I don’t think I have ever seen such a bald attempt to contrive a justification to seek to unnecessarily take advantage of a political opportunity than what we are witnessing with David Eby calling an election half way through his four year term when he already holds a majority, albeit a slim one.
Not only does Eby’s own justification make absolutely no logical sense, it couldn’t come at a worst time, and yet, David Eby insists “It’s never a bad time to go to British Columbians to ask the right direction.” Yes, there is a bad time. This is it!! Running as it will exactly during municipal elections is a terrible time to ask voters to also weigh up candidates and policies in another concurrent election.
Never in history has a BC election been called to take place this close to another election at the same time. The idea that this unique moment in time, when the Conservatives are in disarray following defections and resignations, means that he can’t even wait a month, is nothing more than a politician gaming the system with no regard for the electorate or the democratic process itself, which is a little ironic coming from a party whose name actually includes the word “democratic”.
It undermines democracy because, despite what Eby weakly insists, voters are struggling to figure out who to vote for mayor, councillor, park board and school board out of dozens and dozens of candidates. It’s no wonder voter turnout for civic elections tend to be low. You aren’t voting for just one candidate, but loads of them, and to do so in good faith actually takes a lot of time and effort.
So when Eby dismissively says that voters are smart enough to handle it, he misses the point. We want to be properly apprised of the issues, platforms and personalities in the provincial election, but now we have to do that while also figuring out who to vote for in the civic elections.
Signs will proliferate for both elections and advance voting stations for the provincial election will literally be open the same day as the civic election. Which place do we go to vote for which? Community centre gymnasiums will be double booked for all candidates meetings for civic and provincial elections.
You can be sure there will be confusion, and for what? Because David Eby is so conniving that he will not wait one single month to do this just a bit later. And why is that? (Checks notes) Because of Donald Trump?
Yes, David Eby insists that the public needs to make a choice now because of the “existential threat” that is the feckless US president. It absolutely is an existential threat, which is why this is precisely not the time to be focussed on electioneering.
You can be sure that the Conservatives will jump on that claim throwing it back at Eby who, they will say, has put BC in such a precarious state on account of such appalling fiscal management turning the Horgan era surplus into a $14 billion deficit, decimating industries like forestry and raising taxes. This will be presented, not as a problem an election will fix, but as a problem made by Eby himself.
And for a government with a spending problem, I guess it’s par for the course to spend millions more on an unnecessary election civic leaders did no less than beg him not to call. Eby won two years ago and he still holds a majority. Is he afraid someone will be crossing the floor to reduce his one seat hold? Hard to imagine.
The other issue with democratic process is that when you ask the electorate for a mandate, we deserve to have a real choice and choosing the worst time for the opposition means that it will be harder for the case to be made for voters.
Having said that, I think the opposition will do their level best to get their act together to do just that, but that will be despite Eby’s attempt at opportunism. Our parliamentary process relies on opposition to keep the ruling party in check and the same thing goes when asking for a new mandate.
And speaking of mandates, what does Eby even mean by saying that the public needs to make a choice right now? Does he mean that he wants us to possibly choose the opposition? If he wins a couple more seats will that change anything in the way he governs? How can it? He is seeking to strengthen his majority, why exactly? Is his government unable to function now with just a one seat majority?
No, actually there really is no reason for this decision which will only cause confusion and voter fatigue. Eby is betting that this is an opportune moment. Two years ago the BC Conservatives came from nowhere to a hairs breadth of governing.
Eby may well regret his bet on this occasion. We’ll know in a few weeks if egg meets face.
David Fine is an award winning Vancouver filmmaker who is also very interested in Vancouver civic politics. He manages the VanPoli Facebook group which has over 8,000 members, and has written op-eds for various publications on a range of issues.
