BC Election Follies  

‘tis the season for elections around the world, and I have been writing about them a good deal of late, with the emphasis on the municipal election in my sadly-declining home town of London, Ontario.

I will write more about that shortly, but first I have to say a bit about a truly startling election outcome that occurred in British Columbia on October 24, just last week. No results were in by my blog’s weekly ‘posting deadline’ of Saturday midnight, so I had to wait until this week to post this.

To be honest, I don’t know that I have anything terribly insightful to say about this election, but I cannot possibly not write something.

That the election occurred at all was the result of a ‘snap’ call by the incumbent premier, David Eby of the BC NDP party. His mandate to form a government had a good two years left on it, after the election of 2024, but in spite of that, he dissolved the BC Parliament and asked the lieutenant-governor to drop the writ for an election.

Eby claimed that he needed a new mandate and a bigger majority (the NDP had a bare majority of 47 seats in the 93-seat legislature) to deal with the threat of Donald Trump. The best word for that claim is ‘bullshit’, as there is no record of Mr. Eby or anyone in his cabinet talking to DJT at any point, nor any reason to think they ever would. International relations are indisputably a federal matter in Canada.

What everyone recognized was that the BC Conservative party was and is Eby’s only real competition for political power in the province, and the BC Conservatives were a mess. They had recently deposed their party leader, had 16 of their MLAs quit to join other parties or be forced out by scandal, and Mr. Eby smelled blood in the provincial waters. Calling an election in this circumstance was a bit like calling a big meeting in your department when you know the guy who is going to be hardest to convince about your great new idea is stuck at home with diarrhea.

That being said, I should point out there is a long tradition of Premiers calling snap elections to increase their majority or the length of their time in power. Give politicians a chance to behave opportunistically and they will often take it. Liberal Premier of Ontario David Peterson called a snap election in 1990 in the belief that his NDP and Conservative opposition polling badly, and after that election Ontario found itself with a surprise NDP government led by Bob Rae. Nothing but bad came from that mess.

On the other hand, our own Dougie Ford called a snap election last year using the same bullshit story as Eby: he needed a bigger majority and longer term in office to deal with Donald Trump.

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives (I love that name) won three seats fewer than they did in the previous election, but that still left them with a large majority in the Ontario legislature, and left Mr. Ford as Premier. Sometimes opportunism pays. The true reason for Ford’s early election call was that a Federal election was looming in 2025, and the federal Conservatives looked like they would form a majority government. It is an old saw of Ontario politics that Ontario voters favour a Liberal provincial government when the federal government is Conservative, and vice versa. Thus, Ford was trying to get his time in office lengthened before the Conservatives took over the federal government, which he feared would lead to his party’s defeat if the provincial election happened in 2026 as it was supposed to, after the federal Conservatives were in power.

In the end, of course, the Liberal maintained their position as the ruling party federally, so Doug got the predictions wrong but has four more years as Premier all the same.

Heading back to the snap election in BC last week, in a result that makes me think maybe there is a God…..or karma…..or justice, even, Mr. Eby’s ploy failed. Spectacularly so. I often think that no one ever got rich by betting on the perspicacity of the average Canadian (or American) voter, but the people of BC smelled a rat this time, and responded.

The snap election reduced the NDP from 47 seats in the legislature to 28, and the BC conservatives won 63 seats – a very comfortable majority.

That reversal alone is utterly remarkable, but keep in mind also that the NDP and the Conservatives are at opposite ends of the spectrum, politically. This was not the electorate getting pissed at the far lefty party and replacing them with the left of centre Liberals. Indeed, there seems to be no Liberal party in BC at all. No, this was being so pissed at the lefty leader of the NDP that they voted in Conservatives, fergodsakes.

One more fact is helpful to indicate just how badly Eby fucked up. I read this fact somewhere and could not believe it, so I did some digging and found it to be true, indeed. The last time BC was governed by a legislature with a Conservative Premier was 98 years ago. Yes, 1928. The many years since then has been all NDP, Social Credit and Liberal governments.

Mr. Eby, you will get your gilded invitation to join the Fuck-Up Hall of Fame very shortly, I expect.

David Eby

Inducted 2026

On a nerdier note, turnout in this election was apparently very low. Here’s a quote from a Globe story about it:

According to preliminary results from Elections BC, about 48 per cent of voters cast a ballot, which would be the lowest level recorded going back as far as 1928. In 2024, voter turnout was about 58.5 per cent, and in 2020, it was about 53.9 per cent.

Note yet another reference to 1928. Talk about historic.

However, those numbers all refer to the percentage of registered voters who bothered to vote in each election. As all those eligible to vote do not bother to register, and I don’t know how hard it is to register in BC, I can only say for sure that less than 48 per cent of those eligible to vote did so last week.

So, perhaps the story here is that a lot of typical NDP voters were sufficiently embarrassed or upset by what Eby did that they simply refused to show up at the polls at all. No way to know.

I am looking forward to his induction into the FUHoF, and I do hope it is broadcast online. I’ll pay to watch that.