ask you about the toxic drug crisis in BC, because this is something that EB and Rustad actually differ on how they should approach it. So how does each party say they'll address this? Well, first of all, I'll say that there's actually a fair bit of agreement. So both agree that the decriminalization experiment was a disaster. I mean, they use different words, but the B.C. government has canceled that. They both agree that involuntary care around addictions has to be part of the solution going forward. They both agree that more investments in addictions treatment are needed and both reject the public health officer's recommendation to expand safer supply.

This is the first time the NDP have really diverged in opinion from the public health officer on this. Mr. Rustad has said he would close drug dens. That's his term for safe consumption sites. And that he would entirely end safer supply project, which is something the NDP say has been saving lives, and they've been supporting public health efforts on that score. So, you know, if you accept that they both want to help people with addictions, then it's a matter of how they approach that. And the conservatives are far more prescriptive.

They say that people should be taken and put into addictions treatment, zero tolerance. You know, they say we will end decriminalization, but the NDP have already done that. So I think, yeah, there will be a difference in approach depending on which government wins. But the general idea of the fact that we need more support for addictions treatment is hard to disagree with. So just lastly here, Justine, some people have called B.C.'s election kind of like a bellwether for the upcoming federal election, which could be sometime later this year, probably next year.

So what might B.C.'s election result kind of tell us about the federal one? cost of living. They're unhappy with the state of health care. They're unhappy with affordability, housing, the cost of housing, all of these things. And they're seeing, you know, issues on the street and around public safety. And they're mad. That's a generalization. But you've got this sense of the case that the conservatives are offering for change. And now you may not agree with what they're offering as a prescription for change, but when you boil it all down, what they're saying is, if you're unhappy, you should vote for us because we will do something different. What we'll see in BC is whether that resonates. Justine, it's always so great to have you here.

Thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks, Monica. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. This episode was edited and mixed by Kevin Sexton. Our producers are Madeline White,

Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.