00:02:34.380It's hard to keep track of these things now.
00:02:36.220But it had the Conservatives up eight points.
00:02:38.420It was the first major national polling data since the Ritt drop.
00:02:42.260And then Leger actually came out with a poll as well this morning
00:02:45.140that had the Conservatives up by three points, if I recall correctly.
00:02:47.860Yeah, that was the one I was thinking of, yeah.
00:02:49.980Yeah, it's a very hard argument to make that, you know,
00:02:53.380the Conservatives may be in a bit of a mess,
00:02:57.620but that's no reason to vote for the NDP, you know,
00:03:01.460because the NDP has a terrible record of government for the last four years.
00:03:09.220And you have to say almost anything's better than what Mr. Eby is doing because you know what he's doing and you know the direction he's going.
00:03:18.900And if you don't like it, well, at the very least, you would vote for somebody else just to get him off that rail.
00:03:25.060Well, if your day seems up with enough candidates, though, you could still end up putting the NDP in even if everybody's tired of all of them.
00:03:30.600So Alex, some of the trying to keep track of the candidates coming, the candidates going, trying to rush, I guess, nominations.
00:03:39.220are putting people in so they aren't stepping on each other's feet. What's going on with 1BC?
00:03:44.540Yeah, so 1BC, last time I checked, had 10 candidates running. I think one of them may
00:03:49.080drop out. I'm not at liberty to say who at this point. They said originally that they had 93
00:03:54.680candidates, one for each riding, but they have since said that they will not run in eight
00:03:59.160particular ridings against what they call principled conservatives. They tend to be
00:04:03.820Carrie Lynn Finley loyalists. So that's a very interesting ideological line in the sand.
00:04:10.660Okay, well, and then 1BC is not going to get a slate together large enough, I guess, you know,
00:04:16.580to contest for government. So I mean, the position they're in is running for opposition,
00:04:21.100that kind of puts you in a weak spot when you go to the polls. Anyways.
00:04:24.860Yeah, absolutely. I think that the bigger vote split threat, though, at this point,
00:04:28.520at least based off of the Leger poll that came out this morning is on the left. So the Green
00:04:32.960Party is polling at around 13%, if I remember correctly. So they seem to be cannibalizing
00:04:38.200significantly the NDP vote share. They are likely to run as little or as few candidates as 1BC,
00:04:45.060however, so it remains to be seen how much of an impact they'll have.
00:04:50.600That's quite something. I mean, what do you think, Nigel, though? Can the Conservatives
00:04:55.120hold it together for another four weeks? Yes, I think they can. I mean, the motivation to do so
00:05:00.340is extreme now i realize we we principled conservatives can always find an excuse to
00:05:06.260differ with each other but well maybe i've been out of bc too long to really know for sure but
00:05:13.220it does seem that the the choice is so clear if you want another four years uh mr eby and the
00:05:20.260policies that he has advanced which have put the bc uh debt spiraling upwards uh you know usually
00:05:28.980debts borrow you know downwards but this case way it goes uh you know you could vote for that
00:05:35.780but why would you you know almost better to scrap that lot and start again so yes i i think bc
00:05:42.340conservatives will overall put it together and there's a lot of sensible people in bc once you
00:05:50.020get outside the you know the downtown core of vancouver that's true i'm in the okanagan right
00:05:56.180now they say it's the nicest part of alberta there you go so i mean they almost kind of
00:06:03.060accidentally fell into what appears to be a very effective interim leader who's been serving quite
00:06:07.860well so far though he's uh shown more uh uh i think life and in a dynamic role than he had in
00:06:14.260past incarnations and and that sort of helps them too i mean they're not somebody who's just sitting
00:06:18.500as a placeholder in this campaign yeah absolutely we had mentioned this a little bit and gone over
00:06:23.700over it a little bit on the last episode of the pipeline, but Lauren Dirksen coming into the
00:06:27.420leadership role has really thrown a wrench into the NDP's plans. Their entire campaign was modeled
00:06:32.400on running against what they called a mega regional manager, referring to Carrie Lynn Finley. I still
00:06:36.940don't know what that phrase means, but Lauren Dirksen is by all measures, not a true blue0.98
00:06:44.260conservative. And of course, some people on the further right of the center find that to be a0.99
00:06:50.480dislikable element of his political career, but he receives, um, great regards on both sides of
00:06:56.580the aisle in the legislature. They hold him in high regard, even amongst the NDP members of the
00:07:00.880legislature. So, uh, it's, it's the entire NDP game plan has been thrown on its head.
00:07:06.960Well, that's a good for the conservatives in a sense, but I mean, part of the game plan,
00:07:10.280you know, and Dave, like we've seen this, president Trump has offered a great foil
00:07:16.260for the left. They're not campaigning against locally even. I mean, Mark Carney rarely ever
00:07:22.480mentions or even acknowledges Poliev because he campaigns against Trump. Now, Eby's trying the
00:07:27.900same thing, but I don't know if he's been getting the same result. Doesn't seem like that. I don't
00:07:31.920really know what Eby's going to do to blame anything on Trump, like his health care problems
00:07:37.020and health care costs in B.C. Trump's fault. It's even the same with Carney. I've never understood
00:07:40.760how people can look at how it's Trump's fault that everything has gone bad in the last decade
00:07:44.660in canada is it trump that was responsible for our immigration laws and policies no is he
00:07:49.620responsible for any of the health care costs or anything no or the spending or the debt no so
00:07:52.900it's it seems overall that basically just well so far the media in the last few years and whatnot
00:07:59.220with evie and carney is basically just really somehow managed to get everyone on their sides
00:08:03.620without them really doing anything but i think the evie's case especially with the whole land
00:08:06.900claim thing just putting everything up in the air in bc i think that's really gonna come and backfire
00:08:11.700on him. And basically, at the same time, like we were saying earlier, can the Conservatives
00:08:15.380keep it together for four weeks? I think they can in the sure chance that they know there's
00:08:18.580a good possibility that they might have power just fall right into their lap here because
00:08:22.180people are so sick of Eby and the NDP, like Nigel said.
00:08:25.300Well, so I got to ask, actually, Alex, I mean, there's more to it than just what people think.
00:08:31.380What's the organizational capacity of these Conservative nomination ridings? Can they get
00:08:39.460out the vote i believe that they can um it's as i don't know maybe i'm going back a little bit too
00:08:46.820far but in 2024 one of the reasons the conservatives were as successful as they were depending on how
00:08:51.940you do the math they were either between one and three seats of winning the election was they were
00:08:55.940riding on the magic carpet of justin trudeau's profound unpopularity um and actually pierre
00:09:01.860paul yet was quite popular the story i love to tell is somebody was saying that they were door
00:09:05.380knocking for the bc conservatives in 2024 and uh it was actually a common response people would say
00:09:11.220well i hate trudeau and i love paul yeah so i'll absolutely vote for you and then the two door
00:09:15.780knockers would look at each other they say should we tell them we're a different level of government
00:09:18.900and they said no forget it they said they're voting for us so what's awesome like very very
00:09:24.820strange for me and a little bit surreal is that there seems to now be a decoupling of perception
00:09:29.700between the federal conservatives and the provincial conservatives so this election is
00:09:33.380is a little bit different. I'm not entirely sure why.