Four days before voting day, the BC campaign spent Monday arguing about the country as much as the province. As Albertans voted to reject separation, David Eby named three Conservative candidates he says belong to a separatist Facebook group, and Lorne Doerkson called the attack on his patriotism disgusting. A new Angus Reid poll put the Conservatives at 46 and the NDP at 43, with 8% of 2024 NDP voters now backing the Greens.
That today's BC War Room a natural moment to hear from Adam Olsen, a former two-term BC Green MLA who helped negotiate the 2017 confidence and supply agreement that brought John Horgan's NDP to power. Olsen traced the party's evolution from Andrew Weaver to Sonia Furstenau to Emily Lowan, saying each leader has challenged the NDP's claim to be the progressive choice. He defended Lowan's pitch to tax wealth, not wages, arguing it puts a real number on the deficit while the two larger parties dance around it.
Asked whether the Greens exist to win seats or to move the debate, he answered: both. Olsen was blunt about Eby's appeal to Green voters, calling the relationship a one-way street. The NDP has never made a genuine offer, he said, and pushes hardest in ridings the Greens hold. Jiwani argued that a pre-election pact with Lowan could have put Eby far ahead. Gardiner said the policy gap on resource development makes that difficult, and that Eby is betting environmentally minded voters come home to the NDP.
Drawing on 2017 to 2020, Olsen said the Greens pushed hard but accepted that governing requires compromise, including during the approval of LNG Canada. Bills, he said, came out of those negotiations better than they went in. He recalled describing his position then not as a balance of power, but a balance of responsibility. Olsen also questioned whether Conservative unity will survive past the campaign, a view Jiwani disputed.
But the conversation closed on common ground. Olsen said some of his closest friends from the legislature sat across the aisle, and urged politicians to keep finding the islands of agreement that make democracy work.
Stay tuned to the BC War Room with new episodes dropping every weekday morning until election day.
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