00:00:00.000British Columbians are going to the polls October 24th following a snap election call
00:00:11.400by Premier David Eby. This comes two years early. Eby says the election is necessary to counter
00:00:18.280President Trump's threats and attacks against Canada's economy. Others say the real reason
00:00:25.720is pure politics, disarray in the ranks of the Conservative Party of British Columbia,
00:00:31.240which has lost two of its leaders in quick succession. Could this backfire on Eby? Some
00:00:37.800people think it might. Our guest today is political commentator Leo Knight coming to us from Vancouver.
00:00:44.040Welcome, Leo. Thank you very much, Mark. We'll talk about this latest move by Eby. I'm sure a lot
00:00:50.640of people are saying it's the most cynical move by a government calling an election two years
00:00:57.100early just because a second leader of the Conservative Party, the British Columbia
00:01:02.320Conservative Party, has basically lost power, and now there is no permanent leader. There's
00:01:08.920an interim leader. What do you make of all of this? Well, you use the word cynical, and I think
00:01:15.600cynical and uh you know i don't know self-aggrandizing it you know you pick your
00:01:23.800adjective um it's uh like nothing i've ever seen in in my life watching politics uh you know to
00:01:32.480see an election like this um and i might add by the way that many municipalities in the province
00:01:39.100are going to the polls on october 17th so with this election call the provincial call on the
00:01:45.70024th just a week later he's asking voters literally to go to the polls twice in the space of a week
00:01:52.420and he's also actually asking elections bc to do something they've never done before and god knows
00:01:59.260as a bureaucracy they're not all that efficient out of the gate yeah i mean other premiers have
00:02:06.120paid the price for calling early elections for no particular reason. David Peterson comes to
00:02:10.980mind in Ontario. He lost after Ontario voters punished him for calling an early election.
00:02:19.980And we ended up with Bob Ray, which didn't work out so well, but it was the first time that the
00:02:24.920NDP was ever elected to run Ontario. But most of the time when they call early elections,
00:02:31.580it tends to work out. I'm thinking of Doug Ford calling an early election and defeating the
00:02:38.700Liberals in Ontario, holding on to power. Is there any real threat here that Eby might face a
00:02:47.100backlash? Oh, I think there's absolutely a threat. Don't forget, Eby wasn't doing very well in the
00:02:55.020He was, amongst many British Columbians, he's probably the most hated premier, you know, and certainly he's the most incompetent premier in my lifetime.
00:03:08.920And I don't say that lightly because there's been a number of them.0.72
00:03:17.740And that's why he's trying to frame this about Trump.
00:03:20.140In his announcement yesterday, he used Trump's name 20 times, Mark.
00:03:26.400I mean, you know, to try and frame this around Trump as a battle versus Trump, because, you know, I mean, let's face it, he's a provincial premier.
00:03:37.020He has nothing to do with international relations and certainly very little to do with international trade.
00:03:43.060Mark Carney has made his decision to walk away from those trade talks,
00:03:47.520and there's little or nothing E.B. can do to change reality.
00:03:53.240Yeah, I mean, E.B. doesn't come across as particularly likable on a personal level.
00:04:04.760You know, 25 years ago, he used to ride his bicycle around the downtown east side,
00:04:09.320And whenever he saw a police officer talking to somebody on the street, he would immediately rush up with his bicycle and get in between the officer and whoever he was talking to without even knowing, you know, what the reason for the talk was.
00:04:26.820You know, it could have been the guy was a victim of your robbery yesterday and the police officers just updating him or returning some goods or whatever, you know, and E.B. would get in the middle and scream at the guys, you don't have to talk to the policeman, you know, and just just absolutely insane behavior.
00:04:42.260You know, he was always an activist. He's still an activist, except that he's holding the office of premier.
00:04:47.840And it's, you know, it really is a tragedy.
00:04:52.080Well, the other tragedy, of course, is the state of the Conservative Party of British Columbia, which so many people had high hopes for.
00:04:59.440This was a party that seemed to be poised to win the next election handily.
00:05:05.080And now they've lost a couple of leaders, Carolyn Finley being the latest.
00:05:10.880She was elected by, what, 60, 70 votes? I don't know exactly what the number was.
00:05:15.820It wasn't many. She had a 2% lead on the second place finisher, Caroline Elliott. Now, I should mention as well that that was a ranked ballot system in that election where you pick your top five choices, rank the leaders, you know, one, two, three, four, five.1.00
00:05:37.820And then they sort of factor in, you know, how many first place votes each person got and how many second place votes, etc.
00:05:45.740So in that process, Caroline Elliott was second by only two percentage points.
00:05:51.620All right. So what does this mean now? There's an interim leader.
00:05:55.040Will the party have to rush through a leadership campaign in order to get a permanent leader in there?
00:06:01.800It just seems they don't have to rush per se.
00:06:04.780The election has been thrust on them, so I would say that that actually buys them time.
00:06:11.780They've got an interim leader in place.
00:06:14.120He cannot run for the permanent leadership, so even if the party gets elected on the 24th of October, he will be an interim premier.
00:06:26.500And I don't know that we've ever had that situation before in British Columbia or indeed in Canada.
00:06:33.320You know, and that's one of the reasons this election is so cynical is, you know, the yes, the opposition was in disarray after having lost Carrie Lynn Finley as leader.
00:06:47.980You know, and typically or historically in the British parliamentary system, the sitting government allows the opposition to to replace a leader, you know, before calling an election.
00:07:08.800Well, this is going to play right into the NDP's case where you don't even know who you're getting as a premier.
00:07:15.560You know, you're getting an interim leader who cannot run for the leadership, and they're just, you know, meaning the Tories are saying, trust us to, you know, elect somebody, to pick somebody that you'll like.
00:07:32.580I mean, this is not going to fly with British Columbians who will say, well, I guess.
00:07:37.820You know, E.B. is disliked intensely, even by members of his own caucus.
00:07:46.300Prior to the election call, there was a move afoot within the NDP caucus to bring somebody else in as leader prior to the next election.
00:07:58.480Many people were talking about the mayor of Port Coquitlam, Brad West, to go as leader.
00:08:05.080So, you know, there's even dissension within the NDP ranks at this point, not to mention the absolute dislike for EB specifically and the NDP in general and the way that they have run the government over the last few years.
00:08:23.400You know, don't forget the deficit in British Columbia this year, this fiscal year, is $13.8 billion.
00:08:31.720dollars. That's the highest ever recorded in British Columbia. You know, the incompetence
00:08:37.240of this government is legendary. And, you know, you may see in anybody but EB or in anybody but
00:08:46.100the NDP move afoot. And that could actually propel the Conservatives, despite the disarray
00:08:52.620that they've been in over the last few weeks. I don't know. If they don't have a leader,
00:08:57.240If they don't have a permanent leader, the NDP can still make the case that you can't
00:11:56.640And it's very, you know, I don't think he has a great deal of confidence right now, despite polling suggests that Canadians seem to like his elbows up approach to dealing with Trump.
00:12:09.640But who knows that Carney may look at this and go, well, if Eby can call a snap election and pull it off and, you know, even grows majority, then maybe I could do the same thing.
00:12:20.820You know, is it possible that this may set the stage for a federal snap election call?
00:12:26.640I think you're right. I think Carney will be paying very close attention to this election, and perhaps it may cause him to move one way or the other.
00:12:39.960Certainly, Carney wants a stronger majority than he has. There's no doubt about that.
00:12:46.060And certainly, I think a lot of people in Canada have got a very bad taste in their mouths about the way Carney got his current slim majority.
00:12:56.640with the backroom dealing and everything else that was going on.
00:13:01.860You know, so he should be cautious, I think, before he decides to test those waters.
00:13:08.040Having said that, the polls, and I don't put a lot of faith in them,
00:13:13.120but the polls are certainly showing Carney with a strong lead over the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:13:22.600somehow the uh ndp figures let's run against trump you know yeah you know it well if he runs
00:13:32.440on his record he's in deep trouble you know so he's taken the only thing he thinks i think is
00:13:39.780positive and that's the elbows up campaign or the battle against trump or however you want to frame
00:13:46.000it and he thinks that that's that's his uh the route he has to go but again if he runs on his
00:13:53.720record he's in deep trouble yeah i mean playing the trump card if you want to call it that
00:13:59.300may amp up support from his base you know which hates trump of course and they see him as
00:14:06.160the problem for everything that ails the british columbia economy and province in general so
00:14:12.520So I guess that's the way you maybe pump up the far left base of the NDP is simply by raising the issue of Trump.
00:14:20.840And, you know, I'm going to take it to Trump.
00:14:23.900But there's still going to be another party there.
00:14:25.800The Conservatives, what do they have to do to bring it back to the fact that this guy has a terrible record?
00:14:34.220Well, I think they need to frame the campaign exactly as that.
00:14:37.380They need to make sure that everybody hears the message that EB's record is horrific, you know, and there's no other way to put it.
00:14:51.640You know, you can pick an issue in the province and the NDP have screwed it up.
00:14:57.260For example, there's the outgoing, the last government, the B.C. government, B.C. Liberal Party government of Christy Clark, had approved a crossing of the Fraser River to replace the Massey Tunnel.
00:15:13.820It was already approved, done deal, had the money set aside for it for, I think it was a six or an eight lane crossing, bridge crossing, to replace the tunnel, which perennially has traffic issues.
00:15:29.560It's a four lane tunnel and traffic going to that part of the Fraser Valley is really heavy.
00:15:38.260Anyway, EB came in, or it might have been Horgan who put a hold on it anyway,
00:15:46.140and commissioned a study for a replacement of the tunnel with another tunnel,
00:16:25.920How is that playing in British Columbia?
00:16:27.660Could that be a possible thorn in Eby's campaign?
00:16:34.960Well, beyond just condos, don't forget, we had the Cowichan decision here in B.C. Supreme Court.
00:16:43.320And the whole Eby's legislation called DRIPA, D-R-I-P-A, is all about indigenous rights.
00:16:53.720And the Cowichan decision used the DRIPA legislation to come up with the conclusion that the Cowichan band owned about 10 square miles of Richmond, B.C., because, you know, at some point in time, historically, their ancestors used to hunt there.
00:17:19.920But, unfortunately, the DRIPA legislation has made it very real, and it's very real for those people who own property within that 10 square miles.
00:17:31.160They're having difficulty getting more, renewing their mortgages.
00:17:35.420Their property values have descended in the order of 30 to 40 percent.1.00
00:17:41.840And, you know, this whole indigenous thing that E.B. is doing, it looks like he's giving away the province to First Nations people, and I don't think people are going to sit for that.0.96
00:17:56.280And frankly, it should be a significant issue in this election because EB wants to retain the DRIPA legislation.0.64
00:18:07.800And I believe the conservatives have it as a plank in their platform to get rid of it, to repeal it.
00:18:13.560So that's going to become an issue in this election as well.
00:18:18.200Yeah, I'd be beating that drum if I was a conservative running in that election big time.
00:18:23.540I mean, you know, attractive property the size of Portugal, you know, added to Indigenous groups.0.84
00:18:32.340You also have to understand that status Indians represent about 2% of the province, you know, and so it just galls me to no end to see what he's doing and the favorability he's granting to Indigenous people for no apparent reason.0.59
00:18:53.540And, you know, what about the other 98% of the province?0.84
00:19:18.800How do you think it's going to play out?
00:19:20.500It's going to be an interesting campaign to watch, I would suspect.
00:19:22.880It is, and I'm not one to make predictions like that, Mark, and I won't in this case, other than to say at this point, to me, it looks like a coin flip, and that's nowhere near as strong as E.B.'s position he thought he had yesterday, and that's only the first day of the campaign, and already he's looking a bit wobbly.
00:19:44.840Seven of the MLAs who left the B.C. Conservative Caucus have returned to the Conservative Caucus as of this morning.
00:19:53.920So the Conservatives are looking a lot more strong than EB thought they would.
00:19:59.820And in fact, the interim leader, Lorne Dirksen, had a press conference this morning and he sounded very leader-like.
00:20:09.560He sounded very, as a voice of common sense.
00:20:13.660But he can't run for leadership, right?
00:20:17.920Well, he can't run for the permanent job, but he can hold it for a year.
00:20:23.240You know, is that going to be acceptable to voters?