Western Standard - WATCH LIVE： BC election 2026 coverage

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00:19:00.000 Good day, Western Standard viewers. Today is Saturday, October 24th. It is a very significant

00:19:11.340 day in British Columbia politics. It is final voting day in the 2026 BC provincial elections.

00:19:18.360 It has been one of the strangest, one of the most bizarre election campaigns ever. It's just been

00:19:26.260 so weird we're going to provide a bit of a forensic timeline in terms of how we got here

00:19:30.800 strangeness and weirdness are going to be recurring themes throughout the evening of coverage and

00:19:37.760 we're going to start that forensic timeline actually in december of 2025 that seems like

00:19:43.640 several lifetimes ago that was the time at which then leader of the bc conservative party john

00:19:48.560 rustad resigned upon being declared professionally incapacitated by the party board amidst a bit of

00:19:55.220 a caucus revolt. At that time, Eleanor Sturko had been kicked out of the party. There will be more

00:20:00.720 on her later. Several other MLAs left under their own volition related to controversy surrounding

00:20:06.720 Indian residential schools, yada, yada, yada. Dallas Brody, Jordan Keeley, Tara Armstrong.

00:20:11.580 Eventually, Amelia Bolpe also left the party, at which point John Rustad accused her of being

00:20:16.360 mentally ill. That's going to be another theme, mental illness. The declaration of John Rustad

00:20:21.560 as professionally incapacitated and his subsequent resignation led to a horrendously long six-month

00:20:28.980 bc conservative leadership race eventually the membership decided on a very slim and narrow

00:20:34.700 margin on former harper cabinet minister and member of parliament carrie lynn finley

00:20:38.780 you would have expected a new leader to provide stability and unity to the party but it did no

00:20:44.860 such thing that included the establishment of a private eye to spy on members not only within her

00:20:53.780 own party but also members of the public including chip wilson again very strange not really sure

00:20:59.220 entirely what was going on there the party basically looked like it was imploding at the

00:21:03.700 seams and so david eby the premier of british columbia and his infinite wisdom decided to call

00:21:09.320 a cynical and snap election not because the bc conservatives according to him were imploding at

00:21:14.520 the seams, but because of the existential threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

00:21:22.700 We have a clip here, actually, of David Eby mentioning Trump 122 times.

00:21:44.520 Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

00:22:08.220 Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

00:22:10.000 It was at this point, with an election called over the existential threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump on British Columbia, that the Conservative Party of B.C. needed a new party leader.

00:22:21.780 Carrie Lynn Finley had resigned on Sunday. The election call was on Tuesday.

00:22:25.720 And so various members of the Conservative Party of B.C. caucus signed a letter endorsing Lauren Dirksen, who was in Africa and probably had no idea what was going on at the time.

00:22:34.180 And shockingly, the Conservative Party of BC caucus that had previously left under the leadership of Carrie Lynn Finley, and there were nine members, if my memory serves me correctly, they migrated back under his leadership.

00:22:46.140 Kind of stunning turn of events. It appears as though David Eby and his cynical snap election call united the right in British Columbia, which is typically and historically a very hard thing to do.

00:22:55.140 With that, David Eby pivoted on his election campaign narrative away from Donald Trump and towards fire breaks, but then that backfired when it turned out that Lauren Darkson had actually been responsible for putting out forest fires as opposed to just using them as abstract analogies for snap elections that weren't necessary to call in the first place.

00:23:25.140 what what drove you to be here i came to have a look uh i could see that they needed more resources

00:23:33.700 that was pretty clear um and fire is surrounding their ranch then uh david eby pivoted again on

00:23:43.020 his reason for the election this time choosing car insurance which resonated with virtually no

00:23:48.020 one because it's a niche subject that very few people fully understand um whatever then he 0.85

00:23:53.900 He pivoted to MRIs before eventually landing on Muslims and pedophiles. 0.99

00:23:57.720 He has a campaign director that hates Muslims. 1.00

00:24:00.780 He has a candidate in Chilliwack that hates gay people, thinks they're all secret pedophiles. 1.00

00:24:06.740 And here we are. 0.99

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00:28:23.900 now because i don't know how much time zoom gives us we run a tight budget here so we don't have an

00:28:40.740 official zoom account totally all good um yeah no i've been fine it's been a long a long haul

00:28:47.140 though you know over the last few months in bc politics i'm sure you're kidding understand

00:28:52.560 exciting time though there's always a story to write about hey or to talk about there's

00:28:57.720 it's always something around the corner yeah i mean it's better to have too much content than

00:29:01.720 not enough yeah it's a good problem to have for sure how are you feeling about the election

00:29:09.180 generally um you know i i think to a fault i'm i'm uh inherently pessimistic just about everything

00:29:17.780 in life it's just the way i'm hardwired but uh you know the reception you know locally here at

00:29:23.520 the doors has been very positive there's obviously you know and i think this resonates throughout the

00:29:28.760 province there's obviously a tremendous appetite for change um in in a manner that is uh has people

00:29:36.960 thinking in a more non-partisan way. And what I mean by that is, you know, your traditional NDP

00:29:41.260 voters here, I live in a very centrist riding, I would describe it as, and, you know, your typical

00:29:48.160 liberal voter, NDP voter is just kind of tired of, you know, David Eby and unfulfilled promises.

00:29:55.660 And, you know, what I would describe as gaslighting of, you know, from David Eby is like,

00:30:00.420 things are getting better and the economy's great. And it's like, well, no, no, it's not.

00:30:04.500 um people people are really in tune with that right now so um you know in lockstep for for me

00:30:12.320 personally in columbia river revelstoke um you know i think people have appreciated the work

00:30:16.120 that i've done the non-partisan mla work that i've that i've been able to achieve out here

00:30:19.800 um you know the the reality that i've made myself as available as possible in a very difficult

00:30:25.040 riding to serve and so you know i'm cautiously optimistic but uh you know i'm still playing

00:30:29.760 this election like i'm a goal down with two minutes left in the third period so we'll see

00:30:33.560 what happens well what are the like i was looking up your writing and one of the unique characteristics

00:30:38.540 of it in terms of this election is that all three candidates are teachers yes which is really weird

00:30:44.440 i'm sure it's just a coincidence but what do you make of that it i i'm not really sure what to make

00:30:50.800 of it to be honest with you i mean my my opponent for the ndp uh ran last election and i knew she

00:30:56.600 was a teacher and uh ms nelson i had met a couple of times in revelstoke in my office um who's just

00:31:02.480 a wonderful person and yeah it's just funny that you know three teachers have kind of put you know

00:31:08.220 their their teaching life on hold to to pursue um you know provincial service i i think you know

00:31:14.580 honestly i think there are just you know a lot of um soft skills that are very transferable into

00:31:20.600 into this kind of work like you know public speaking you know working with people working

00:31:24.920 with the public um but i also think and and you know i won't speak for my opponents but

00:31:30.360 you know for me obviously you know one of the or the main reason i got into this was

00:31:35.660 just hearing this sort of despair that young people were feeling and and realizing that boy

00:31:41.160 i don't know if i can as a teacher feel comfortable you know sending the kids out um of grade 12 into

00:31:47.160 a world that's just so kind of unpredictable and unaffordable and bleak so you know maybe

00:31:52.560 they're feeling the same thing that i did which is why i got into this but

00:32:00.360 but uh yeah really interesting characteristic of your writing in this election and i'm curious do

00:32:08.500 you think that like more teachers appear to be transitioning into politics obviously at the

00:32:13.020 municipal level it's a natural transition because of school trustee positions and so on and so forth

00:32:17.520 but in provincial and even in federal politics do you think that that speaks to an increasing

00:32:22.100 politicization of the profession

00:32:23.960 yeah that's i'm not going to hide from the fact that you know teaching has been uh 10 years

00:32:34.420 um frustratingly so i mean the the classroom and in the professional environment should be

00:32:40.320 politics free in my opinion um but it is hard um i don't know if that's a reason why teachers are

00:32:48.860 getting involved i think it would have to do more with just really having a finger on the pulse of

00:32:52.720 what uh what communities are feeling what families are feeling what young people are experiencing

00:32:57.420 um you know more maybe to why teachers are getting in into politics but yeah i'm not i'm not going

00:33:05.120 to lie that yeah it certainly has become an extremely politicized environment uh over the

00:33:09.620 last number of years i mean we hear it with you know the bc teachers federation here um you know

00:33:14.440 they seem to have an attack out against the conservatives you know three or four times an

00:33:18.920 hour on all the radio stations throughout the province. So, you know, I personally disagree

00:33:22.560 with that. I think they should be, you know, focused on what they need to focus on and staying

00:33:28.700 out of the politics. Well, one of the ways that the teaching profession has become very politicized

00:33:33.840 in British Columbia specifically is over the SOGI issue. What is your take on that and where do you

00:33:39.800 see that going, you know, potentially under a conservative government? Yeah, it's a really

00:33:43.440 a good question. And, you know, I have obviously a unique insight into what SOGI is and what it

00:33:48.680 isn't. So, you know, here's the reality. As a classroom teacher, it is beyond my scope of

00:33:57.300 practice to have conversations with students individually or in small groups about their

00:34:02.560 sexual identity or gender identity. That is not my job. And I certainly don't ever feel comfortable

00:34:09.320 doing that with individuals, especially when their parents aren't involved.

00:34:14.280 You know, I always prided myself on having a welcoming, inclusive classroom where students

00:34:19.880 could be themselves, no matter who they were.

00:34:22.380 And it had nothing to do with SOGI, to be honest with you.

00:34:25.840 There are professionals in the school, whether it's youth outreach workers, school counsellors

00:34:30.640 who are well trained to have those conversations with students that may be struggling with

00:34:36.800 their personal identity or other issues in partnership with their families. That is what

00:34:43.500 it's for, is to have those conversations with parents and families because those professionals

00:34:47.560 are trained to do so. It is not the job of the teacher to have those conversations with students

00:34:51.740 in the hallway. So, you know, a lot of people would attribute, well, what about the bullying

00:34:57.220 and things like that? Look, I experienced, you know, a number of instances of bullying

00:35:02.240 when I was a high school teacher.

00:35:05.260 And I can't remember one that had to do with somebody,

00:35:07.660 a student that would consider themselves

00:35:09.400 to be part of the LGBT community.

00:35:12.360 So I think that's a bit of a false narrative,

00:35:14.360 to be honest with you.

00:35:15.240 And it's the administration's job

00:35:17.040 to deal with those situations as they arise, right?

00:35:21.680 I firmly believe, again,

00:35:23.180 I was a teacher that checked in on,

00:35:24.960 I knew who those vulnerable kids were in the school

00:35:26.900 and I checked in them as much as I could

00:35:28.940 just to make sure that they knew an adult

00:35:30.260 was out there that cared about them.

00:35:32.240 i think that's part of the job is just check in say hi but i just firmly believe that soji as a

00:35:37.760 resource um does provide you know a little bit too much leeway for those conversations that

00:35:43.120 teachers shouldn't be having with students at times soji is not bc curriculum so it should not

00:35:48.240 be taught in the classroom um and the last point i'll make alex is that you know parents have made

00:35:53.920 it loud and clear to us um and i just to segue this is not a bc conservative idea um to to

00:36:02.960 look at a different direction than soji parents have made it loud and clear that if there are

00:36:08.400 any questions about sexual orientation or gender identity they want to have those conversations at

00:36:13.920 home and we certainly respect that uh and that's kind of the direction we're moving in absolutely

00:36:19.200 bullying is not, should not be tolerated. It should be dealt with by administration

00:36:22.960 as it comes up. Students certainly deserve to feel safe and welcome at school. But I think,

00:36:29.760 you know, the pendulum on SOGI has swung a long ways and, you know, allowed for some

00:36:34.380 inappropriateness in the schools from my perspective. You mentioned the BC Teachers

00:36:38.960 Federation. I went undercover. I pretended I was a union member and I took their anti-racism

00:36:43.360 training and I described it as a hallucinogenic fever dream because it actually didn't

00:36:49.180 really give, what I expected was it would give a prospective teacher tools to deal with bullying

00:36:54.820 around racism, which is a perfectly reasonable tool to give a teacher. But instead, it was all

00:37:00.260 kinds of re-education material about the Land Back movement. And that actually transitions to

00:37:05.360 the next question I had, which was about DRIPA. So Emily Lowen, during the leaders debate, said

00:37:10.300 that DRIPA has nothing to do with property rights. Richard Zussman, the NDP candidate in South

00:37:15.880 Saanich said that he agreed with that take. I'm curious, do you agree with that take and why or

00:37:20.320 why not? Yeah, that's a good question. I think, to be honest with you, I think some of the connections

00:37:26.360 around DRIPA and private property are not as strong as people would like to believe. It's

00:37:34.000 a complicated issue. Like the reality is in the Cowichan decision, DRIPA was referenced,

00:37:39.900 you know, but this is more when we're looking at private property rights and Aboriginal title and

00:37:45.460 that relationship that is more of a constitutional question not a provincial legislative one um but

00:37:51.940 you know i i certainly think that um you know if we take a different approach with drippa um you

00:37:59.800 know i it's just a it's a bigger part of a conversation of shifting the direction and

00:38:03.640 focusing on the public interest more than anything else so so that's that's really you know my my long

00:38:08.600 short of that what do you think i mean if yeah i i think that the couch in decision because drippa

00:38:15.560 was referenced but almost just in passing it didn't seem like it was a key reason for the

00:38:22.040 judge's decision in the couch in case so getting rid of drippa won't make that property rights issue

00:38:27.640 go away yeah what is what is the bc conservatives plan if any for making that issue go away and i

00:38:35.640 i don't know if that there is necessarily one no it's a it's a really good question look at

00:38:40.200 if first of all there are several things the province can do um in order to create a little

00:38:47.480 bit more certainty about private property rights because it is a right now it is a constitutional

00:38:53.640 issue um you know the relationship between fee simple and aboriginal title uh does come from

00:38:59.640 section 35. So, um, you know, I think first of all, we need, uh, we need stronger, um, litigators

00:39:07.100 in, in the provincial government to remove past litigation directives that, no, we're not going

00:39:12.720 to argue extinguishment of Aboriginal title. This is a serious issue and we cannot play politics

00:39:19.280 with, you know, um, the, the reality that we need to protect private property rights in this

00:39:24.540 province. Because I feel like if there's another decision, which mirrors something like Cowichan,

00:39:28.340 we have a big issue on our hands, which is already a big issue. So litigation directives,

00:39:33.640 having that team in place that is not going to be political, that is going to argue the facts

00:39:37.480 based on, you know, what is real and what is not when it comes to what should be private property

00:39:44.920 and Aboriginal title not interfering with one another. So that'll be the biggest thing is kind

00:39:50.300 of a shake up in the Attorney General's office. And as far as how we are going to litigate on

00:39:56.180 behalf of the Crown and the public interest when we're talking about this relationship moving

00:40:00.800 forward. It was a major, the issue of private property rights was a major plank of Carrie Lynn

00:40:06.760 Finley's leadership campaign. It seems to have become less important under the leadership of

00:40:11.180 Lauren Dirksen. It's not to say that it isn't an important issue or that he doesn't take it

00:40:14.820 seriously. It's just taken less of maybe like a front-facing position. I'm curious what your

00:40:21.320 thoughts are on the decision to make Lauren Dirksen a permanent leader if elected as premier

00:40:26.740 and therefore bypassing the constitution which requires you know well not bypassing it amending

00:40:32.520 it which would require a two-thirds approval the conservative party has said they're going to do it

00:40:36.700 no matter what I don't know how that's necessarily possible because they do need that two-thirds

00:40:42.740 majority and what do you think about this potentially sending a message to the membership

00:40:46.960 that the party doesn't trust their judgment yeah that's a fair question and i you know i'm getting

00:40:52.760 a lot of local questions here from people that are undecided voters saying you know scott how can i

00:40:57.440 um vote for you and and turn lord dirksen when i'm not sure he's going to be the premier

00:41:03.080 um you know so first of all the governance question i mean is is something that i'm not

00:41:09.280 extremely familiar with as to what kind of amendments can be made how legally binding are

00:41:13.440 they? But I can tell you that people are working on that and looking at ways to, you know, install

00:41:20.240 Lorne permanently if he is elected as premier. I think personally, Lorne's done a fantastic job.

00:41:25.400 And if he is elected as premier, he certainly deserves to remain as premier. And I will support

00:41:29.740 him to the end to see that happen. Because, you know, look, we could be in a much different

00:41:35.760 situation here today, which is not up significantly in polls, tremendous momentum heading into the

00:41:41.460 weekend. Um, you know, Lauren Dirksen, I think has resonated well with the public. He's got a

00:41:46.900 tremendous amount of respect in caucus. Um, you know, hypothetically speaking, I think if he were

00:41:52.240 to throw a vote out to the membership, he would win overwhelmingly. Um, but as far as the

00:41:56.640 governance, you know, nuances and structure to that, I just don't have a good answer for that,

00:42:00.840 Alex, because I'm not as familiar with the constitution as others might be.

00:42:04.640 Yeah. And it has become, it's funny, the NDP jumped on that originally, but like many of

00:42:09.700 their other campaign points it didn't stick with the public so they they've kind of moved on

00:42:13.840 I I'm not even sure if they necessarily have come up with a coherent explanation for why

00:42:19.580 they called this election in the first place would you agree yeah it's so funny I mean Alex

00:42:25.120 you're so in tune with this stuff and you get it too I mean it's been a shifting narrative

00:42:28.700 right it started with you know Donald Trump and the what I think was a disrespectful

00:42:34.180 comparison between you know what the premier was trying to do and Donald Trump and the fire break

00:42:39.680 and you know after we'd had a very difficult summer even especially in my riding with fires

00:42:44.000 i found it to be you know of very poor taste at the best um but then it kind of kind of shifted

00:42:50.640 when when when uh david eby realized that the public wasn't buying into that uh then it became

00:42:57.200 about lauren dirksen and his viability to stay on as premier then it became about questionable things

00:43:02.560 uh that the conservatives have said a number of years ago then it became to you know single

00:43:06.640 appointed attacks on various candidates. I don't think they had a plan from the beginning. In my

00:43:12.020 opinion, they had anticipated running a campaign against Carrie Lynn Finley, tying her to Alberta

00:43:18.900 separatism and Donald Trump as best they could. And when that changed, I think they were kind of

00:43:24.860 caught with their pants down a little bit, to be frank with you. And they haven't found a narrative

00:43:29.240 or a strategy that the public has accepted. I think this was a, you know, although I'm not

00:43:34.520 complaining about it a tremendous mistake by the NDP because you know I expected to be honest with

00:43:39.200 you a much more formidable campaign than this this has been a bit of a gong show for them and

00:43:43.720 I'm sure that their conversations internally are not one of happiness and joy and success so

00:43:48.820 you know this is I think again David Eby called this election purely out of opportunity and Alex

00:43:56.860 you know this he would have never considered doing this at the end of May when we were

00:44:00.400 you know beating them up left right and center when it comes to the issues and and everything

00:44:05.060 that was going on in the in the spring session um you know we had a bit of a bad dream there for a

00:44:09.860 bit over the summer and things didn't work out with miss finley um but we're essentially right

00:44:13.700 back to where we were and so you know i think it was again a tremendous miscalculation and they're

00:44:18.740 going to pay for it at the end of the day yeah i i completely agree yeah that that was uh all my

00:44:25.320 questions is there anything that you wish that i had asked that i didn't i i don't think so alex i

00:44:31.440 think you know just to yeah no i think i'll leave it there great questions honestly and just keep up

00:44:36.840 the great work you do very in my opinion very balanced reporting um your criticisms are are um

00:44:42.940 are objective um so yeah just keep it up man you have an important important voice out there so

00:44:48.040 keep going for it i appreciate that thank you so much for your time yeah of course thanks for the

00:44:52.920 time there i'll see you on saturday if you're at the um if you're in vancouver i won't be i'm doing

00:44:57.720 a small thing here uh in kimberly but uh yeah it'll be it'll be a good party i'm sure absolutely

00:45:03.780 right thanks alex take care you too bye

00:45:22.920 Transcription by CastingWords

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00:48:52.920 Transcription by CastingWords

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01:00:52.920 In British Columbia, welcome to the only broadcast leaders debate of this 2026 provincial election.

01:01:16.780 We're coming to you tonight from the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

01:01:23.800 My name is Shachi Curl. I'm the president of the Angus Reid Institute and tonight I am your debate moderator.

01:01:30.300 Okay, a few things. First, these questions were developed by journalists from across the province and me.

01:01:37.000 Second, there's a lot going on right now so we won't be able to get to every issue.

01:01:41.400 Third, all parties represented in the legislature agreed to criteria as a condition of participating tonight.

01:01:49.760 Three of those parties met the criteria, and here are their leaders.

01:01:53.920 Lauren Dirksen of the B.C. Conservative Party, David Evie of the B.C. NDP, and Emily Lohan, leader of the B.C. Greens.

01:02:01.040 Welcome, leaders.

01:02:02.960 Tonight, you will be facing individual questions.

01:02:05.940 You will also have the opportunity to engage in open debate.

01:02:11.400 Your microphones are all live, but if you interrupt or run long, we may cut them.

01:02:17.600 Now, just before we begin, a message from me to all of you.

01:02:21.680 Please remember your audience this evening.

01:02:24.680 It's the people of British Columbia, many of whom are engaging with this campaign for the first time by tuning in tonight.

01:02:33.140 Let's give them a vigorous but respectful debate and one that everyone can hear and understand.

01:02:39.540 And these questions have been designed to challenge you and bring out the best responses you have.

01:02:46.300 So please answer them.

01:02:48.100 OK, ready to begin?

01:02:49.780 Our first topic is leadership.

01:02:51.960 And our first question goes to Mr. Eby.

01:02:55.120 Nearly two thirds of British Columbians say it's too soon for another election.

01:03:00.140 You called it when the B.C. conservatives were in disarray.

01:03:03.100 You asked for a mandate when you already had a mandate.

01:03:05.540 You said this election was necessary because of Trump's tariffs even though

01:03:10.040 that is not true a provincial jurisdiction. This election will cost 90

01:03:15.860 million dollars. Mr. Eby, how can anyone believe this snap election is anything

01:03:22.040 less than an opportunistic power grab? Well thank you Shachi for the question

01:03:27.860 and thank you British Columbians for joining us tonight. I'm really glad to be

01:03:32.420 able to address this issue right off the top our province our country facing an

01:03:37.980 existential moment and I know for your families at home you're feeling it too

01:03:43.760 there's a crucial moment for you you want government to take action to make

01:03:47.840 sure your jobs protected that we're growing the economy you're supported

01:03:50.960 with costs like gas and groceries I need to bring you into where the

01:03:55.880 legislature has been when you have a one-seat majority after you appoint the

01:04:00.140 Speaker, it's tied. And so every vote potentially could bring down the government. Maybe you saw

01:04:07.080 my colleagues voting from hospital beds. Joan Phillip dying of cancer after a tracheal tube

01:04:12.180 removed, voted at 4.30 in the morning. Darlene Rochford with her brand new baby. This was not

01:04:17.300 a government that was able to deliver the big swings that you and your family need government

01:04:21.280 to be taking for you. We need a government with representatives from every part of the

01:04:26.580 province that are focused on your priorities, not on culture wars, not on repealing the human

01:04:33.040 rights code, but on the real issues that matter to you and your family. Thank you, Mr. Eby. A

01:04:38.340 follow-up to you. Knowing your decision would overshadow long-scheduled municipal elections,

01:04:43.680 local politicians implored you not to do this. You went ahead anyway. Candidates are now reporting

01:04:49.960 widespread voter confusion.

01:04:52.660 Why should voters see this as effective leadership

01:04:56.140 instead of a failure to listen?

01:04:59.580 I signed up for politics for just one simple reason.

01:05:03.080 It's to make a difference for people in their lives

01:05:05.080 and the issues that matter to them.

01:05:06.940 Issues related to housing, cost of living, your priorities.

01:05:10.860 That's why I'm here.

01:05:12.380 And sitting in a legislature where you are unable to deliver

01:05:16.460 the agenda that British Columbians deserve,

01:05:18.340 that they need in this time,

01:05:19.360 to instead pick through the bones of what we know has to happen

01:05:23.240 because our preoccupation is just with the government surviving for another day.

01:05:29.400 It's not good enough.

01:05:31.020 You know, I ran into a young woman in Gastown.

01:05:32.860 My wife and I were downtown, and she said,

01:05:34.980 I want you to do more for the province.

01:05:38.020 I want to do more for the province.

01:05:40.460 But I need a strong mandate. 1.00

01:05:42.420 I need every vote not to be a Thai vote.

01:05:45.120 I need the support of British Columbians who know that we have to respond in this

01:05:49.880 moment and we're gonna talk tonight about those things that really matter to

01:05:52.500 you. Thirteen times the Conservatives tried to bring down our government

01:05:56.080 including three weeks after the last election. That's not effective government

01:06:03.180 for you and your family and that's what I'm looking for. Thank you Mr. Eby. Mr.

01:06:08.720 Dirksen to you. A month ago you were an unknown entity in BC politics. Most people

01:06:14.400 had never heard of you. You've only been in charge of the party for about 24 days. Through

01:06:19.680 your party's past leadership battles, you never even raised your hand for the top job. So people

01:06:25.780 are wondering how they are supposed to believe you are really ready to be premier. Well, thank

01:06:32.040 you very much for that, Shaochi. It was a bit of a surprise to myself as well. Listen, I'll say this.

01:06:38.260 the I guess what I really want to start with is a thank you to everyone at home for engaging in

01:06:47.320 what is a very serious time in our province and I want to thank the candidates up here. I know

01:06:51.660 how stressful this is. I'm certainly a little bit nervous myself tonight but we're here because

01:06:58.680 David Eby called a snap election. He called a snap election because he saw opportunity for himself

01:07:05.660 and I see opportunity for British Columbians.

01:07:09.500 I am absolutely committed to a better British Columbia, and I will say that this election

01:07:16.140 is about David Eby's record in the past 10 years.

01:07:21.660 I will lead with respect, I will lead my caucus with a great amount of dignity to all British

01:07:29.300 Columbians.

01:07:30.300 I am absolutely committed to unifying and bringing our team together, which we have

01:07:34.460 done.

01:07:35.460 And I'm committed to doing that

01:07:36.920 for British Columbians as well.

01:07:39.520 Thank you, Mr. Eby.

01:07:40.860 Sorry, Mr. Dirksen, you are right.

01:07:42.940 We are all a little nervous this evening.

01:07:45.280 Your follow-up.

01:07:46.620 You've spent this campaign trying to persuade voters

01:07:50.220 that your BC Conservatives are a more moderate party.

01:07:54.500 But your opponents say that some of your party members

01:07:57.060 hold extreme unacceptable views.

01:08:00.060 You have dropped a candidate who wrote

01:08:02.520 that a man driving into a crowd of protesters should,

01:08:05.920 and this is a quote, have reversed too.

01:08:08.560 Further, your campaign director once posted online,

01:08:12.380 and again, I am quoting directly, F. Islam. 0.69

01:08:16.300 She also called it in her words, an abhorrent ideology. 1.00

01:08:20.500 You are the leader.

01:08:21.700 Tell us what is acceptable and unacceptable in your party.

01:08:26.680 Thank you very much, Shachi.

01:08:27.840 I will always stand up against hate.

01:08:30.560 I want to just refer to the woman that you're referring to just for a moment because this is a woman who survived sexual violence and she acted out in a moment of trauma.

01:08:42.780 She removed the post and from there I think she has been very apologetic.

01:08:50.220 The reality is that this was a moment of trauma for this woman.

01:08:53.700 I've given her certainly a moment to reflect on that, and I have worked with Katie for a while now.

01:09:02.700 With respect to the other individuals in caucus, there have been challenges on both sides of our chamber,

01:09:09.700 and there have been many challenges online.

01:09:12.700 I will lead with an absolute commitment to respect and dignity going forth.

01:09:18.700 I'll expect it for my caucus. Some of these events have happened as long as two years ago.

01:09:23.700 I will definitely bring a different flavor of leadership.

01:09:29.400 Your campaign director is going to stay on the campaign? 0.88

01:09:31.880 She is.

01:09:32.800 All right, thank you.

01:09:33.780 Ms. Lowen, to you.

01:09:35.940 The Greens could hold the balance of power in the legislature after this election,

01:09:40.660 but you've never served as an MLA or held elected office before.

01:09:45.040 Why should voters trust that you have the judgment to make the right decisions for British Columbians?

01:09:51.960 Hi, BC.

01:09:52.840 I'm Emily I'm the only leader on this stage who is a renter I'm the only leader

01:09:59.380 on this stage who has worked a minimum wage job in the last decade which means

01:10:04.740 that I am the only leader on this stage that feels the decisions being made in

01:10:10.180 the legislature especially as it relates to the cost of living crisis and the

01:10:15.280 climate crisis no the BC greens are building a formidable movement to

01:10:21.900 reclaim our economy for everyday people this means that we have a credible plan to deliver

01:10:29.660 a life you can afford care you can count on and a fair economy i i think my youth is an asset i

01:10:37.820 think i am bringing bold ideas to this stage and i am proud of what the bc greens have to offer

01:10:46.140 thank you ms low and a follow-up to you also about the balance of power most of your experience has

01:10:51.580 been as an advocate and an activist yet governing requires compromise so please tell us what policy

01:10:58.380 compromises you're prepared to make in the legislature to ensure the province can function

01:11:03.660 and move forward if the greens held the balance of power it would be my top priority to advocate

01:11:11.740 for a better voting system a voting system where we're not caught between lesser evils

01:11:17.580 where we're choosing between broken promises or service cuts and i think we can find that system

01:11:24.060 in proportional representation we also have a plan to ensure that we have the revenue that we need

01:11:30.780 to that we we need to to fund the services that that british colombians deserve and in in my past

01:11:39.820 experience working at climate action network canada you know i was a coalition leader and that that

01:11:45.980 That experience focused on the art of the possible and bringing together a wide range of groups from trade unions to environmentalists to First Nations.

01:11:56.720 And that experience has served me in my role at the B.C. Greens.

01:12:00.680 Thank you, Ms. Lowen.

01:12:01.900 So it is time now for our first open debate section.

01:12:05.740 And here's how this is going to work.

01:12:07.340 One of you will lead off.

01:12:08.460 But leaders, I need you to allow each other to finish at least one thought before the others jump in.

01:12:14.980 To start, please make your case for why you should be Premier.

01:12:19.460 Mr. Dirksen, begin.

01:12:21.800 Well, thank you very much.

01:12:23.460 I am absolutely committed to supercharging the economy in British Columbia,

01:12:28.280 and this is such an important note.

01:12:30.420 The reality is that we've seen the forest industry in peril over the last number of years,

01:12:35.060 and there are opportunities before us that are massive in LNG and natural gas.

01:12:41.380 And that's been a big conversation over the last number of days.

01:12:44.460 But we need jobs in this province.

01:12:47.580 We need an economy that will support all of the things that we would expect as residents of British Columbia.

01:12:55.020 Open hospitals, doctors for our residents.

01:12:58.660 These are challenges that can't be met just simply with a hope of taxation against our residents.

01:13:07.200 We have to be focused on generating revenue every single day in this province.

01:13:12.060 And I think that there is massive opportunity with respect to a number of things we've announced.

01:13:17.080 OK, well, we're going to canvas all those important issues, health care, jobs, economy in this debate.

01:13:21.420 But this section is about leadership, Lorne. And I heard you say two things.

01:13:24.840 I heard you say that hate is not acceptable. And I think that that should be a nonpartisan issue for our province.

01:13:30.340 The foundation of our province's success is that this is a welcoming place.

01:13:34.720 You can come here and you can be safe regardless of your religion, the color of your skin, where you came from.

01:13:39.400 That is foundational to the success of our economy and our province.

01:13:43.520 And yet I heard you minimize the comments of your campaign director, some of them two years ago.

01:13:48.820 Listen, she called the mayor of New York a jihadist mayor.

01:13:53.880 Just three weeks ago, she said, if you're concerned about hate against Muslims, then you have a suicidal empathy.

01:13:59.380 And that is the problem with the West.

01:14:00.600 Her Twitter feed points to the corners of the dark web.

01:14:05.160 And you stand here to the causal organizations and say, hey, we need to feel safe in this province.

01:14:12.420 And she's going to continue as your campaign director.

01:14:14.480 Mr. Eby, let me make this clear.

01:14:16.220 You had a woman leave your caucus because either they didn't feel safe or they didn't feel supported with respect to comments made by many in your caucus room.

01:14:27.540 You have somebody right now that is denouncing police in this province.

01:14:31.580 You wrote a book about how to sue the police.

01:14:34.720 Trust me when I say this.

01:14:36.100 That is not leadership in this province. 0.96

01:14:38.080 You currently have the past Attorney General with racism on her own social media.

01:14:43.360 The reality is this has happened.

01:14:45.040 It's a serious issue.

01:14:46.560 But what shocks me the most, Mr. Eby, is that you would come after this woman.

01:14:51.400 Lauren, you dodged the media for five days on this issue.

01:14:54.360 Who has absolutely been the survivor of sexual violence in this province.

01:14:59.660 And the fact that I've given her grace, I would have hoped that you might have too.

01:15:02.760 Okay, well, let's talk about Heather Maas. 0.76

01:15:04.160 Today we found out that Heather Maas, your candidate in Chilliwack, confronted a fellow MLA, her colleague Eleanor Sturko, and told her that she was immoral for being gay. 0.89

01:15:14.700 This is one of a series of comments of Heather Maas attacking people who are gay, suggesting they're secret pedophiles, bringing in a group to the legislature that promotes the idea that people who are gay are immoral.

01:15:25.940 Does that qualify as hate for you, Lorne? 0.61

01:15:28.120 Well, David, does anti-Semitic behavior in your caucus qualify as hate or not?

01:15:33.060 Because Selena Robinson left your caucus because she didn't feel safe or didn't feel supported by you.

01:15:39.780 Do you approve of the comments that Nikki Sharma has made with respect to racism in this province?

01:15:46.500 Where do you draw the line, David?

01:15:48.100 I hear a lot of dodges. I think British Columbia should know from you.

01:15:51.400 I hear quite a few dodges from yourself.

01:15:53.060 I'm happy to cover all those topics. 0.92

01:15:54.840 Do you think that telling a colleague in a professional setting that they are immoral for being gay,

01:16:01.400 Do you think that is hate, yes or no?

01:16:03.520 I will always stand against hate, but I asked you a question as well,

01:16:07.700 and I'd love to hear the answer.

01:16:08.760 Anti-Semitism is unacceptable.

01:16:10.620 Every one of our MLAs goes through anti-Semitism training

01:16:13.200 to ensure that they understand and they're able to identify it

01:16:16.740 and prevent it and fight hate.

01:16:18.580 We are committed to fight hate.

01:16:20.760 But, Lauren, again, one more time, I'll ask you one more time.

01:16:23.440 A non-answer is clearly all the information British Columbia needs to know.

01:16:27.160 Is it inappropriate, is it hateful to confront someone in a professional environment at work who is gay and tell them they are immoral?

01:16:35.800 Is that hateful to you?

01:16:37.300 I would see that as hate for certain.

01:16:39.360 Now, what I really want to know is will you remove candidates from your caucus as well,

01:16:45.200 candidates that are right now denouncing police right now, putting racism on their social media?

01:16:52.780 David, it's right there.

01:16:53.700 I know that. Will you denounce those comments?

01:16:57.540 Will you open up to the people of British Columbia and explain what happened with Selina Robinson?

01:17:03.600 Well, Selina made some unfortunate comments about Palestine on a media event. 0.67

01:17:08.800 I had to ask her to step down from cabinet.

01:17:10.780 So what about the other individuals that have been known?

01:17:13.880 Why won't you show that leadership?

01:17:16.440 Did the training come after Selina left or before?

01:17:20.260 Ms. Lowen, we are at time.

01:17:22.300 I want to give you the opportunity, if you wish, briefly, if you'd like to say anything.

01:17:27.300 Otherwise, we are going to move on.

01:17:29.280 I have to say this feels like deja vu of the 2024 race.

01:17:35.100 You know, our politics have an advance.

01:17:37.560 We have a Conservative Party who is yet again being divided, ripped up from the inside

01:17:44.700 with candidates making abhorrent comments and an interim leader.

01:17:51.800 And we see the same failing status quo, a managed decline under David Eby.

01:17:57.160 And I think British Columbians are finally ready to see this province move forward.

01:18:02.560 And that is why the B.C. Greens are proposing a vision that believes in better.

01:18:06.840 OK, thank you.

01:18:08.140 It is now time for us to move on to another big section, the economy and government spending.

01:18:13.460 B.C. is facing a record never seen before, $13.8 billion deficit.

01:18:19.060 it is a massive swing from the nearly $6 billion surplus from four years ago. The cost of servicing

01:18:26.440 B.C. debt is now the fourth largest expense in the B.C. budget. Our first question goes to Mr.

01:18:32.980 Dirksen. You've criticized the NDP's fiscal management, promised a $1,000 tax cut, and

01:18:39.800 ruled out new taxes. You also say British Columbians will continue to receive the same

01:18:46.160 levels of service they've had. There's no way in the short term that simply growing the economy

01:18:51.780 can possibly cover it all. This is your opportunity, Mr. Dirksen, to tell British Columbians straight

01:18:57.300 up what exactly are you going to cut? Well, thank you very much, Shaachi, for the question.

01:19:03.600 I will fully fund, and I want to be clear about this because there's been some misleading

01:19:08.500 information. I will fully fund health care in this province. We absolutely have to. Under the NDP,

01:19:14.240 We've seen absolute crisis in this field.

01:19:18.840 Look, I have made it clear that we are going to cut through red tape in this province

01:19:24.080 and all of the bureaucracy that is holding us back so badly.

01:19:28.260 The reality is we have to grow our economy in this province.

01:19:31.900 It's absolutely, fundamentally the case. 0.93

01:19:35.920 And we haven't seen that, Xhachi.

01:19:38.180 We haven't seen that in the last number of years.

01:19:40.620 And we have to get back to some basics in this province.

01:19:43.880 We have a forest industry that the infrastructure is there, but we have to support that industry to grow it.

01:19:50.880 We're talking about billions of dollars between forestry, LNG, even some improvements in the liquor industry with respect to craft beer, wine, and spirits in this province.

01:20:02.520 There is an opportunity like never before to grow income in this province.

01:20:06.760 I will fully fund health care, fully fund our front line, but we will be looking for savings wherever we can.

01:20:13.320 Thank you, Mr. Dirksen. To you, Ms. Lowen, we've been talking about the green economy for more than 20 years.

01:20:19.840 It has yet to demonstrate that it can fully replace resource industry revenues that generate jobs, investment, and pay for hospitals, schools, and infrastructure.

01:20:30.200 How can you be a serious contender for Premier if you are willing to sacrifice those jobs in the short to medium term?

01:20:37.060 bc's economy has changed a lot in the last 50 years and what we've seen is a move to largely

01:20:45.740 service service industries our resource revenues have shrunk to just 70 7 percent of provincial

01:20:53.820 gdp and three percent of jobs overall and what we've also seen is that lottery and liquor sales

01:21:02.360 generate more in revenue than LNG. We are seeing this government pour billions and billions of

01:21:08.660 dollars into fracked gas projects and into the resource extraction industry but we aren't seeing

01:21:15.360 a path forward. We aren't seeing a path forward from these parties on sustainable forestry. We

01:21:22.840 know that we can keep more jobs and more profits in BC if we actually have communities take the

01:21:29.200 grains and build value-added products here in B.C.

01:21:33.280 Instead, these raw logs are being shipped abroad for the profit of foreign

01:21:38.320 shareholders. So the B.C. Greens plan looks at how we can build a stable,

01:21:44.500 sustainable industry right here in B.C. from green manufacturing to forestry to

01:21:49.840 service. Thank you, Ms. Lohan. Mr. Eby, to you, you inherited a six billion dollar

01:21:55.440 surplus from the late John Horgan. You've since spent more than $20 billion. Despite all that,

01:22:03.080 your critics would say affordability is no better, health care is no more accessible,

01:22:07.700 and major transit projects are not yet finished. Mr. Eby, please tell us, where did all that money

01:22:13.420 go? Shachi, British Columbians at home know that the previous government closed 250 schools.

01:22:22.200 They saw those schools close in their communities.

01:22:24.360 They fought those school closures because they knew it was the wrong thing to do.

01:22:27.660 And then the land was sold.

01:22:29.640 We built, expanded, 250 schools, 60,000 seats across the province.

01:22:35.660 The people of Fort St. James went to a hospital in a building that was meant to be temporary.

01:22:39.920 It was built in the 70s.

01:22:41.320 Fifty years later, it was still there.

01:22:42.920 We built a new hospital there, as well as 24, 23 other newer expanded hospitals.

01:22:51.640 Well, what's...

01:23:21.620 deserve an explanation because we know what Conservatives do when they need

01:23:25.880 money is they cut they destroyed seniors care in this province they closed

01:23:30.260 schools and they'll do it again. Thank you Mr. Eby that's time. Back now to

01:23:36.500 leaders how long is it going to take to erase the deficit? Ms. Lowen we're gonna

01:23:42.200 start with you. Absolutely we have a three to five year plan on BC's

01:23:50.320 deficit. Very impressed with our fully costed, credible plan. We have launched a tax and

01:24:01.900 mega corporations that looks effectively like a one-time model similar to California with

01:24:10.100 $2.2 billion in its first year and would consistently generate about around five point in subsequent

01:24:18.760 years. And we would also be getting our fair share from BC's resources. Right now,

01:24:25.580 the beasts are 50% on resource royalties and are only capturing 11% on gas. And

01:24:32.680 $1 billion every single year. So that is a key part of our plan. And we would ensure

01:24:41.120 that $2.2 billion, we would be able to spend down the deficit over that period.

01:24:51.100 What all British Columbians so desperately need, such as universal child care, social housing, and

01:24:57.620 in fact, leaders, do you have any response to this? This is open debate.

01:25:03.560 Let's be frank. We face serious challenges in this problem.

01:25:06.000 I'm going to talk about health care later on in the debate.

01:25:12.040 But I'm up front with British Columbians.

01:25:16.360 We need more money for more medical professionals.

01:25:18.460 That is the big problem with wait lists.

01:25:20.240 We need more imaging machines.

01:25:22.440 We need to do it.

01:25:25.080 So we're asking the wealthiest British Columbians to pay a little bit more.

01:25:28.620 People earn a million dollars a year.

01:25:30.620 here's the vast majority of that revenue is coming from individuals making 190 000 you know we we

01:25:40.020 need to see very few individuals are reporting an income of one million dollars that is why our

01:25:47.360 plan this is and certainly that's not just us saying that the reality is we're here to talk

01:25:55.020 about revenue we're here to talk about in in british columbia and fund the things that you're

01:26:01.880 talking about and simply put you cannot fund that on there's been 40 new taxes that's not helping

01:26:10.260 it's not solving the problem and and mr eby you

01:26:13.900 promised just a few years ago it's at 14 the reality is that doesn't account for the things

01:26:21.800 that you promised my thoughts on growing an economy and trust me when i say this british

01:26:29.100 columbians will see a fulsome plan the problem is mr abe is you cannot continue to attack the

01:26:37.300 residents of british columbia through taxes let's address the tax issue lauren and let's talk facts

01:26:44.180 british columbia has the lowest income tax for people who earn under 150 000

01:26:47.920 The second lowest tax for people who earn $200,000, individuals who earn $200,000 in all of Canada.

01:26:55.660 Well, I'll tell you what, if you go ask if that matters to her, the answer is that it doesn't matter.

01:27:01.200 This is important. The people at home deserve to know, because we have been frank about how we're going to pay for the health care machine at Surrey.

01:27:09.980 $225 million isn't going to...

01:27:12.100 That is a rounding error.

01:27:13.600 My thought across here at some point.

01:27:16.600 I'll finish it. Obviously, the space is yours.

01:27:20.480 Thanks. So we're telling British Columbia, we're telling you at home,

01:27:23.480 we're giving you the clear path to fund additional health care.

01:27:29.980 Now, the Conservatives have shown up to this debate and a commission to study wait lists.

01:27:37.440 The history is clear. When they have uncosted promises,

01:27:42.340 they call you, forget an emergency room that's temporarily closed.

01:27:45.520 They closed whole rural hospitals.

01:27:47.980 Seniors care, they didn't meet the minimum 10 care homes.

01:27:52.480 Ms. Lohan, you were trying to come in and then to you, Mr. Dirksen.

01:27:55.040 Ms. Lohan and then Mr. Dirksen.

01:27:56.620 My biggest issue with your taxing work and not wealth,

01:28:03.300 and that is going to take the biggest toll on people like health professionals.

01:28:08.600 That is where the vast majority of this very minuscule revenue is coming from.

01:28:13.200 You know, you are reporting that in the next $25 million, our plan would generate $22.2 billion.

01:28:22.780 And that difference is up to the ultra-wealthy and ask them to pay their fair share.

01:28:30.580 The challenge that I think British Columbians refer to a decade ago,

01:28:36.900 the reality is, Mr. Eby, you've been running this province for a decade and nothing...

01:28:43.200 And the reality is we absolutely must commit to growing our economy and those problems.

01:28:52.080 On to our next section, there are government finances and then there is the cost of living,

01:28:57.260 getting to school and work, running your household and feeding your family.

01:29:01.560 Ms. Lowen, first to you, your party is promising free transit, more $10 a day child care,

01:29:08.420 more non-market

01:29:10.020 and that may all sound

01:29:13.760 very appealing to voters.

01:29:15.200 How are you going to pay for it?

01:29:20.680 Look at this one-time tax

01:29:22.900 on BC's ultra-wealthy

01:29:24.580 and so that starts

01:29:25.540 at $50 million.

01:29:28.900 If you have a map,

01:29:30.040 you would pay a 5% tax

01:29:31.880 on that wealth once

01:29:34.340 and it would be retroactive

01:29:36.260 would be minimal wealth shifting.

01:29:40.540 This has been baked into our model.

01:29:42.600 We would follow that up with a marginal

01:29:44.720 and that would generate $5.4 billion a year.

01:29:51.280 This is the kind of ambition that we need.

01:29:56.260 Amazing, renowned international economists

01:29:58.800 such as Berkeley's Dr. Emmanuel Sayez.

01:30:03.980 This is exactly what we need.

01:30:06.260 to rein in B.C.'s deficit, to reduce wealth inequality,

01:30:10.740 and to actually bring in universal child care,

01:30:15.080 fast, free, and frequent transit, and the social housing.

01:30:21.600 One follow-up to you, you've proposed a one-time wealth tax,

01:30:25.700 not on income, but on assets for $31 million.

01:30:32.020 Here is my question.

01:30:32.960 What happens to the B.C. economy when those ultra-wealthy individuals not only move their money out of the province?

01:30:42.220 So we've seen this play out in several other jurisdictions, in Spain and in Sweden, as well as in the U.S. and in Massachusetts.

01:30:54.780 in some ways they're just like us and you know they're they're tied to to place we have family

01:31:04.360 and and what we see is that uh the the ultra wealthy don't tend to leave

01:31:12.940 they are province and you know there's there's a lot of fear-mongering that we do here in in the

01:31:20.920 media about about concerned about is the 70,000 workers that are leaving BC every year because

01:31:29.600 of the crushing cost of living crisis. Look at these facts straight in the eye and balance these

01:31:36.740 risks. And as I said, when you look around the world, often feel that they have to pay back

01:31:44.880 into their industries and their workers

01:31:47.020 to ensure that everyone can...

01:31:51.720 Thank you, Ms. Lohan.

01:31:53.240 Mr. Eby, now to you.

01:31:55.020 Ten years after it was first announced,

01:31:57.280 your government still has sold $10 a day child care.

01:32:04.860 It's a program, your own family...

01:32:08.860 More than that, you've paused the program's expansion.

01:32:12.400 What is your message tonight to parents who are asking why the Premier's family is not?

01:32:21.360 Thanks, Saatchi, and thanks for the chance to address this issue.

01:32:25.060 You know, we consider ourselves fortunate to have a spot, as I know many British Columbians understand that.

01:32:36.760 There's thousands of spaces, 60,000 actually across the province.

01:32:39.720 It's not enough.

01:32:40.440 We've got to do more.

01:32:41.200 It converted over to a $10 a day model, comfortable taking that benefit.

01:32:48.440 So we donated the difference to the non-profit service provider that provides that child care about what the conservative plan is for child care.

01:32:58.800 Again, Heather Moss, government house leader for Mr. Dirksen, was to eliminate the child care program that we have here in the province.

01:33:07.660 Our proposal is simple, to expand it to thousands and thousands of new spaces across the province in before and after school care.

01:33:18.140 But Mr. Dirksen and his team, unable to expand our promises, will be coming for child care.

01:33:25.960 And Ms. Maas was very clear about that.

01:33:28.000 Thank you, Mr. Eby.

01:33:29.100 Your follow-up, we've had a campaign pledge to raise income taxes on people earning over $190,000.

01:33:40.800 What confidence can anybody have that these additional taxes will pay for service delivery?

01:33:50.840 We have a fully costed platform.

01:33:53.520 Every dollar that is raised through this, if you earn $200,000 a year.

01:33:59.100 and a new tax bracket for people who earn a million dollars a year.

01:34:03.620 And there are people in British Columbia who earn that kind of money.

01:34:07.940 British, that is allocated to improving services in our province.

01:34:12.580 And showing up for the leaders debate, I think you should show up with a costed for stuff.

01:34:19.500 Because when you don't, and the Conservative plan, the $5 billion spent,

01:34:24.700 without any explanation of where the money is going to come from,

01:34:30.240 as well as a commitment to drive down the deficit,

01:34:32.920 as well as his revenue in a number of different places,

01:34:39.320 means only one thing, dramatic cuts.

01:34:42.080 They do it every time.

01:34:45.600 They're exploring two-tier health care now, 0.99

01:34:47.540 where you have to pay for access to health care. 0.91

01:34:49.420 That's what the Conservatives are doing.

01:34:51.100 And they're going to do it again this time.

01:34:54.700 $1 billion comes from. We explain to British Columbia where the money is going to come from

01:34:58.020 and where it's going to go. Thank you, Mr. Eby. Mr. Dirksen, you've

01:35:01.980 promised a false system with a hybrid model that would allow more big money lawsuits.

01:35:09.560 Personal injury lawyers want this. They worry it will drive up their own insurance premiums,

01:35:17.080 especially after seeing their rates noticeably fall under them. Mr. Dirksen, will you take

01:35:23.620 the opportunity right here right now to guarantee that drivers will not plan i will say this shachi

01:35:33.380 this is a very serious topic in this province and it's one that seems i am committed to keeping our

01:35:42.300 rates very competitive in british columbia british columbians of course want that but on

01:35:47.860 the other is a woman in the Kootenays who has lost her daughter and two of her grandchildren

01:35:56.820 in a car, a tire blow on the front end of a logging truck, and that there has been no

01:36:04.700 compensation for supports for those children going forward at this point, the children

01:36:13.480 that survived the accident.

01:36:15.940 It's shocking.

01:36:18.880 We will put guardrails in place that will protect the rates for British Columbians by making sure lawyers can charge.

01:36:28.080 But I will not let those individuals down that have frankly been let down for a scheme.

01:36:37.140 It is not working for those that are catastrophically injured, those that have been hurt so badly.

01:36:42.580 It is not working, and it is not serving them well.

01:36:47.680 You've also promised to increase the basic personal income tax exemption rate,

01:36:52.960 something that could deprive provincial $4 billion.

01:36:58.200 We've already outlined the situation.

01:37:00.380 The province's finances are in.

01:37:02.980 Realistically, what is the promise,

01:37:06.680 or will it come with new user fees that you haven't told us about?

01:37:10.360 Look, there's a couple of sides.

01:37:12.580 two sides, whether that's for new businesses, whether that's exemptions for our residents,

01:37:19.320 which I'm pretty sure British Columbians at home continue to compare our tax structure

01:37:27.520 to tax structures throughout British Columbia.

01:37:29.740 But I can tell you that the seniors that I talk to, the people that I've engaged with

01:37:35.560 over the last number of weeks and certainly months, want a break in this province.

01:37:42.580 in our province right now is sky high and the taxation should be the last thing that they

01:37:48.320 should be worrying about. But what I mean by the other, this is so important to remember,

01:37:54.600 when we give a $2 billion break to our residents, our residents

01:37:59.800 have been injected into our economy. And I can appreciate that those two might work each other

01:38:06.760 out. But the reality is, it's an injection. When we British Columbia, they spend, they create an

01:38:14.580 economy. And that is something that has absolutely not been capital province, Shachi.

01:38:24.900 Thank you, Mr. Dirksen. Now it's time to come back to open debate.

01:38:30.220 Well, they want to know a lot of things, but they want to know certainly on this particular issue,

01:38:34.840 Which of you is the most competent to manage? Mr. Eby, you may begin. This is Open Debate.

01:38:43.440 Thanks. It's hard to imagine for British Columbia, an affordability crisis, that the Conservatives would do what they're planning to do on car insurance.

01:38:56.400 The care system is not perfect.

01:39:00.240 We built a five-year review into it from witnesses who've had a negative experience with the system.

01:39:05.860 We've got to fix the idea that you're going to open up the doors to personal injury lawyers again.

01:39:12.360 I want to take British Columbians back to the dumpster fire. 0.99

01:39:17.960 30% rate increases slated for British Columbians in a single year.

01:39:21.880 Some of the most expensive insurance in Canada.

01:39:23.900 How much is it making now?

01:39:24.280 And why aren't you getting...

01:39:26.900 Lauren, you want to move British Columbia to the Alberta system or the Ontario system?

01:39:31.540 It's more than double.

01:39:32.680 Who's going to pay for those lawyers, Lauren?

01:39:36.640 Mr. Eby, how much is this?

01:39:38.600 The personal injury lawyers will make you man of the year, Lauren.

01:39:41.900 But unfortunately, that's going to come out of the pocket.

01:39:45.960 Mr. Eby, you're unclear on how much damage has been done under this system.

01:39:51.280 I have spoken to multiple people.

01:39:53.280 I can experience as another woman on the lower mainland

01:39:57.980 whose daughter was killed in the front seat of a car

01:40:00.640 when it careened into a telephone.

01:40:03.800 No support.

01:40:05.540 And the fact that you don't want to talk about that,

01:40:07.580 the fact that you don't want to engage in that conversation is shocking.

01:40:12.500 Both acts set up a committee to hear from people just like that.

01:40:15.060 We absolutely must have that.

01:40:16.760 But then you called an election and paused that.

01:40:19.480 It should have been happening right now.

01:40:24.460 Lauren, you said that conversation should have been happening now.

01:40:28.000 Hundreds of people reached out.

01:40:31.220 We're to be having that conversation right now.

01:40:35.180 These are serious cases all.

01:40:37.200 But for every driver.

01:40:40.240 Every driver wants to know one thing.

01:40:44.020 You say you want rates to stay competitive.

01:40:45.460 You will not provide the three-year freeze.

01:40:49.480 So tell British companies, just tell them one simple thing.

01:40:52.580 How much will their car insurance cost under your plan?

01:40:54.440 I absolutely want our rates to stay competitive.

01:40:59.380 Mr. Eby, you do not want to serve.

01:41:01.180 You don't know how much your rates are going to be.

01:41:02.420 And you heard him.

01:41:02.940 Call a relative in Alberta, call a relative in Ontario,

01:41:05.180 and you will hear their rates are more than double.

01:41:10.240 Why you think British companies should be.

01:41:11.040 Let me be clear.

01:41:12.420 Individuals that have been catastrophically injured have to be cared for.

01:41:16.200 This is a question about revenue.

01:41:19.480 And so I think British Columbians want to know, how are you going to make up this gap in B.C.'s revit, minor taxes like this $225 income tax?

01:41:33.740 But you're betting everything on fracked gas by American corporations, backed by equity firms and Trump's inner circle.

01:41:43.000 So how can we expect British Columbia and how dare you gamble our economy on LNG when we are looking at that BC's projects could be sold at a loss, that we're going to be the highest cost late market entrance?

01:42:03.580 This is past your mandate, so how do you answer to that?

01:42:07.460 Thanks. It's an important question. LNG Canada phase two. I know not everyone's a fan. The Green Leader and I share a number of values around ensuring that we're driving down emissions. LNG Canada phase two will be 30.

01:42:37.460 Transcription by CastingWords

01:43:07.460 Thank you.

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01:46:37.460 Thank you.

01:47:07.460 Thank you.

01:47:37.460 good day western standard viewers today is saturday october 24th it is a very significant

01:47:53.840 day in british columbia politics it is final voting day in the 2026 bc provincial elections

01:48:00.860 It has been one of the strangest, one of the most bizarre election campaigns ever.

01:48:08.040 It's just been so weird.

01:48:09.720 We're going to provide a bit of a forensic timeline in terms of how we got here.

01:48:13.640 Strangeness and weirdness are going to be recurring themes throughout the evening of

01:48:18.880 coverage.

01:48:19.720 And we're going to start that forensic timeline actually in December of 2025.

01:48:25.060 That seems like several lifetimes ago.

01:48:27.420 That was the time at which then leader of the B.C. Conservative Party, John Rustad, resigned upon being declared professionally incapacitated by the party board amidst a bit of a caucus revolt.

01:48:39.220 At that time, Eleanor Sturko had been kicked out of the party. There will be more on her later.

01:48:44.720 Several other MLAs left under their own volition related to controversy surrounding Indian residential schools, yada, yada, yada.

01:48:51.180 Dallas Brody, Jordan Keeley, Tara Armstrong. Eventually, Amelia Bolte also left the party,

01:48:56.860 at which point John Rustad accused her of being mentally ill. That's going to be another theme,

01:49:00.940 mental illness. The declaration of John Rustad as professionally incapacitated

01:49:06.860 in his subsequent resignation led to a horrendously long six-month BC conservative

01:49:12.300 leadership race. Eventually, the membership decided on a very slim and narrow margin on

01:49:18.140 former harper cabinet minister and member of parliament carrie lynn finley you would have

01:49:22.300 expected a new leader to provide stability and unity to the party but it did no such thing

01:49:29.100 that included the establishment of a private eye to spy on members not only within her own party

01:49:36.620 but also members of the public including chip wilson again very strange not really sure entirely

01:49:42.380 what was going on there the party basically looked like it was imploding at the seams

01:49:47.400 And so David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, in his infinite wisdom, decided to call a cynical and snap election.

01:49:53.280 Not because the B.C. conservatives, according to him, were imploding at the seams, but because of the existential threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

01:50:05.220 We have a clip here, actually, of David Eby mentioning Trump 122 times.

01:50:09.760 Trump, Trump, Trump Trump Trump Trump, Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

01:50:15.500 Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

01:50:33.860 Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump nation

01:50:39.760 It was at this point with an election called over the existential threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump on British Columbia that the Conservative Party of B.C. needed a new party leader.

01:51:03.880 Carrie Lynn Finley had resigned on Sunday. The election call was on Tuesday. And so various

01:51:09.240 members of the Conservative Party of BC caucus signed a letter endorsing Lauren Dirksen, who was

01:51:14.120 in Africa and probably had no idea what was going on at the time. And shockingly, the Conservative

01:51:18.720 Party of BC caucus that had previously left under the leadership of Carrie Lynn Finley,

01:51:23.780 there were nine members, if my memory serves me correctly, they migrated back under his leadership.

01:51:28.440 Kind of stunning turn of events. It appears as though David Eby and his cynical snap election

01:51:32.600 call united the right in british columbia which is typically and historically a very hard thing to do

01:51:37.880 with that um david eby pivoted on his election campaign narrative away from donald trump and

01:51:44.520 towards fire breaks but then that backfired when it turned out that lauren darkson had actually

01:51:48.520 been responsible for putting out forest fires as opposed to just using them as 0.93

01:51:53.720 abstract analogies for snap elections that weren't necessary to call in the first place

01:52:02.600 what what drove you to be here i came to have a look uh i could see that they needed more

01:52:15.560 resources that was pretty clear um and fire is surrounding their ranch then uh david eby pivoted

01:52:24.900 again on his reason for the election this time choosing car insurance which resonated with

01:52:29.900 virtually no one because it's a niche subject that very few people fully understand um whatever

01:52:35.120 then he pivoted to mris before eventually landing on muslims and pedophiles as he has a campaign 0.99

01:52:41.420 director that hates muslims he has a candidate in uh in chilliwack that hates gay people 1.00

01:52:47.680 thinks they're all secret pedophiles and here we are 0.98

01:52:50.040 how much time zoom gives us we run a tight budget here so we don't have an official zoom account

01:53:03.980 so totally all good um yeah no i've been fine it's been a long a long haul though you know

01:53:10.460 over the last few months in bc politics i'm sure you're kidding understand exciting time though

01:53:16.500 there's always a story to write about, hey, or to talk about. There's always something around the

01:53:21.080 corner. Yeah, I mean, it's better to have too much content than not enough. Yeah, it's a good

01:53:26.760 problem to have, for sure. How are you feeling about the election generally? You know, I think

01:53:35.280 to a fault, I'm inherently pessimistic just about everything in life. It's just the way I'm

01:53:41.380 hardwired. But, you know, the reception, you know, locally here at the doors has been very positive.

01:53:48.080 There's obviously, you know, and I think this resonates throughout the province, there's

01:53:51.580 obviously a tremendous appetite for change in a manner that is, has people thinking in a more

01:53:59.940 nonpartisan way. And what I mean by that is, you know, your traditional NDP voters here, I live in

01:54:04.800 very centrist riding uh i would i would describe it as and you know your your typical liberal voter

01:54:11.520 ndp voter is just kind of tired of you know david eby and and unfulfilled promises and you know what

01:54:18.880 i would describe as gaslighting of you know from from david eby is like things are getting better

01:54:23.360 and the economy's great and it's like well no no it's not um people people are really in tune with

01:54:29.600 that right now so um you know it in lockstep for for me personally in columbia river revelstoke

01:54:36.240 um you know i think people have appreciated the work that i've done the non-partisan mla work

01:54:40.080 that i've that i've been able to achieve out here um you know the the reality that i've made myself

01:54:45.360 as available as possible in a very difficult riding to serve and so you know i'm cautiously

01:54:49.840 optimistic but uh you know i'm still playing this election like i'm a goal down with two

01:54:54.000 minutes left in the third period so we'll see what happens well what are the like i was looking up

01:54:58.480 your writing and one of the unique characteristics of it in terms of this election is that all three

01:55:02.820 candidates are teachers yes which is really weird I'm sure it's just a coincidence but what do you

01:55:08.880 make of that it I'm not really sure what to make of it to be honest with you I mean my my opponent

01:55:15.460 for the NDP uh ran last election and I knew she was a teacher and uh Ms Nelson I had met a couple

01:55:21.920 of times in Revelstoke in my office um who's just a wonderful person and yeah it's just funny that

01:55:27.460 you know three teachers have kind of put you know their their teaching life on hold to to pursue

01:55:33.240 um you know provincial service i i think you know honestly i think there are just

01:55:38.000 you know a lot of um soft skills that are very transferable into into this kind of work like

01:55:44.160 you know public speaking you know working with people working with the public um but i also

01:55:49.800 think and and you know i won't speak for my opponents but you know for me obviously you

01:55:54.680 know, one of the or the main reason I got into this was just hearing this sort of despair that

01:56:00.100 young people were feeling and realizing that, boy, I don't know if I can, as a teacher, feel

01:56:05.620 comfortable, you know, sending the kids out of grade 12 into a world that's just so kind of

01:56:11.320 unpredictable and unaffordable and bleak. So, you know, maybe they're feeling the same thing that

01:56:16.020 I did, which is why I got into this. But yeah, I describe it as kind of nerd fest with the three

01:56:21.980 of us being teachers on the stage here. So yeah, it's pretty funny. It's just a really interesting

01:56:26.860 characteristic of your writing in this election. And I'm curious, do you think that more teachers

01:56:31.920 appear to be transitioning into politics? Obviously, at the municipal level, it's a natural

01:56:36.360 transition because of school trustee positions and so on and so forth. But in provincial and

01:56:41.140 even in federal politics, do you think that that speaks to an increasing politicization of the

01:56:45.560 profession? Yeah, that's a fair question. I mean, I'm not going to hide from the fact that

01:56:51.800 you know teaching has become very political i think over the last uh 10 years um frustratingly

01:56:58.200 so i mean the the classroom and you know the professional environment should be politics free

01:57:03.160 in my opinion um but it has been sliding further away from that um i don't know if that's a reason

01:57:09.880 why teachers are getting involved i think it would have to do more with just really having

01:57:13.720 a finger on the pulse of what uh what communities are feeling what families are feeling what young

01:57:18.280 people are experiencing um you know i i would attribute that more maybe to why teachers are

01:57:23.720 getting in into politics but yeah i'm not i'm not going to lie that yeah it certainly has become an

01:57:29.160 extremely politicized environment uh over the last number of years i mean we hear it with

01:57:33.640 you know the bc teachers federation here um you know they seem to have an attack at against the

01:57:38.600 conservatives you know three or four times an hour on all the radio stations throughout the province

01:57:43.000 so you know i personally disagree with that i think i think um they should be you know focused

01:57:48.760 on what they need to focus on and staying out of the politics well one of the ways that the

01:57:54.040 teaching profession has become very politicized in british columbia specifically is over the soji issue

01:57:59.400 what is your take on that and where do you see that going you know potentially under

01:58:03.480 a conservative government yeah it's a really good question and you know i have obviously

01:58:07.800 a unique insight into what SOGI is and what it isn't um so you know here's here's the reality

01:58:15.480 as a classroom teacher it is beyond my scope of practice to have conversations with students

01:58:22.120 individually or or in small groups about their sexual identity or gender identity that is not

01:58:28.680 my job and i certainly don't ever feel comfortable doing that with individuals especially when their

01:58:34.040 parents aren't involved um you know i always prided myself on having a welcoming inclusive

01:58:40.360 uh classroom where students could be themselves no matter who they were um and it had nothing to

01:58:45.640 do with soji uh to be honest with you there are professionals in the school whether it's youth

01:58:50.280 outreach workers uh school counselors who are well trained uh to to have those conversations

01:58:56.920 with students that may be struggling with their with their personal identity or other issues

01:59:01.160 in in partnership with their families that is what it's for is to have those conversations

01:59:07.340 with parents and families because those professionals are trained to do so it is not

01:59:11.140 the job of the teacher to have those conversations with students in the hallway um so you know a lot

01:59:17.460 of people would attribute well what about the bullying and things like that look at i i experienced

01:59:21.940 you know a number of instances of bullying when i was a high school teacher and i can't remember

01:59:28.140 one that had to do with somebody a student that would consider themselves to be part of the lgbt

01:59:32.940 community um so i think that's a bit of a false narrative to be honest with you and it's the

01:59:37.740 administration's job um to deal with those situations as they arise right um i firmly

01:59:44.540 believe again i was i was a teacher that checked in on i knew who those vulnerable kids were in the

01:59:48.700 school and i checked in them you know as much as i could just to make sure that they knew an adult

01:59:52.380 was out there that cared about them um i think that's part of the job is just check in say hi

01:59:57.260 But I just firmly believe that SOGI as a resource does provide, you know, a little bit too much leeway for those conversations that teachers shouldn't be having with students at times.

02:00:07.940 SOGI is not BC curriculum, so it should not be taught in the classroom.

02:00:12.500 And the last point I'll make, Alex, is that, you know, parents have made it loud and clear to us.

02:00:18.860 And just to segue, this is not a BC conservative idea to look at a different direction than SOGI.

02:00:27.700 Parents have made it loud and clear that if there are any questions about sexual orientation or gender identity, they want to have those conversations at home.

02:00:37.020 And we certainly respect that.

02:00:38.880 And that's kind of the direction we're moving in.

02:00:40.820 Absolutely, bullying should not be tolerated and it should be dealt with by administration as it comes up.

02:00:46.740 students certainly deserve to feel safe and welcome at school. But I think, you know,

02:00:52.120 the pendulum on SOGI has swung a long ways and, you know, allowed for some inappropriateness in

02:00:57.540 the schools from my perspective. You mentioned the BC Teachers Federation. I went undercover,

02:01:02.700 I pretended I was a union member and I took their anti-racism training and I described it as a

02:01:07.240 hallucinogenic fever dream because it actually didn't really give, what I expected was it would

02:01:13.760 give a prospective teacher tools to deal with bullying around racism, which is a perfectly

02:01:19.100 reasonable tool to give a teacher. But instead, it was all kinds of re-education material about

02:01:24.680 the Land Back movement. And that actually transitions to the next question I had, which

02:01:28.700 was about DRIPA. So Emily Lowen, during the leaders debate, said that DRIPA has nothing to do with

02:01:34.380 property rights. Richard Zussman, the NDP candidate in South Saanich, said that he agreed

02:01:39.180 with that take. I'm curious, do you agree with that take and why or why not?

02:01:43.760 Yeah, that's a good question. I think, to be honest with you, I think some of the connections around DRIPA and private property are not as strong as people would like to believe. It's a complicated issue.

02:01:57.900 Like the reality is in the Cowichan decision, DRIPA was referenced, you know, but this is more when we're looking at private property rights and Aboriginal title and that relationship, that is more of a constitutional question, not a provincial legislative one.

02:02:12.200 um but you know i i certainly think that um you know if we take a different approach with drippa

02:02:20.400 um you know i it's just a it's a bigger part of a conversation of shifting the direction

02:02:25.500 and focusing on the public interest more than anything else so so that's that's really you

02:02:30.000 know my my long and short of that what do you think i mean if yeah i i think that the couch

02:02:36.700 and decision because drippa was referenced but almost just in passing it didn't seem like it was

02:02:41.360 a key reason for the judge's decision in the Cowichan case so getting rid of DRIPA won't

02:02:48.540 make that property rights issue go away yeah what is what is the BC Conservatives plan if any for

02:02:55.020 making that issue go away and I don't know if that there is necessarily one no it's a it's a

02:03:01.100 really good question look at if first of all there are several things the province can do

02:03:06.380 in order to create a little bit more certainty about private property rights, because right now

02:03:14.280 it is a constitutional issue. The relationship between fee simple and aboriginal title does

02:03:21.540 come from section 35. So I think first of all, we need stronger litigators in the provincial

02:03:31.060 government to remove past litigation directives that, no, we're not going to argue extinguish

02:03:36.260 of Aboriginal title. This is a serious issue and we cannot play politics with, you know,

02:03:42.880 the reality that we need to protect private property rights in this province. Because I

02:03:47.520 feel like if there's another decision which mirrors something like Cowichan, we have a big

02:03:51.080 issue on our hands, which is already a big issue. So litigation directives, having that team in

02:03:56.680 place that is not going to be political, that is going to argue the facts based on, you know,

02:04:01.460 what is real and what is not when it comes to what should be private property and Aboriginal

02:04:08.100 title not interfering with one another. So that'll be the biggest thing is kind of a shake up

02:04:13.080 in the Attorney General's office. And as far as how we are going to litigate on behalf of the

02:04:18.840 Crown and the public interest, when we're talking about this relationship moving forward.

02:04:24.920 It was a major that the issue of private property rights was a major plank of Carrie Lynn

02:04:28.940 finley's leadership campaign it seems to have become less important under the leadership of

02:04:33.360 lauren dirksen not to say that it isn't an important issue or that he doesn't take it

02:04:37.000 seriously it's just taken less of maybe like a front-facing position i i'm curious what your

02:04:43.500 thoughts are on the decision to make lauren dirksen a permanent leader if elected as premier

02:04:48.920 and therefore bypassing the constitution which requires you know well not bypassing it amending

02:04:54.700 it which would require a two-thirds approval the conservative party has said they're going to do

02:04:58.760 it no matter what i don't know how that's necessarily possible because they do need

02:05:04.260 that two-thirds majority and what do you think about this potentially sending a message to the

02:05:08.780 membership that the party doesn't trust their judgment yeah that's a fair question and i you

02:05:14.460 know i'm getting a lot of local questions here from people that are undecided voters saying you

02:05:18.720 know scott how can i um vote for you and and turn lord dirksen when i'm not sure he's going to be

02:05:24.840 the premier. You know, so first of all, the governance question, I mean, is something that

02:05:30.700 I'm not extremely familiar with as to what kind of amendments can be made, how legally binding are

02:05:35.620 they. But I can tell you that people are working on that and looking at ways to, you know, install

02:05:42.420 Lorne permanently if he is elected as premier. I think personally, Lorne's done a fantastic job.

02:05:47.580 And if he is elected as premier, he certainly deserves to remain as premier. And I will support

02:05:51.900 him to the end to see that happen. Because, you know, look, we could be in a much different

02:05:57.940 situation here today, which is not up significantly in the polls. Tremendous momentum heading into

02:06:03.480 the weekend. You know, Lauren Dirksen, I think, has resonated well with the public. He's got a

02:06:09.080 tremendous amount of respect in caucus. You know, hypothetically speaking, I think if he were to

02:06:14.540 throw a vote out to the membership, he would win overwhelmingly. But as far as the governance,

02:06:19.200 you know nuances and structure to that i i just don't have a good answer for that alex because

02:06:23.500 i'm not as familiar with the constitution as others might be yeah and it has become it's

02:06:28.680 funny the ndp jumped on that originally but like many of their other campaign points it didn't

02:06:33.400 stick with the public so they've kind of moved on i i'm not even sure if they necessarily have

02:06:39.840 come up with a coherent explanation for why they called this election in the first place would you

02:06:43.940 agreed yeah it's so funny i mean alex you're so in tune with this stuff and you get it too i mean

02:06:49.580 it's been a shifting narrative right it started with you know donald trump and the what i think

02:06:55.380 was a disrespectful um comparison between you know what the premier was trying to do and donald trump

02:07:00.920 and the fire break and you know after we'd had a very difficult summer even especially in my riding

02:07:05.200 with fires i found it to be you know a very poor taste at the best um but then it kind of kind of

02:07:12.520 shifted. When David Eby realized that the public wasn't buying into that, then it became about

02:07:19.680 Lauren Dirksen and his viability to stay on as premier. Then it became about questionable things

02:07:24.500 that the Conservatives have said a number of years ago. Then it became to single-pointed

02:07:29.220 attacks on various candidates. I don't think they had a plan from the beginning. In my opinion,

02:07:35.120 they had anticipated running a campaign against Carrie Lynn Finley, tying her to Alberta

02:07:41.080 separatism and Donald Trump as best they could. And when that changed, I think they were kind of

02:07:47.040 caught with their pants down a little bit, to be frank with you. And they haven't found a narrative

02:07:51.400 or a strategy that the public has accepted. I think this was a, you know, although I'm not

02:07:56.700 complaining about it, a tremendous mistake by the NDP because, you know, I expected, to be honest

02:08:01.220 with you, a much more formidable campaign than this. This has been a bit of a gong show for them.

02:08:05.840 And I'm sure that their conversations internally are not one of happiness and joy and success. So

02:08:10.980 So, you know, this is, I think, again, David Eby called this election purely out of opportunity.

02:08:18.620 And Alex, you know this, he would have never considered doing this at the end of May when we were, you know, beating them up left, right and center when it comes to the issues and everything that was going on in the spring session.

02:08:30.040 You know, we had a bit of a bad dream there for a bit over the summer and things didn't work out with Miss Finley.

02:08:34.640 But we're essentially right back to where we were.

02:08:36.680 And so, you know, I think it was, again, a tremendous miscalculation.

02:08:40.440 and they're going to pay for it at the end of the day yeah i i completely agree yeah that that was

02:08:46.920 uh all my questions is there anything that you wish that i had asked that i didn't i i don't

02:08:52.440 think so alex i think you know just to yeah no i i think i'll leave it there great questions

02:08:57.720 honestly and just keep up the great work you do very in my opinion very balanced reporting

02:09:02.360 um your criticisms are are um are objective um so yeah just keep it up man you have an

02:09:08.760 important important voice out there so keep going for it i appreciate that thank you so much for

02:09:13.080 your time yeah of course thanks for the time out there i'll see you on saturday if you're at the um

02:09:17.720 if you're in vancouver i won't be i'm doing a small thing here uh in kimberly but uh yeah it'll be

02:09:23.560 it'll be a good party i'm sure absolutely right thanks alex take care you too bye

02:09:38.760 all right we're here we are live in Vancouver as you can see there's a lot of activity behind me

02:09:56.140 it looks like the comments are alive and well none of the election results have come in yet

02:10:00.540 we're expecting them to come in at seven or actually what time are we expecting the results

02:10:04.860 to come in after the polls close which is at eight o'clock eight o'clock this is my first

02:10:11.360 guest for the evening david brett from the new westminster times we're here at the media table

02:10:17.020 together we're punditon exactly okay thank you already complaining about the fact that we're

02:10:27.460 not allowed to roam around and ask questions yeah the law and order party

02:10:40.960 of BC already feels like it's back in power so yeah I wonder what it's like

02:10:54.420 thank you yeah well you do too i wonder what it's like at the dc ndp headquarters it's pretty dead

02:11:00.020 apparently it's pretty dead yeah nobody's there just reporters did you want to say hello as well

02:11:04.820 we have another guest here hello from the black press if you want to introduce yourself jeffrey

02:11:09.540 kennett here for black press media we've got uh three of us and then behind us we have more media

02:11:20.100 We have a lot of ring lights.

02:11:26.820 Then we've got Clayton Demain from Juno News is over there at the end.

02:11:31.220 If you want to wave and say hello.

02:11:35.480 Juno News does?

02:11:37.860 Oh, yeah.

02:11:39.540 Oh, wow.

02:11:40.480 Do they ever?

02:11:48.420 Yeah.

02:11:50.100 Yeah, it does take a while.

02:12:11.880 8.30?

02:12:15.180 Here's a question for you.

02:12:16.480 Can they start counting about...

02:12:18.160 Oh, uh-oh.

02:12:19.240 We had somebody drop a chair over here.

02:12:21.920 It's the highlight of the evening so far.

02:12:26.920 Hopefully not a sign of things to come.

02:12:29.740 What happens if people are still in line well after 8?

02:12:32.520 You have to drop it again.

02:12:35.800 So what happens if people are still in line waiting to vote and the votes, you know, technically it's 8 o'clock has passed.

02:12:47.400 Can they start counting the votes while people are still voting?

02:13:01.900 Okay.

02:13:09.900 I see.

02:13:17.400 Keep lying, old man Trump, so he says in the comments, I don't know what the context is there.

02:13:47.400 Here's some people are talking about farming in the comments

02:13:56.760 Someone banned this family seems like I missed out on a lot

02:14:17.400 I'm going to probably bring on a guest here, a real guest.

02:14:37.580 These comments are wild.

02:14:47.400 obviously priority will be given to the most abusive comments because those are generally

02:14:59.880 the most entertaining within reason of course

02:15:04.520 just as an invitation to our first guest of the evening

02:15:12.160 Carney appointed

02:15:15.000 Mala Johnson as chief operating officer

02:15:17.240 of the PMO

02:15:18.160 the same Mala Johnson

02:15:21.160 who orchestrated Joe Biden's mail-in 0.99

02:15:23.440 ballot fiasco

02:15:24.720 Hi everyone, I am gay

02:15:26.600 Oh

02:15:32.240 And I, if somebody in the comments

02:15:39.040 can let me know if

02:15:40.460 I sound okay. If the audio is all right, that would be helpful. Your mic is not picking up the person you're talking to. I assume that would be you, David.

02:15:49.520 We did get interrupted, I should admit, by a fan. He had a fan.

02:15:54.060 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're definitely a recognizable face in the BC Poly media sphere

02:16:11.480 Yeah, that's pretty much what she said

02:16:18.880 She said she came up to do

02:16:20.500 You're the only one I recognize you look vaguely familiar

02:16:47.460 Okay, excellent, thank you

02:16:50.500 Okay, we've been told that the leader is set to arrive in 15 minutes, the dear leader.

02:17:02.500 Yes, selected by the membership.

02:17:18.500 that's right that's right we were both here that's right that was in may late may

02:17:26.360 much has changed it has been um a tumultuous past few months

02:17:36.160 so i've been told there's some difficulty picking up david so he said it's been incredible that

02:17:51.720 there's been so much machinations over the last well it's only been what three or four months

02:17:57.340 you know i heard an interesting observation on hotel pacifico yesterday

02:18:14.720 and they were saying that had it not been for carrie lynn finley's chaotic leadership

02:18:19.360 none of this may have actually happened so in a weird sense even though it was probably

02:18:26.300 inadvertently we must give her some credit if at the end of the night we see a change in government

02:18:33.580 yes well uh the person that keeps him pardoning

02:18:42.860 that's right that's right there is

02:18:56.300 we're talking about

02:18:57.580 that's right

02:19:00.160 on social media today when

02:19:19.420 Carrie Lynn Finley won the

02:19:20.680 leadership race at the end

02:19:21.840 of May who polling was

02:19:23.420 actually right about where

02:19:24.480 There was a bit of a honeymoon effect it was short-lived of course

02:19:43.480 That's right

02:19:46.240 Yes, yeah, I would I agree and actually I mentioned that in the intro for today's live stream

02:19:52.060 And I said weirdness, strangeness, oddities, and perhaps even a little bit of mental illness will probably be running teams throughout the evening.

02:20:04.120 No, no, no, not necessarily.

02:20:05.840 Not from your dear hosts, of course.

02:20:14.820 I can't help but speculate on whether or not they'll rethink the open bar principle in the leadership race.

02:20:20.680 seems like things got a little untethered towards the end of the night yeah we're working so I've got

02:20:47.620 the red bull it's my first of the night i only brought one so yeah it's gonna be an epic crash

02:20:58.660 out probably at 9 p.m but oh excellent excellent

02:21:04.180 thank you for

02:21:11.460 oh yeah

02:21:12.260 no everybody follow um

02:21:15.640 david brett and mrs red at the new westminster times

02:21:18.540 they do great work

02:21:19.740 and uh some of the best dc political reporters

02:21:22.100 it's all thanks to the red bull

02:21:32.800 So we also had a guest that was prepared to come in.

02:21:44.520 I believe we'll still be backstage somewhere, digital backstage, of course.

02:21:49.560 As you can see, there is no physical backstage, just a group of reporters with an overabundance

02:21:56.080 of ring lights.

02:21:58.000 He dropped off, I've been told.

02:22:00.200 All right. Well, that's okay. We've already... Oh, oh, there we are.

02:22:06.240 Yeah, I just need a second to get this appropriate, but...

02:22:10.740 Can you hear me?

02:22:12.540 I can't.

02:22:14.900 I don't know if I can hear you.

02:22:18.540 Can you hear me now?

02:22:21.540 Got no audio on that.

02:22:23.960 Can you hear me now?

02:22:24.740 It says I'm unmuted now.

02:22:33.440 Maybe you could write down your thoughts and hold them up.

02:22:39.240 It says I'm unmuted.

02:22:43.400 Hold on.

02:22:46.500 Switch your audio settings.

02:22:47.920 Okay, you know what?

02:22:48.580 It's me.

02:22:49.300 Bear with me here.

02:22:50.520 Audio.

02:22:53.480 Speaker.

02:22:53.960 there we go. I think that might do it. Try saying something over there Jonathan? Can you hear me?

02:23:01.000 um

02:23:06.560 let's tell you

02:23:09.180 hello hello

02:23:14.580 hello

02:23:15.840 can you hear me

02:23:19.880 I hear both of you clear

02:23:24.460 is what our backstage person

02:23:26.760 says you know what I'm going to switch you over 0.73

02:23:28.760 to

02:23:29.700 because I can't hear you at all.

02:23:50.180 We can hear him.

02:23:52.220 All right, well, why don't you tell me what he's saying?

02:23:55.920 Can you hear me now?

02:23:56.920 You know what, I'm going to drop out, and I'm going to come right back.

02:24:01.900 Okay.

02:24:02.300 Okay.

02:24:26.920 could you try again there i'm here can you hear me

02:24:40.360 can you can you can your can your backstage people hear me

02:24:47.100 let me try this try again testing testing one two three can you hear me

02:24:53.640 Thank you.

02:25:23.640 i don't know what that means i have the listening device

02:25:29.000 i just want a place to

02:25:32.240 it's not like these tables have that great a view

02:25:38.380 i think your people can hear me alex

02:25:46.860 hello how are you oh we've got amy hammers in the house

02:25:54.120 the world famous amy hammers sorry i should have asked first

02:26:00.240 we have another guest sorry jonathan we got upstage no problem

02:26:05.900 people can hear me i can't hear you it's just the strangest thing

02:26:11.380 can your can your other folks hear me

02:26:14.240 i'm like but i don't even have a seat back here

02:26:24.480 yeah i can't even see who to have like there's a woman named

02:26:44.240 Yeah, I turned off the volume. 1.00

02:27:14.240 Thank you.

02:27:44.240 please

02:28:14.240 um

02:28:35.840 yeah

02:28:44.240 Thank you.

02:29:14.240 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:29:42.120 Can I get a taste?

02:29:44.120 Actually, it's a technical side.

02:29:46.120 I don't know.

02:29:48.120 But I will get some.

02:29:50.120 Yeah.

02:29:52.120 You can't go out today.

02:29:54.120 I know, I know. I totally understand.

02:29:56.120 I need someone to sit. I need to plug in my...

02:30:02.120 Yeah.

02:30:04.120 Yeah, that's what I call.

02:30:06.120 There's time, by the way.

02:30:08.120 Please.

02:30:10.120 Thank you.

02:30:40.120 Thank you.

02:31:10.120 Thank you.

02:31:40.120 All right, I think that might

02:32:06.460 might be a little bit better jonathan do you want to try again can you hear me yes i can

02:32:14.580 oh technology works yes yes it was a browser issue okay cool all right welcome thank you

02:32:24.320 you must be excited um yeah i'm uh it's been years of uh anticipation of this moment

02:32:33.600 It came a little earlier than we expected.

02:32:35.760 But, yeah, we were very excited, all of us.

02:32:38.900 Do you think that it is the end of David Eby tonight?

02:32:44.000 I don't really see how he has any kind of authority to stay on past tonight.

02:32:50.380 I mean, the Nides have been out for him in this caucus long before he made this election call.

02:32:55.700 So, in my mind, this is the final nail in his coffin.

02:32:58.640 So if he doesn't resign tonight, assuming that the NDP loses and it certainly looks like that's going to happen, you know, I don't I don't know how he manages to be in that caucus as of tomorrow.

02:33:12.760 I just don't know how it could ever happen.

02:33:15.200 So do you foresee him retaining his seat in Vancouver Point Grey, but being deposed as the leader of the NDP?

02:33:21.820 And if so, how does that work?

02:33:23.600 Or, you know, I mean, that's an interesting one.

02:33:26.860 And, look, I think Macmillan is a very formidable candidate, you know,

02:33:32.400 his chamber experience.

02:33:33.680 But, you know, it's also been a kind of a premier's seat from Christy Clark,

02:33:40.480 the EB, so on and so forth.

02:33:42.620 So even if he wins the seat, which is, you know,

02:33:46.460 I think it's still a good possibility.

02:33:50.020 I don't know.

02:33:50.840 I mean, he resigns as leader, but I don't know how he can continue in caucus,

02:33:55.500 to be honest with you.

02:33:56.860 um i just don't i don't know maybe maybe he has a shelf life but i think there's going to be a lot

02:34:02.340 of people uh in that caucus and outside behind the scenes that have you know just let's talk

02:34:07.800 dollars and cents people will have lost their jobs over this a lot of people will have lost

02:34:12.780 their jobs over this and there's going to be a lot of a lot of resentment towards him

02:34:16.720 for a call that he made which was completely unnecessary you know the spin is that you know

02:34:22.620 the conservatives had 13 attempts to bring down the government and they had

02:34:27.420 this one seat majority, sorry, one seat question, but no,

02:34:32.220 it's a lot of spin, of course. They were quite comfortable, you know,

02:34:37.020 for the last six months or a year of this legislature,

02:34:40.060 they were doing what they needed to get done. You know,

02:34:42.700 there might've been attempts earlier on in this session, but you know,

02:34:46.920 it's a lot of spin. So he made the call. He,

02:34:50.220 He made a bad political call, and there's a lot of people's livelihoods

02:34:54.200 and fates that are not going to be determined on that.

02:34:56.820 So, I mean, I don't know.

02:34:58.160 He's definitely resigning as leader tonight as far as I'm concerned.

02:35:01.140 It's just a matter of whether he – I don't know.

02:35:03.860 Maybe there's an immediate by-election.

02:35:05.520 I don't know what to tell you.

02:35:09.160 Yeah, do you think he would – even if he wins Vancouver points, right,

02:35:12.000 do you think, therefore, that he would resign his seat

02:35:14.820 that is also going to be a by-election?

02:35:16.320 Is that kind of where you see this playing out?

02:35:18.820 I mean, look, I find it hard.

02:35:21.860 I think Dave Evie has, I think he has quite an ego.

02:35:27.640 I think that there's going to be, it's going to be very tense for him from all corners of that party.

02:35:32.820 And I think that, yeah, I think it's very likely that he just escaped politics after this result.

02:35:39.800 Look, I mean, he's going to be under fire from all corners of that party.

02:35:44.820 no one's gonna accept him as leader but you know how do you stay in that caucus when

02:35:49.520 you know the entire fate of your party now in opposition and when you had a you know a pretty

02:35:55.500 i think it was a pretty solid majority in spite of their spin how do you stick around i don't know

02:36:01.500 i mean that's gonna be very that'd be a very difficult caucus to be a part of

02:36:05.220 yeah i think you're you're right on the money when it comes to ego because somebody actually

02:36:12.520 Mike McDonald at Hotel Pacifica was mentioning yesterday

02:36:15.560 there are some individuals that do not

02:36:17.560 transition well from government to

02:36:19.500 opposition and I feel like he would

02:36:21.520 be one of those individuals. He's already

02:36:23.180 flailing

02:36:23.740 violently as the Premier.

02:36:27.480 Imagine what he would be like in opposition.

02:36:32.180 He's clearly a very

02:36:33.540 angry individual at the moment

02:36:35.200 and I don't see that going away

02:36:37.680 serving as the

02:36:39.640 opposition

02:36:40.620 backbench, you know, opposition

02:36:42.960 MLA for

02:36:44.940 Vancouver Point Grey, I don't

02:36:47.180 think that turns his

02:36:48.580 crank, to be honest with you. He's a

02:36:51.280 lawyer. He'll have plenty of opportunities

02:36:53.500 to jump off to, and I

02:36:55.380 think that he'll feel that

02:36:56.780 he can make a lot more waves outside

02:36:59.220 of a caucus that,

02:37:01.220 look, again, there was a lot of resentment in

02:37:03.260 that caucus. I've been, I have a,

02:37:05.540 you know, I have a lot of friends in the NDP

02:37:07.380 over the years that I've collected. I'm not one of those

02:37:09.360 people that are isolated to conservative circles entirely in terms of who i speak to

02:37:14.400 um and and long before this um people people wanted him gone you know um those cabinet ministers

02:37:22.720 that were jumping off uh part of that was because they thought it was a bad call on the

02:37:28.280 on the election they were they had spoken out against it and they were overridden

02:37:32.520 and part of it said like i don't want to be a part of a caucus where he's the leader of it no

02:37:36.860 matter what so you know maybe ravi ravi khalan uh takes a uh a break and then comes back later on

02:37:43.840 but you know i i just think they just didn't want to be around eb as the leader anymore

02:37:48.400 did you hear what selena robinson had to say about him recently in a couple of interviews

02:37:53.660 um i'm no i haven't i haven't heard her recent interviews no yeah she was asked if he was a

02:38:00.160 good man and she said he's not a good leader which is such a typical political answer they

02:38:05.300 never answer your question directly but i think indirectly that was her way of saying she doesn't

02:38:09.800 think he's a very good man i mean she said that by contrast john horgan was an excellent leader

02:38:15.120 and a good coach you know listener and she says that wasn't the case well look i i i think that

02:38:20.660 um i think that you know evie could aside from his political foibles he might have had an ability

02:38:28.360 to claim that he cared for people and he cared about the province and you know but these lines

02:38:34.300 that he's been delivering over the last week that

02:38:36.160 I work every day for the

02:38:38.280 fate of British Columbians

02:38:39.640 it doesn't ring true

02:38:41.500 no one believes it and you know like

02:38:44.140 Dirksen said in the debate

02:38:45.660 no one believes him

02:38:47.340 so I think that

02:38:50.200 he has exposed himself

02:38:52.120 in terms of his character and that

02:38:54.240 doesn't always happen in an election campaign

02:38:55.960 there are some people that lose but they lose

02:38:58.200 with grace and they come across

02:39:00.400 as you know maybe you know I'll take the

02:39:02.140 loss I'm happy to have served and

02:39:04.080 I'm going to step down

02:39:05.260 I think he's been exposed as a person

02:39:08.460 in a very negative way after this campaign

02:39:10.600 I think his brand has been tarnished

02:39:14.660 regardless of politics

02:39:15.680 his entire brand has been tarnished dramatically

02:39:18.660 and you know just his

02:39:19.700 moral authority on anything

02:39:22.740 to be quite honest

02:39:23.640 imagine if he wins

02:39:26.100 his ego will be fully out of control

02:39:30.720 well I don't know

02:39:31.940 Well, I mean, I've heard the same things that you have.

02:39:35.000 I'm sure that even if he does win, it's going to be a very slim margin.

02:39:40.240 It's not going to be any more stable than it was before the election call.

02:39:45.560 And I can't see that caucus rallying around him to remain as premier.

02:39:51.240 There's no way in hell that even if he won tonight, which, as I said, I think is very unlikely at this point.

02:39:57.440 But even if he won, I can't see him.

02:39:59.520 he put them

02:40:02.100 through a campaign that has

02:40:04.000 been brutal on the NDP in so many different

02:40:05.920 respects and so

02:40:08.100 even if he squeaks out a one or two

02:40:09.900 seed win even if he signs

02:40:11.860 some kind of agreement with the Greens who

02:40:13.880 hold the balance of power

02:40:14.880 I don't know if maybe

02:40:17.020 Emily Lowen says I won't deal with him

02:40:19.700 maybe they start negotiating

02:40:21.840 with someone else I don't know

02:40:23.220 but I don't see a path for him to continue as

02:40:25.780 leader and I'm kind of

02:40:27.900 you know, questioning whether he has a path to remain in that caucus at all,

02:40:31.420 to be honest with you.

02:40:33.040 Somebody in the comments earlier mentioned that his reasons for the election

02:40:36.400 kept changing.

02:40:37.300 I found that to be one of the stranger and weirder things about this election

02:40:41.740 was that it started with Donald Trump, then it went to fire breaks, 0.99

02:40:45.640 then MRIs, then car insurance, and then Muslims and pedophiles. 0.92

02:40:51.260 Yeah, and then it was about, you know, the danger that the conservatives

02:40:56.720 opposed to every British Columbian, regardless of political persuasion

02:41:01.760 or religion or ethnic background.

02:41:04.940 You know, we are racist, we are xenophobes, we are duplicitous.

02:41:11.320 We are the biggest threat since the Cold War, so to speak.

02:41:15.820 So, yeah, I mean, it became comical that the entirety of this past

02:41:20.780 seven to 12 days of the campaign were focused on, you know,

02:41:24.880 the conservative party and individual candidates that they had been sitting on uh you know

02:41:30.120 opposition research for for at least many months i mean a lot clearly a lot of this has been

02:41:34.860 saved up for a long time but you know that's when your campaign begins with the trump the

02:41:41.980 leader of the free world and ends talking about candidates so-so in colonna about

02:41:47.920 charges that were stayed 20 years ago and other things um well you know what's interesting about

02:41:54.240 that, is that, I mean, that was

02:41:56.380 a 1BC talking point towards the end

02:41:58.340 of the election. We're talking, obviously, about

02:42:00.140 the Pat Meets in controversy in Kelowna,

02:42:02.200 Lake Country Coldstream,

02:42:03.960 but for whatever reason, why didn't David

02:42:06.220 Eby go for the jugular on that? Do you think

02:42:08.200 that he was just too proud because

02:42:10.260 1BC came up with the talking

02:42:12.180 point, so he didn't want to take the

02:42:13.700 handoff? What do you think's going on there?

02:42:15.640 Well, I think, well, look, we've talked about

02:42:18.140 this a little bit before, but I think

02:42:20.040 two things. First of all, the mainstream media,

02:42:21.720 it's not about them playing cover.

02:42:23.920 I mean, this notion that the mainstream media is paying cover for the Conservative Party of British Columbia is comical.

02:42:30.900 You know, they're no friends of the Conservative Party and they haven't been for a long time.

02:42:34.260 Right. And secondly, you know, it's illegal.

02:42:38.980 It's a legal protection thing.

02:42:40.520 You know, the Crown decided not to proceed with charges.

02:42:42.940 I'm not saying he's innocent.

02:42:44.360 I'm not saying he's guilty, but they stayed charges 20 years ago.

02:42:48.220 So what is the point of a story, even if they did run with it?

02:42:51.300 like what are they what is the angle i don't know what it'd be and i think there are legal teams in

02:42:55.660 every mainstream media outlet would say we wouldn't touch that with the 10-foot pole because

02:42:59.280 there's no there's no intrinsic value in this as a reporting story so i think that's number one and

02:43:04.720 two i do think that there is a real kind of aversion to touch anything that 1bc has touched

02:43:10.560 because you know the the comedy uh duo of uh wyatt claypool and anthony russo pontificating about

02:43:21.020 the disgusting

02:43:23.100 their theories

02:43:25.700 on what happened and how it happened

02:43:27.400 it's like why would anyone

02:43:29.680 want to play second fiddle or come in

02:43:31.680 for sloppy seconds on that kind of a story

02:43:33.780 so I do think the 1PC tarnished

02:43:35.760 this story even if it did have legs

02:43:37.760 for the government plus it seemed to me

02:43:39.800 that they had a lot of other writings they were more

02:43:41.680 concerned about and a lot of other candidates

02:43:43.640 they were trying to get dirt

02:43:45.760 out about so

02:43:46.500 yeah that's true I guess that's kind of the

02:43:49.660 the geopolitics of it all you know it's a provincial election so it's kind of a funny

02:43:53.740 phrase well i mean look they're never going to win that riding anyway so what do they care

02:43:57.400 why is kelly yeah and why is kelly green you know uh going and campaigning on the island of

02:44:03.480 all places you know and just weird a campaign i can't like um looks like richmond is kind of a

02:44:09.860 wash and kelly green is in the heart of you know that couch in uh you know land um flagmire there 0.97

02:44:17.560 and so the real couch and yeah exactly exactly so they so they thought they'd ship her off to the

02:44:24.260 real couch and exactly but it's just uh but the way they've shifted their their hand is around

02:44:31.860 and they're and and you know basically very publicly uh demonstrated why they were not

02:44:37.820 viable in certain ridings is fascinating to me i mean it was very public you know some when when

02:44:43.920 when decisions are made behind the scenes you know uh where where people go it's it's often

02:44:49.340 out of confidence right you know this guy is safe so we're going to take him he's a high-profile

02:44:53.760 cabin minister and we're going to send him on to um such and such riding which is touch and go or

02:44:59.840 it's kind of an even steven 50 50 outcome possibility and what they did instead was they

02:45:06.520 they said you're not winning and we're shipping you out and and it was very it was very um

02:45:13.180 transparent, that they were

02:45:14.420 giving up on some really high profile names.

02:45:19.180 Oh, yeah.

02:45:19.780 I mean, the decision

02:45:21.500 to call this election in

02:45:23.380 such a close time frame, overlapping

02:45:25.580 with the municipal election, also

02:45:27.340 limited the number and the quality of the

02:45:29.400 candidates, because many people were focused on

02:45:31.460 their civic election campaign.

02:45:33.040 I mean, for all parties.

02:45:34.240 If we're fair,

02:45:36.280 I don't think that you

02:45:38.720 are able to have 93,

02:45:41.140 or, you know, sorry, not 93, but you have, let's say you have

02:45:43.780 35 incumbents for the Conservatives, you need

02:45:46.080 55 more candidates or so

02:45:48.320 to come out and be

02:45:50.400 selected. I'm sure, you know, obviously

02:45:52.140 some had been targeted, but others

02:45:54.200 as we saw with

02:45:55.600 Lorne having to drop some of them

02:45:57.680 were not, you know, didn't

02:45:59.960 provide any kind of benefit to the party

02:46:02.260 and actually acted as a detriment.

02:46:04.180 So

02:46:04.200 finding candidates

02:46:07.360 within two weeks of a

02:46:10.260 deadline for a snap call is a near impossibility for any party no matter what well i think one of

02:46:16.780 those candidates his name is jordan mcintosh if my memory serves me correctly yeah he was the one

02:46:21.700 who used the n-word 40 times in one month i feel like that's a little obsessive but then he also

02:46:26.960 made that comment about the holocaust apparently he was 15 when he made this comment and it really

02:46:32.160 in my opinion and i might get myself in trouble here it was not the most offensive comment in

02:46:36.520 the world he just said and maybe i maybe i got it wrong but my understanding of the comment was he

02:46:41.480 said jewish people weren't specifically targeted or exclusively targeted it was more of a heterodox

02:46:46.960 comment well 15 years old yeah alex as someone who um has jewish heritage and comes as is half

02:46:55.000 jewish and proudly wears a you know starved david around my neck um you know i can't i will never

02:47:02.460 diminish that that uh statement i don't know i'm not saying that you are but i you know i think 0.94

02:47:09.820 that the comment is just dumb it's just dumb and then on top of that with respect you know i i'm 0.96

02:47:15.920 not one of those people that believes that um you know if you're 15 you get a free pass i i just 0.99

02:47:21.820 don't and and look if you're gonna run five years later for office it's fair game i just look i i've

02:47:28.920 been a guy that swam upstream in politics

02:47:30.900 for 30 years I've poked

02:47:32.900 a lot of people and I've poked

02:47:34.920 a lot of bears and I have a lot

02:47:37.020 of people that you know would love to have my

02:47:38.860 head on a platter but I can tell you

02:47:40.980 and you know and I go very aggressively at

02:47:42.840 people at times but I can tell you there's

02:47:44.780 nothing that in my social media of any

02:47:46.840 consequence over 30 years

02:47:48.980 where I would be ashamed that I use

02:47:50.680 racism or xenophobia or

02:47:52.840 or really inappropriate

02:47:54.200 I'm just like I'm

02:47:56.140 there was no social media when you were

02:47:58.680 15 to be fair i mean true true but but i but i have been online for at least now over 20 years

02:48:05.040 and you know social media postings right i've been on twitter for 15 years now and i've been

02:48:10.200 on facebook for over 20 so there's plenty uh plenty of stuff and i you know i and even before

02:48:15.880 social media i was running a national blog that had a readership across the country uh long before

02:48:21.680 blogs were a thing right so you know i i put my my name in print a lot online and otherwise

02:48:28.300 and I'm just saying that I don't run

02:48:30.400 away from what I've written.

02:48:32.740 No, no, and I don't

02:48:34.440 think that his comments are all that defensible, but

02:48:36.380 I do give teenagers

02:48:38.120 some grace and leeway in

02:48:40.360 terms of the crazy things. Yeah, sure, absolutely,

02:48:42.740 but to expect that it won't come up

02:48:44.500 in an election campaign is a little

02:48:46.120 generous as far as I'm concerned.

02:48:49.040 Yeah, absolutely.

02:48:50.500 I think there's two main takeaways here. Number

02:48:52.260 one in politics, you know, rule

02:48:54.220 number one is never talk about Hitler, and rule number

02:48:56.340 two is never forget rule number one.

02:48:58.300 And also, don't run teenagers in elections.

02:49:02.860 Yeah, no, I was kind of encouraged, to be honest with you,

02:49:07.060 by the youth movement that the Conservatives had gone with.

02:49:10.400 A lot of those writings were throwaways, there's no doubt.

02:49:13.140 When you're running a Conservative candidate in Vancouver, Strathcona,

02:49:17.000 or against Nikki Sharma, you're not really expecting too much out of them.

02:49:24.280 But I thought it was really nice to see a bunch of, you know, early 20s and even a couple of late teens.

02:49:30.560 I thought it was quite encouraging.

02:49:32.300 It started out in politics when I was, you know, 17, 18 years old.

02:49:36.840 So I like it.

02:49:38.260 I loved it.

02:49:38.920 But then again, you know, obviously there were some holes because no one can accommodate those types of things in two and a half weeks.

02:49:47.320 I think the party did quite well.

02:49:49.940 It got a lot of top-notch candidates.

02:49:52.080 But everyone struggled.

02:49:53.180 I mean, look, the governing party didn't even make a full slate, which is fascinating, right?

02:49:59.080 Right.

02:50:00.100 Yeah, and in fact, the one riding where they didn't feel the candidate was Peace River North.

02:50:05.560 Yeah, for Jordan Keeley's spot, right, exactly.

02:50:09.480 Well, you know, with an incumbent that's definitely not coming back, it would have been interesting to at least have an NDP presence there, regardless of whether it's a conservative riding or not.

02:50:19.960 So I'm curious to hear your opinion on this.

02:50:23.540 I was talking to our friend David Brent here about it earlier before he came on.

02:50:27.780 Somebody pointed out on X, and this is true, just after Carrie Lynn Finley won the leadership at the end of May,

02:50:34.400 she was polling right around where Jerkson is polling now.

02:50:39.400 Do you think that if she had led in a different way, in a different manner,

02:50:46.260 if she had been open with the media, if she had maintained the prehesion of the caucus,

02:50:49.520 that she could have won this election as well.

02:50:53.020 I don't want to get ahead of ourselves.

02:50:55.960 Not a hope in hell.

02:50:57.960 And why?

02:50:58.860 Why do you think?

02:51:00.680 Look, she is, you know, there is this narrative that went around.

02:51:05.140 So, first of all, we have an interesting history

02:51:07.300 because prior to you calling me as one of the four main suspects

02:51:13.700 identified for the Finley files, we had never spoken.

02:51:17.260 And now, you know, we speak semi-regularly.

02:51:20.680 Well, that's interesting to begin with.

02:51:22.780 But, no, there's this notion that she was usurped and that the democratic will of the members was disrespected.

02:51:33.360 And I just don't, I don't, I don't hold true to that.

02:51:37.800 Because as far as I'm concerned, she is the bearer of her own misfortune.

02:51:41.300 so to start to start uh she took the first four to six weeks and went completely AWOL so she had

02:51:50.340 a bunch of meetings she had a bunch of meetings with caucus members the next day after winning

02:51:55.660 and and then she went she said she needed a break and everyone was told that so that was

02:52:03.180 the first thing you know you have momentum you have a poll that says you got the the post um

02:52:09.280 victory bump you take advantage of it you go out and they said they did interviews yeah they did

02:52:15.260 interviews but she should have been going around the province and i just look i know she has some

02:52:20.400 health issues i know her age i'm not an ageist and i'm not i would never kind of disrespect someone

02:52:25.500 for their health challenges but it was it's a tough job and and i thought that that required

02:52:31.880 someone to go out on the road and hit every riding in anticipation of this kind of a call

02:52:37.500 and I think it's just

02:52:39.620 completely egregious that

02:52:41.420 she decided to take six weeks off

02:52:43.320 and then she made a lot of decisions

02:52:45.320 from the western separatists being

02:52:47.660 welcomed in to the Apollo

02:52:49.500 Chong to the Chris Delaney's

02:52:51.700 and Brent Chapman's 0.98

02:52:53.540 she took

02:52:55.700 apart, there was a lot of us

02:52:57.520 including myself who had said

02:52:58.820 excuse me, I have a bad cold

02:53:01.780 at the moment but said that

02:53:03.620 we've spent years and years building

02:53:05.600 this up and

02:53:06.900 in a matter of months 0.99

02:53:08.580 she's pissed it away and you know

02:53:11.220 regardless of whether you

02:53:12.380 supported the Finley files or you think

02:53:15.200 I was behind it or someone else

02:53:16.780 the fact of the matter is the information

02:53:19.220 that was released was damning

02:53:21.400 you know I'm sorry I'm not

02:53:23.240 a legal expert and I'm not a cop

02:53:25.320 but when you come out and say

02:53:27.320 to people on an audio

02:53:29.140 that you know I'm a little disappointed

02:53:31.560 no one steps aside

02:53:33.020 and you know we'll

02:53:35.220 hook you up with a job

02:53:37.140 in the same portfolio

02:53:39.300 that you're in.

02:53:41.340 Again, I'm not a legal expert. That sounds

02:53:43.260 a hell of a lot like inducement to me.

02:53:45.460 And obviously it's done.

02:53:47.160 But I think she was sloppy.

02:53:49.180 I think putting Brent Chapman

02:53:50.660 and

02:53:51.640 Chris Delaney at the head of an

02:53:55.060 organization is absolute 0.61

02:53:57.080 insanity. So no, do I

02:53:59.260 think? Look, the whole

02:54:00.860 calculation for EB was that he was

02:54:03.100 going to face off either against

02:54:04.980 her a mortally wounded leader or uh someone who had departed uh and and left the party in total

02:54:13.620 shambles uh it was all based on political advantage by her legacy and so i think she's

02:54:19.660 the bearer of her own misportrait well i wish you could see what i'm seeing right now on the other

02:54:25.960 side of my laptop screen that the house is beginning to fill in uh with the who's who

02:54:32.880 of the D.C. political world, if you will.

02:54:34.920 I just saw Daryl Jones walk by.

02:54:37.200 Oh, interesting.

02:54:38.680 Yeah, yeah, I recognize him.

02:54:41.620 He also ran for the leadership race,

02:54:45.660 and this brings up another interesting question.

02:54:48.140 Why isn't he running in the election,

02:54:50.340 and why are so many other folks who ran in that leadership not running?

02:54:53.640 I think of Gary Palmer.

02:54:55.340 I think of Ian Black.

02:54:56.600 I think of Daryl Jones.

02:54:59.440 I mean, Peter Milibar is running, of course,

02:55:00.900 because he was an incumbent.

02:55:01.860 I find that kind of curious.

02:55:07.320 Look, I think that in certain circumstances,

02:55:12.960 they were there for a shot or to be in the mix.

02:55:18.420 Look, do I think that Daryl Jones entered the race thinking he really had a realistic shot?

02:55:22.500 I don't know.

02:55:23.580 Maybe he did.

02:55:24.480 But in my world, I'm most often fascinated by candidates that enter races where they don't have a hope in hell.

02:55:31.860 You know, but again, that's the mentality.

02:55:34.660 I don't understand people that just want to have their name on the ballot or be a part of the conversation.

02:55:39.960 And I've been doing this for a long time, so I've never understood that mentality.

02:55:43.220 So I do think there's some that were that case.

02:55:45.360 You know, they were there for a leadership race, but they were not there for the future of the party.

02:55:51.280 And I think that others had, you know, some problems.

02:55:55.420 Like, you know, Yuri, for example, wanted a particular riding.

02:55:58.480 It was not going to happen exactly as he wanted it.

02:56:01.860 Uri had a very kind of the one VC association that dragged him down

02:56:06.600 dramatically.

02:56:07.900 That was another thing.

02:56:10.360 Ian Black, I think that, you know,

02:56:12.720 Ian is a pretty successful professional.

02:56:16.800 So I think that, you know,

02:56:18.740 the notion of him running might've been on the table,

02:56:20.880 but I also don't think he just was ready to make a decision on a snap call

02:56:25.640 and just say, oh yeah, I'm ready to go and I'll go where you place me.

02:56:29.900 So I don't think it's a matter of a non-confidence in Lorne or the party in every case.

02:56:34.920 I think it's a matter of, you know, people have to take care of their own personal lives and make decisions that are best for them.

02:56:41.980 But yeah, I think it is interesting that Caroline Elliott is now the only, you know, Peter as well, of course,

02:56:48.340 but Caroline Elliott is the one that is back in the mix and then the others have kind of just tailed off.

02:56:54.740 Yeah, for sure. And then, of course, you have

02:56:56.980 Ham, who's

02:56:58.820 now 1BC branded.

02:57:02.840 Yeah, and I mean, some of the other

02:57:04.700 incumbents are still running, but the ones

02:57:06.840 who dropped out earlier, the first

02:57:08.660 band is the Steve Cooners.

02:57:11.520 And Harman Bangui.

02:57:12.860 I mean, again, I don't

02:57:14.520 know if I consider all of those...

02:57:17.640 You know, and no

02:57:18.420 disrespect to Bruce or Harman, because

02:57:20.660 I consider both of them, you know,

02:57:22.920 very good men and friends, but

02:57:24.320 But I just don't – I see the people that were there in those televised debates

02:57:31.620 and that made the couple payments as the ones that are really kind of the mix

02:57:36.300 that are the leadership group as far as I'm concerned.

02:57:41.240 Someone asked earlier when the results are going to be coming in.

02:57:44.560 I think they're actually going to be coming in probably around 9 o'clock at the earliest

02:57:50.000 if I'm being super optimistic.

02:57:52.400 So I'm actually, if it's okay with you, Jonathan, I'm going to step away for just a few minutes here.

02:57:57.080 Absolutely.

02:57:58.760 Maybe I see you're going to be watching the coverage.

02:58:01.640 Oh, yeah, I'll be all over it.

02:58:03.380 So maybe we'll check in later in the evening.

02:58:05.640 Awesome.

02:58:06.200 Thank you so much for joining us today.

02:58:07.780 You're a wealth of knowledge, political strategist, Jonathan Ross.

02:58:12.340 Some of our most loyal Western Standard readers may recognize him.

02:58:17.040 Where I misrepresented it in tight, horribly.

02:58:19.460 I will say this before we go, you know,

02:58:23.820 any picture that puts Brian Bregot at six feet and the others ahead of me,

02:58:31.500 I will say confidently, of the four suspects identified,

02:58:35.400 I'm confident that I'm the tallest of the bunch. 0.69

02:58:38.260 And that includes Nihal's turban in consideration.

02:58:44.800 I have been looking for Nihal saying all night,

02:58:48.020 I assume I'll find him somewhere near the closest room closet trying to hybrid. 0.97

02:58:52.240 Maybe we'll be able to say hi to each other as fellow subspecs in the lineup.

02:58:58.900 Yeah, it would be great if we could get all four of you together for the real thing.

02:59:04.000 Nice seeing you, man.

02:59:04.780 All right.

02:59:05.080 We'll talk soon.

02:59:05.700 Yeah, you too.

02:59:06.620 Take care.

02:59:07.360 Bye-bye.

02:59:07.680 All right, folks, I am going to step away for the next, I would say, five to seven minutes.

02:59:19.760 The Red Bull is running through me, and we should be expecting results and the leader to show up fairly soon.

02:59:28.060 Again, it's a who's who in the zoo here at the Vancouver Rocky Mountain Area train station.

02:59:34.640 unfortunately just like the leadership race i've been informed that we will not be going on a train

02:59:42.800 i will be back

03:00:04.640 Transcription by CastingWords

03:00:34.640 Thank you.

03:01:04.640 Thank you.

03:01:34.640 Thank you.

03:02:04.640 Thank you.

03:02:34.640 Thank you.

03:03:04.640 Thank you.

03:03:34.640 Thank you.

03:04:04.640 Thank you.

03:04:34.640 Thank you.

03:05:04.640 Thank you.

03:05:34.640 Thank you.

03:06:04.640 All right, folks, we are back.

03:06:34.640 The comments continue to be fruitful. We are awaiting the results.

03:07:01.640 I'll share some of the comments

03:07:04.360 with one of our special guests

03:07:07.040 from Blackpast.

03:07:08.380 I'll get your thoughts on this. 1.00

03:07:11.080 Liberal women are 1.00

03:07:12.480 laying for it all. 1.00

03:07:15.580 You're right.

03:07:16.480 The most controversial comments.

03:07:18.360 Yes, exactly. The most controversial

03:07:20.280 comments. Within reason, we'll get

03:07:22.480 the most airtime because they're generally the most

03:07:24.360 entertaining.

03:07:26.700 A lot of people here. Yes, there are

03:07:28.380 a lot of people here. It appears as though

03:07:30.540 they are continuing to serve

03:07:32.520 alcohol at the event

03:07:34.000 even though there were so many incidents

03:07:36.440 during the election. Can't they be here for that?

03:07:38.600 Yeah. Yeah. Seems like

03:07:40.740 people are going to hopefully be a little bit

03:07:42.680 more orderly tonight than they were

03:07:44.300 in late May.

03:07:47.480 A question. Any word

03:07:48.660 at the NDP will try to form a coalition

03:07:50.580 with the Greens to keep the conservatives out?

03:07:53.160 Yes, that actually has

03:07:54.580 been speculated about a great deal.

03:07:57.340 Emily Lowen said she would be

03:07:58.440 open to forming a coalition with the NDP, but she did not close the door on forming a

03:08:03.900 coalition with the B.C. Conservatives.

03:08:07.960 Development that we will be following, depending on what the results are.

03:08:12.060 All kinds of predictions about what is going to happen tonight.

03:08:15.240 Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first projected seat win.

03:08:19.120 It looks as though the NDP may have, they are leading in one seat, the NDP, are leading

03:08:27.200 in one seat.

03:08:28.440 Hey, Alex.

03:08:30.980 Hey.

03:08:32.360 Oh, hi. How are you?

03:08:33.380 I'm well.

03:08:33.920 Excellent. It's nice to see you.

03:08:35.360 Crazy, crazy time that we've had in the last 40 days.

03:08:38.020 Yeah, well, the last six months. 0.65

03:08:39.600 The last time I saw you, I was like, I think she's drunk.

03:08:42.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:08:43.740 Well, you're talking about Carrie Lynn Finley?

03:08:45.340 Yeah.

03:08:45.760 Yeah.

03:08:46.160 I don't even know who knows.

03:08:47.280 Yeah, yeah.

03:08:47.940 I always have it on her nose.

03:08:49.300 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

03:08:50.560 So that was a well-known social media political commentator, Robin Scott,

03:08:55.920 teachers coming over to say hello and again we've got black press media over here we've got

03:09:05.520 clayton domain from juno news he's been uh pacing around probably listening to music

03:09:12.880 from ontario so i don't really know if he has a really great idea on what the hell is going on

03:09:17.440 here to be totally honest with you i hope you didn't hear me say that and um yeah we

03:09:25.360 are looking at the results that are coming in from polyway i have to provide two pieces of id

03:09:31.760 how do 40 drug addicts with no id vote in surrey somebody asks um that's a good question who in

03:09:39.440 Actually, you know what, we should talk about the Surrey element to this election.

03:09:50.660 Lauren Dirksen grew up in Surrey.

03:09:53.800 He later moved to Williams-Light to become a rodeo.

03:09:57.800 That's somewhat interesting.

03:10:00.460 Caroline Elliott, I believe, also grew up in Surrey.

03:10:03.040 So I think it's really a connection in terms of the roots of the Houston Conservatives.

03:10:10.140 It's rigged so the NDP will win, someone says.

03:10:13.040 They have to use Plan B with the turnpike.

03:10:16.780 I don't totally know what that means, but thank you for your product, Andy Canberts, 25, 60.

03:10:22.780 The results, again, are coming in.

03:10:24.940 By popular vote, the NDP is well ahead right now, 50.7%.

03:10:29.040 um so yeah that will certainly be fodder for any conspiracy theorists believing that uh

03:10:45.760 the election is rigged against right uh very very early in the night of course

03:10:52.880 only 140 uh valid bucks versus the 2024 uh final wasn't lauren southern from surrey as well no

03:11:01.520 i believe she is from surrey and she did a documentary on her home i think it was for

03:11:05.600 that uh media company short-lived it's a legend connection um so yeah it's looking good for the

03:11:16.240 mvp early on wow look at that so the ndp is now leading in two seats the conservatives in one

03:11:23.840 and the green center bc and one bc continuing to sit

03:11:31.120 not a ton of movement it's still very early on

03:11:46.240 We'll call the win within the hour, so that everybody stops paying, and the finalized results will trickle in, and the MEP will have shrunk.

03:11:57.240 We've seen this with Latin American elections.

03:12:00.240 Somebody says that they're feeling some early election anxiety.

03:12:05.240 Hi, how are you?

03:12:06.240 Hi, I'm Alex.

03:12:07.240 CJ.

03:12:08.240 CJ, nice to meet you, CJ.

03:12:09.240 Thanks.

03:12:10.240 It's all smiles and friendly here at the media center

03:12:29.260 That's for kind of the unofficial frontiers. Yeah

03:12:32.200 I do regret not bringing more Red Bull

03:12:54.400 The MVP wins

03:13:02.200 Um, I'm just using five.

03:13:07.420 Okay, this is how the conservatives are closing the gap slightly.

03:13:10.840 They're sitting at 36.6% versus 49.7%.

03:13:15.360 Burnaby voting NDP is crazy.

03:13:18.520 Do they hate themselves? 1.00

03:13:21.600 Like a walker ass. 1.00

03:13:24.020 As somebody who lives in New Westminster, 1.00

03:13:26.020 I can confirm people in Burnaby generally look pretty surly and self-loathing.

03:13:32.200 So, it's still very, very early Alberta Snowman, so I wouldn't jump to any conclusion specifically on, but it does look interesting to be straight out of the gate.

03:13:46.560 It would be interesting if we could figure out which ridings in particular are projected

03:13:53.840 as winter ridings or going to any particular party.

03:13:58.320 I know that there are quite a few ridings that could very well return the outcome of

03:14:05.320 this election.

03:14:06.320 There's a bit of a four-way race

03:14:16.200 Here we go

03:14:36.320 has very much been projected to go to the visual observatives.

03:14:40.420 Burnaby East, which is an interesting writing.

03:14:42.420 That's the writing of Rotini Award. 1.00

03:14:45.080 She is the one who infamously asked white Canadians 1.00

03:14:49.980 in particular to refer to themselves as unwelcome guests. 1.00

03:14:53.560 Yeah, sounds good.

03:14:54.160 Make her a uniquely unpopular person. 1.00

03:14:59.720 Carabucho Coulton, that would be the writing for Lauren Jerkson. 0.99

03:15:02.880 That's going to be at 100% conservative at the moment.

03:15:05.680 Courtney Comox is a very interesting swing riding.

03:15:09.560 It was won by Brennan Day in the last election.

03:15:12.440 Just a few votes.

03:15:13.820 So that will be a fun one to watch throughout the rest of the night.

03:15:17.200 Delta North, I believe that's the end of the week.

03:15:19.660 I'm not mistaken.

03:15:24.240 Kelowna Center is actually 1BC right now, which is last day.

03:15:29.560 And that puts 1BC on the preliminary board.

03:15:32.800 The Conservatives folks are now sitting at six feet, the NDP at four, with the Conservatives ahead in the popular game.

03:15:39.980 So hopefully that tempered some of the anxiety for our highly valued right at the center viewers here at the Western Standard.

03:15:47.820 We love nothing more than 30 feet from East River.

03:15:53.140 South is with the Conservatives.

03:15:54.480 That's generally a pretty safe Conservative riding.

03:15:57.560 Still lots of riding on the board with no specific results.

03:16:01.980 Richmond Steveson, I believe that Steve Kooner's riding, he's a well respected in the life of NLA, so no, sorry, he's Richmond Steveson, Richmond Steveson was completely green, I think, he was no longer riding from the NPP, the Vancouver Point Bray is going to be one of the more fascinating riding to watch as well throughout the evening, that would be David Eby's riding, so he looks like he's fairly far ahead with 1.4% in the boat, so it's really, really exciting to see the results,

03:16:31.460 Come in Vancouver to the sky that is

03:17:01.460 Oh

03:17:31.460 Receiving

03:18:01.460 Thank you.

03:18:31.460 Unfortunately, my co-host is not here, so what a tricky and kind of doing many things

03:18:42.580 that I'm serious, because it appears as though the alcohol consumption is ramping up with

03:18:48.140 this concerning.

03:18:49.140 I want to repeat it, what happened during the leadership process?

03:18:54.140 Wow, look at this.

03:18:55.140 The Conservatives are ahead in 2017 versus the MVP and maybe that's what all the streaming is about.

03:19:11.140 I am live streaming. I'm not talking to myself.

03:19:13.140 Yeah

03:19:21.980 There is yes, we have the Wi-Fi here for you

03:19:27.140 Providing that service

03:19:31.460 1755 control

03:19:34.360 Yeah, I

03:19:37.760 Assume that's Ravi omars writing that is going conservative that would make a lot of people very

03:19:43.140 happy it particularly does.

03:19:45.800 Conservatives in writing

03:19:46.940 affected by the D.C. wildfires

03:19:48.920 over the summer. He told them that

03:19:50.740 they can go kick rocks.

03:19:53.060 It would be nice to see him

03:19:54.100 kick some rocks. 0.68

03:20:01.560 Hilarious.

03:20:05.260 Holy.

03:20:05.900 Holy.

03:20:06.020 It's a wipeout, somebody's side.

03:20:09.520 I'm going to send you

03:20:10.220 by a text.

03:20:12.460 Unbelievable.

03:20:13.140 Well, the conservatives are up 53 seats and 13 seats.

03:20:17.140 Wow.

03:20:20.140 No, you're going to want to see Wi-Fi.

03:20:26.140 It's RMS events.

03:20:38.140 The Globe and Mail guy here is late.

03:20:43.140 It is still early in the night so let's not get too excited here.

03:21:13.140 Thank you.

03:21:43.140 I

03:22:13.140 I look a little bit distracted.

03:22:40.540 I'm going to be sending out some invites from U.S. to come back on to the show.

03:23:10.540 Oh

03:23:40.540 Thank you.

03:24:10.540 Thank you.

03:24:40.540 I apologize.

03:24:43.460 I apologize.

03:24:44.460 I apologize.

03:24:46.460 It's just in the back of the room.

03:24:49.460 I don't know.

03:24:50.580 No.

03:24:51.580 No.

03:24:52.580 No.

03:24:53.580 No.

03:24:54.580 No.

03:24:55.580 No.

03:24:56.580 No.

03:24:57.580 No.

03:24:58.580 No.

03:24:59.580 No.

03:25:00.580 No.

03:25:01.580 No.

03:25:02.580 No.

03:25:03.580 No.

03:25:04.580 No.

03:25:05.580 No.

03:25:06.580 No.

03:25:07.580 No.

03:25:08.580 No.

03:25:09.580 How about you guys who are you

03:25:39.580 Are you guys watching these results right now?

03:25:50.420 So the conservatives are at 62 projected seats right now.

03:25:55.280 62 seats now.

03:25:56.860 62 seats?

03:25:57.800 Yes.

03:25:59.760 Do they have any of the change reports from today's ballot?

03:26:06.700 Um, I do not, I don't, I'm not pretty sure I have information right now.

03:26:12.700 It's very early. It's very early.

03:26:23.700 I would be surprised if they won more than 52, personally.

03:26:27.700 I wasn't as optimistic as some of the polls, but in terms of the conservative chances.

03:26:32.700 How about yourself?

03:26:36.700 So for those of you who can't hear, I'm live streaming right now.

03:26:50.980 So someone across from me, we're just talking about our different predictions.

03:26:56.620 Everybody seems to be predicting that the conservatives will walk away with the majority.

03:27:01.160 I

03:27:31.160 um

03:27:43.160 So

03:27:47.160 .

03:27:51.140 So

03:27:53.220 .

03:27:57.220 .

03:28:07.220 Thank you.

03:28:37.220 Oh

03:29:07.220 No.

03:29:37.220 John, I'm not sure if you can hear me right now, but I'd be curious to scroll down and have a look at some of those individual writers.

03:29:45.080 Let's go.

03:30:15.080 Oh

03:30:32.740 Yeah, it's crazy, yeah, yeah, they're

03:30:45.080 Hi, Mike.

03:31:15.080 It's getting a little crazy.

03:31:29.840 It is getting a little crazy.

03:31:40.660 A little rowdy.

03:31:45.080 I mean I think that we could almost I don't know how early it

03:32:03.640 in terms of the elections almost looks as though this is going to be a blowout the conservatives

03:32:14.680 You're sitting at 70

03:32:33.180 Just a reminder how we got here

03:32:44.680 I

03:33:14.680 I believe this would also mean

03:33:44.680 That's interesting I might have there's 91

03:34:14.680 for those of you who are paying close attention in 2024

03:34:36.440 um you may recall actually today you just kind of geeky to it the results of that time were not too

03:34:41.320 big for either party it was uh exceptionally close and multiple riding which meant that

03:34:47.240 first lemme didn't really know the official results of the election so without half the

03:34:52.440 election took place there's also a monsoon rain on election day which is also a moment

03:35:02.040 so again if these numbers hold we should have a very good idea

03:35:07.160 There was some talk earlier today about mail-in ballots not being counted until the days that

03:35:22.120 But if the Conservatives are leading in 52 seats over the end of the year, we have to submit.

03:35:34.120 We're at 71. 71 seats. It's around.

03:35:49.120 I'm shocked.

03:35:51.120 I am. I am. Why are you laughing?

03:35:54.080 I mean, yeah, that would be great. My number is up for a channel. I have not at all.

03:36:04.880 What?

03:36:08.160 I don't know. I mean, like, this is generally a pretty orange province.

03:36:11.920 So I thought that there were more MVP loyalists.

03:36:14.400 it's it's not everybody's cup of tea

03:36:36.080 you know what i find interesting i don't know if you can see these numbers

03:36:38.640 so the conservatives

03:36:45.680 so that surprises me that shows that it's kind of a collective support for everything left

03:36:51.680 Is

03:37:21.680 Hey, Johnny, how's it going?

03:37:47.180 Sorry about that.

03:37:48.580 I got muted there for a second.

03:37:50.100 thank you very much thank you for having me on oh it's my pleasure what are your thoughts of

03:37:58.480 johnny everyone is a content creator all the way on the other side of the country

03:38:02.840 yeah that's right it's a little bit late here but i'm i've decided to stay up a little bit and

03:38:12.820 burn the midnight oil and kind of watch what's going on over there with david evey but um i

03:38:18.680 I think it's – I'm confident to say that I could go to bed at any time

03:38:21.940 knowing that you guys won't have to suffer through David Eby for very much longer.

03:38:26.960 Well, the results have only started rolling in,

03:38:29.300 so we don't want to get too optimistic about David Eby no longer being the premier of his club yet.

03:38:35.000 But it does look as though we have a bit of a blue wave, which is the shocking turn of events.

03:38:41.380 It would appear that way too, but we went through a similar situation in Nova Scotia

03:38:45.180 several years ago during the height of COVID, where, uh, there it is.

03:38:53.300 What just happened, Alex?

03:38:55.400 Oh, you can hear the clapping?

03:38:57.380 Oh, I can hear that very loud and clear, buddy.

03:39:00.280 Really?

03:39:01.240 Yeah.

03:39:02.300 So, um, it appears as though the results are coming in, in terms of the projections of

03:39:09.760 individual riding so we're looking at the individual writings yeah I keep

03:39:34.140 hearing cheers all throughout the night well that's a good sign generally yeah there is um

03:39:40.740 there is a lot of drinking going on though so you know how that goes very much very much indeed

03:39:47.900 yelling and cheering i have no idea why it's just a bystander effect

03:39:54.060 yeah like you said it's still a little too early to call but

03:40:00.800 Like, you have your finger on the pulse of the province a lot more than I do,

03:40:06.240 but I'm pretty confident to say that B.C. is going to vote for a change tonight.

03:40:11.900 Yeah, I mean, if I'm being perfectly honest with you,

03:40:14.320 I didn't expect it to be this much of a blue wave.

03:40:17.520 I wasn't even expecting that to clear 50 seats on the wrong 10-10-7.

03:40:23.100 That would be a historic result.

03:40:26.920 Yeah, but...

03:40:27.520 is you know it's bad when even the legacy media like the talking heads of the legacy media are

03:40:34.300 have been hammering david eby for you know basically calling an election that wasn't

03:40:39.320 necessary at all i just i don't think with everything going on right now people have the

03:40:43.840 appetite for it even amongst some of its supporters i completely agree and i'm not just saying this

03:40:51.060 because I'm at the media center,

03:40:52.960 but hats off to the D.C.

03:40:55.000 Politics Media

03:40:56.820 Contabulatory. They roasted

03:40:59.060 David Eby this entire election.

03:41:01.800 It was all gas, no brakes,

03:41:03.300 and no mercy.

03:41:04.860 In particular, Katie DeRosa has some really 1.00

03:41:07.220 good thing here. She was the C.D.C. 0.99

03:41:08.840 D.C. Political reporter. She has some great questions.

03:41:12.140 She was awesome. I can't believe

03:41:13.300 I'm giving credit to a C.D.C. reporter.

03:41:15.860 She really roasted it a bunch.

03:41:18.580 Ben O'Hara Byrne

03:41:19.340 We had some good ones, global news, just all kinds of really, really great D.C. political

03:41:25.080 reporters.

03:41:26.280 It's one of the surprising things about this job in T.O.K.

03:41:29.480 Yeah, and federal politics is more of my beat, but I did tune into some of the debates

03:41:35.680 there, and even just the introduction to the debates was just not a good start for him

03:41:41.520 at all, and it pretty much said what a lot of people were thinking.

03:41:45.680 Oh, you watched the debate?

03:41:47.740 Yep.

03:41:47.960 not the entire thing but i caught clips and just the way dave david eby was introduced by being

03:41:54.220 called out for calling a completely unnecessary election uh tell you what though man leave it

03:41:59.480 to leftists to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because he could have hung on he could

03:42:04.920 have hung on for two more years and had a mandate but you know he did this to himself and i'd love

03:42:10.260 to see it yeah i found one of the interesting things about the debate and kind of the post

03:42:16.400 debate political posture and even even begging green voters to vote for him instead of the bc

03:42:23.420 green so not really clearly explaining why did you vote for ndt over green so i don't know if

03:42:33.800 you followed that at all but he was concerned that the media vote stood on the left so he

03:42:38.160 essentially pleaded with bc voters to vote against their conscience to keep him in power

03:42:42.720 Yeah, and not only that, like I said, I'll keep repeating this because I'm just a Maritimer,

03:42:50.940 so I'm pretty far removed from your politics, but there's also a split on the right, correct?

03:42:57.760 Because you had the mass exodus from the Conservative Party, obviously.

03:43:02.400 You have 1BC and Centre BC, right?

03:43:05.560 Yeah, correct.

03:43:06.400 You see I always felt like was more of a vote split threat on the left than it was on the right.

03:43:12.400 They were kind of a fiscal conservative, socially progressive party led by Eleanor.

03:43:18.400 It was actually kicked out of the D.C. conservative party after the last election.

03:43:23.400 One B.C. would be your vote split threat on the right.

03:43:26.400 And it actually looks as though one B.C. is projected to mint one C.

03:43:30.400 I'm curious to know what that C is, but again, preliminary results are very good.

03:43:35.400 But I do find that interesting.

03:43:38.200 Yeah, I mean, I don't know how live that tracker is there,

03:43:41.880 but it looks like they've got, you know,

03:43:44.040 3,600 votes to the Conservatives' 152,000.

03:43:49.580 So not much of a threat for a vote split.

03:43:53.020 That's true. That's true.

03:43:55.100 But it is interesting to see 1DC projected to win a seat

03:43:57.860 given that they only had 1.2% of the copyright vote.

03:44:00.780 So they must be performing exceptionally well somewhere in the province.

03:44:05.400 I don't know if John can go down there to show us what we are curious about.

03:44:13.280 Personally, though, I love to see it.

03:44:16.280 I love to see when these smaller parties actually do manage to get somebody in there.

03:44:23.980 Yeah.

03:44:25.260 Yeah, absolutely.

03:44:26.000 I mean, those fringe voices aren't for everybody, but I think they're important.

03:44:32.380 I think they're important to have disagreeable people in politics, which are...

03:44:35.400 Unfortunately, under BC's legislature rules, one seat would not get the official target status for the last two years.

03:44:50.400 Actually, that's not true, because we didn't have official target status for the last two years.

03:45:00.400 All right, so, safe seats.

03:45:23.960 Alex, I can address something here in the comments.

03:45:28.700 Oh, yeah, absolutely.

03:45:29.800 This is really funny.

03:45:31.340 So Michael Walker 2492 says NDP headquarters has turned off the results.

03:45:40.040 Wow.

03:45:42.640 Wow.

03:45:43.440 I heard that it was like a funeral over there.

03:45:48.280 I'm sorry.

03:45:49.240 I'm just going to try to confirm this.

03:45:54.400 That was great.

03:45:59.800 somebody asked what is all the squealing

03:46:13.380 that would be the sound of victory

03:46:16.880 that is the sound of victory

03:46:19.640 there uh

03:46:20.720 that's what all the squealing is

03:46:23.900 i don't know if you could pull it up on the screen

03:46:27.880 but there's some great footage here

03:46:29.900 of the BC NDP headquarters.

03:46:32.500 Looks really funny.

03:46:35.420 Looking pretty sad.

03:46:37.580 Really?

03:46:38.780 Yeah.

03:46:39.260 Are they like...

03:46:41.880 Oh, it just looks like a ghost town.

03:46:51.180 I'll bring a snowman

03:46:52.420 that says I think David Eby

03:46:53.760 has a flat tire.

03:46:57.880 I

03:47:27.880 it looks like 1bc has given up that

03:47:35.460 so that's not happening

03:47:41.620 that's disappointing as long as they were going to split the vote i was kind of rooting for them

03:47:56.100 they got something.

03:47:58.560 Oh, and actually, our producer

03:48:00.200 has sent me the individual ridings

03:48:02.120 to take a look at, which is very, very helpful.

03:48:05.680 So here are the closest ridings.

03:48:11.200 The Chaco Lakes,

03:48:12.180 which was the riding previously

03:48:13.700 belonging to an adult

03:48:16.320 former BC conservative leader

03:48:18.120 John Westad, as a conservative

03:48:20.200 head by only Kate. I find that

03:48:22.120 interesting. O.K. Gorton Head,

03:48:24.160 which is presented to be a four-way race,

03:48:26.200 and the conservative is only a two-secondary state

03:48:28.640 as the NDPR by the number 26 months.

03:48:36.820 Surrey Cloverdale, which traditionally has been

03:48:40.560 right as center, but could say the other way,

03:48:42.400 as the conservative had my own 37.

03:48:45.060 This could actually be closer than a post-on paper right now.

03:48:48.340 So, Calvin Baker is saying

03:49:17.260 And V.C. is finally waking up.

03:49:30.680 Judy Schreier says,

03:49:32.180 Unacceptable bad reality.

03:49:33.880 Is it bad?

03:49:37.120 I can hear you fine, John.

03:49:39.040 I can hear you fine, too, Alex.

03:49:40.880 I think she's probably just talking about the noise in the background.

03:49:44.060 but I don't know how much there

03:49:45.620 is to be done about that

03:49:48.200 I mean it's pretty rowdy in there right

03:49:50.260 it is

03:49:52.080 and it tends to just get

03:49:56.360 rowdier and rowdier

03:49:57.320 it's not as bad as

03:50:00.160 it's not as bad as

03:50:02.280 E.B. sold all the homeowners

03:50:06.540 homes to the chief so the people

03:50:08.380 are pissed

03:50:09.000 I mean

03:50:12.960 I mean, did he really sell all of the homes

03:50:17.060 or just some of them?

03:50:37.680 Marines, odds and ends, 101 signs.

03:50:40.100 All politicians are snake oil salesmen.

03:50:42.960 I agree with you, Maureen, to a certain extent.

03:50:46.120 But, like, this is our chance to vote for a new prison warden, right?

03:50:51.560 You know what I mean?

03:50:53.480 I realize the futility of voting.

03:50:55.600 I really do.

03:50:57.260 Let's say we're all in prison together, right?

03:51:00.000 Every 40 years we get the opportunity to vote in a new warden.

03:51:03.880 One warden is going to beat you Tuesday,

03:51:07.700 and you have a new warden running for election

03:51:09.660 that is voting only to beat you once a week, right?

03:51:12.960 It's not, you know, it's not a, what's the word I'm looking for here?

03:51:21.540 It's not like an endorsement of the situation you're in to want to be beaten less, right?

03:51:28.020 Yeah, and I think one of the really endearing qualities of Mark Gargson,

03:51:32.180 and one of the reasons he's been so successful in his short time is leader at the party,

03:51:37.060 is that he should have really considered to be a really good guy,

03:51:40.100 Yeah, as much as they've been trying to smear him, he's very much like a, you know, middle-of-the-road conservative, right?

03:51:57.460 Yeah, and seems like an early ethical person as well.

03:52:00.520 I mean, I think there's something about politics that makes politicians more corruptible than they might otherwise be.

03:52:07.280 Now, like I said, Alex, I'm pretty like ignorant of the on of your your specific politics out there, especially when it comes to like the conservative party.

03:52:24.140 But would you describe him as like milquetoast, progressive conservative like Tim Houston or Doug Ford?

03:52:32.400 Or is he like, you know, actually based on certain issues?

03:52:35.340 yeah he's kind of a unique character and like in the sense that he's very british columbia

03:52:44.220 his background originally was not in politics or in law

03:52:49.740 He grew up in Surrey, and he worked as a rodeo rider.

03:52:54.740 He was like, we're going into finance immediately

03:52:57.440 and then eventually becoming a publicist in a black craft media.

03:53:01.220 He kind of lives a real life.

03:53:06.580 That makes his politics a little bit difficult to pin down.

03:53:09.740 I would generally regard him, I would agree with you,

03:53:12.720 that I call him a bit of a built-in-house for president.

03:53:15.020 that's what peter chance says here in the chat he says he's an old school progressive conservative

03:53:22.460 yeah and traditionally and historically in british columbia in order for a conservative

03:53:28.480 right of center party to be successful

03:53:30.420 that includes uh conservatives so let's go the mop bucket has come out i think somebody

03:53:38.260 it was only a matter of

03:53:41.680 for real

03:53:42.960 yeah

03:53:44.480 can we get like an action shot of that maybe

03:53:47.200 can you just like turn it around

03:53:48.540 there we go 0.98

03:53:49.440 they either shoot or they 0.64

03:53:51.380 dropped their wine glass

03:53:53.100 what were they all waiting for

03:53:56.560 yes the moment we were all waiting for

03:53:58.400 starting to

03:54:00.200 light it up out there that's awesome 0.86

03:54:02.400 Alberta Snowman says

03:54:04.800 hoping all you brothers and sisters in BC

03:54:06.680 get that guy out of there

03:54:07.940 yeah i mean i think that that would be a very positive development for the relationship

03:54:14.960 between our two provinces as well alberta and cc and they um bode well for the future

03:54:21.200 especially on the heels of the uh the alberta separation thing right so

03:54:29.120 that question is going to be too bad um i think both provinces need governments that can work

03:54:35.460 together i agree i agree and uh i wonder what mark carney would be thinking

03:54:43.380 if he cares well i'm sure he does

03:54:48.660 because i know that that's been one of his

03:54:50.180 Allegedly, I hope it happens.

03:55:07.020 I mean, David Eby was kind of a, what's the term I'm looking for?

03:55:11.260 Like a fly in the ointment in that kind of situation.

03:55:14.420 Yeah, he really was.

03:55:16.480 Yeah.

03:55:20.180 NorthernGal1777 says

03:55:29.720 Mark Carney cares about Mark Carney

03:55:31.680 He also cares about

03:55:39.560 his stock options too

03:55:41.500 Don't forget NorthernGal

03:55:42.940 Oh we have a

03:55:46.240 Do you think if the BC Conservatives win

03:55:49.180 Robert have a better chance of getting it's I think the answer is yes

03:55:57.160 because it's a four-year mandate as well and four years may be a reasonable time to get a

03:56:10.600 I'm inclined to agree.

03:56:21.880 I think, I don't know if you're going to actually see it built in four years,

03:56:27.060 but you're definitely going to see a memorandum of understanding,

03:56:30.700 a plan on making a memorandum of understanding that it will be done.

03:56:35.500 Which is more than you're going to get with Edie, to be fair. 1.00

03:56:40.600 Mode 22 says, looks like Dallas Brody is losing her seat. 0.99

03:57:00.580 That is interesting. 0.99

03:57:02.520 So that would be the seat of Vancouver, Montana.

03:57:05.440 Carson Bindam is actually just here, right beside me.

03:57:08.120 And why don't we take a look at that team right now?

03:57:11.700 So, yes. 0.97

03:57:26.880 Yeah, it looks as though she's definitely losing her season. 0.99

03:57:31.160 Oh, 100%? 0.99

03:57:33.080 Yeah.

03:57:34.000 Yeah, it's confirmed.

03:57:34.920 2,000 deaths.

03:57:36.880 Oh, it's confirmed.

03:57:38.120 Carson Binda, am I saying that right?

03:57:42.720 Conservative?

03:57:43.340 Yes, correct.

03:57:44.440 He is the head of the D.C. Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

03:57:49.420 Very, very intelligent, energetic young man.

03:57:53.720 And actually, it will be very, very entertaining to see him.

03:57:56.920 A loud voice and a wealth of knowledge on really important issues to taxpayers.

03:58:06.240 It's great to see him.

03:58:08.120 Obviously sad for some of our viewers to see 1bc

03:58:28.680 And David heavey is he's in the lead but only by

03:58:33.960 253 votes with

03:58:38.120 It's very close

03:59:08.120 That would be the last time 100 years

03:59:38.120 that is fascinating you guys haven't had a conservative government since 1933

03:59:47.160 so there's been a series of name changes for the right and center parties at one point there

03:59:54.680 was a credit party the dc liberal party the united eventually landing back on the dc conservative

04:00:00.760 side well in terms of the actual name and branding we have not had a conservative

04:00:05.720 wow that's historic you can actually call this historic yeah yeah a once-in-a-lifetime result

04:00:17.720 yeah that's fantastic it's looking like it's going that way and i'm i'm just here hoping

04:00:25.340 that what happens tonight is a microcosm for the rest of the country

04:00:28.500 yeah you know what i find interesting about this election so in 2024 people were telling

04:00:35.900 me that the bc conservative sort of rode a blue wave based off of the popularity of pierre

04:00:40.860 it's easy to forget now how popular he was in 2024 but he was enormously popular and

04:00:48.060 people obviously testing justin true now people do this time around it seems as though there's

04:00:54.240 been a bit of a decoupling between the

04:00:56.340 B.C. Conservatives and the Federal Conservatives

04:00:58.400 based off of these results, because

04:01:00.320 Polyev is not following that.

04:01:03.240 I don't know how you

04:01:04.300 explain that psychologically.

04:01:06.260 I find that's kind of interesting.

04:01:10.000 Well, the interesting thing is how you brought up the

04:01:12.120 comparison to Pierre Polyev,

04:01:13.960 because

04:01:15.620 David Eby

04:01:18.140 has been sort of morphing into

04:01:20.100 Justin Trudeau over the last

04:01:22.120 few weeks.

04:01:24.240 He really has.

04:01:25.940 Actually, that's an observation

04:01:27.240 that many people have made.

04:01:29.500 Just the glumness

04:01:31.080 and also the kind of attacking

04:01:33.600 all of his political opponents

04:01:35.200 as being people with fringe views, 0.94

04:01:38.200 racist, misogynist.

04:01:40.080 Yeah. 0.98

04:01:40.560 And just his very...

04:01:42.080 Just like his very, like,

04:01:45.140 flail, almost nervous body language.

04:01:48.160 You know what I mean?

04:01:49.460 Like, he just knows he's going to lose.

04:01:51.340 Yeah, and just kind of that general whininess, you know, it's just unbecoming of anyone,

04:01:58.820 let alone a politician.

04:02:03.060 I agree.

04:02:08.180 Earlier we had a political strategy, Jonathan Johnson, he was wondering whether or not he

04:02:15.880 I think he's going to resume.

04:02:25.620 You think so?

04:02:28.040 It's the pattern, you know what I mean?

04:02:30.080 Justin Trudeau, gone.

04:02:31.520 Jagmeet Singh, gone.

04:02:34.560 What's your has-been in this country, in this game?

04:02:38.180 You pretty much have to step aside.

04:02:41.000 The obvious exception being Peter Polly.

04:02:45.880 I don't think he's going to shoot into another riding

04:02:49.540 and call a by-election anytime soon.

04:02:52.100 I think his days are numbered.

04:02:55.280 I think one of the things that makes it so extra satisfying for me as well

04:02:59.600 as a bit of a political and a political champion

04:03:02.660 is we never got to see Justin Trudeau lead to Ethan.

04:03:07.460 We're finally getting something along those lines today.

04:03:11.180 And you love to see it.

04:03:12.360 You just love to see bad things happen to bad people.

04:03:14.460 I couldn't agree more, and that's a very good way to put it.

04:03:19.880 I don't actually know if David Eby's a bad person.

04:03:22.520 He was certainly a bad politician.

04:03:24.880 And this is perfect. 0.99

04:03:28.900 Northern Gal 777 again.

04:03:31.320 She said,

04:03:31.760 Pierre not polling has been simply a sign of the TDS.

04:03:35.080 Don't understand the fascination with Kearney.

04:03:37.280 Must see something I don't.

04:03:39.000 Northern Gal, that's pretty much been the theme of my channel for an entire year,

04:03:43.300 to the point where I got, like, tired of talking about it almost.

04:03:46.920 That is exactly what happened.

04:03:50.000 So if you're not happy with Mark Carney as our Prime Minister,

04:03:54.140 you've got one person to thank for that, and that's Donald Trump.

04:03:57.220 Because if it wasn't for the tariffs, we would be a very different country right now.

04:04:01.520 We would be a year into Prime Minister Pierre Paulyan.

04:04:05.960 I tend to agree. I think you're probably right about that.

04:04:09.340 And the brilliance of the Carney campaign in the past, and this all ties back to the BC election, was that Carney ran against Trump. He didn't run against Paul Yeager. He barely mentioned it during the entire race. Paul Yeager, by contrast, ran against Carney.

04:04:23.380 And I think what David Eby was trying to do, he captured some of that same lightning in a bottle.

04:04:28.060 He was trying to run as David Eby against Donald Trump.

04:04:32.920 So whatever reason, I'm not entirely sure why, it resonated with his company and others the same way.

04:04:40.820 Maybe because they, I'm hoping, Alex, I'm hoping it's because they saw through it.

04:04:48.220 Yeah, I think so, too.

04:04:49.440 i think people also get saturated um 1.00

04:05:03.440 We need to change, you can talk to me stupid. 1.00

04:05:07.540 I agree. 1.00

04:05:08.560 Yeah.

04:05:08.880 I agree completely.

04:05:15.600 Excellent.

04:05:16.260 Thank you.

04:05:17.520 Sorry, I'm just getting out.

04:05:19.560 We need a call to action to reclaim our courts.

04:05:25.380 There you go.

04:05:26.900 They're on the live screen.

04:05:28.520 They're on the live screen.

04:05:29.540 Yeah, I know.

04:05:30.080 I only have the one next to it.

04:05:33.440 Sorry, we were just talking about the Mark Carney thing

04:05:39.900 and how he tried to run against Donald Trump

04:05:44.820 and he just didn't resonate.

04:05:45.940 I think people get saturated with the same election narrative.

04:05:50.220 Yeah, well, David Eby tried the same thing.

04:05:53.180 I mean, you have that compilation somebody did up of

04:05:56.900 how many times has he said Trump on this campaign trail?

04:06:00.140 somebody clipped it all together and it was a little much i actually put it in the beginning

04:06:06.880 of our uh live stream here he said it 123 times between all of us just constantly trump trump

04:06:12.800 trump trump trump trump trump um even people who um despise donald trump at this point are almost

04:06:19.140 sick of hearing about it oh absolutely and there's a great comment here in the in the chat here

04:06:25.980 because I agreed with Northern Gal 777.

04:06:29.600 She said,

04:06:30.320 peer not pulling has simply been a sign of the TDS.

04:06:32.900 Don't understand the fascination, right?

04:06:35.060 And Peter's Chance replied,

04:06:37.660 real TDS is Trump denial syndrome by the mega cult.

04:06:41.900 Please, we all know and see what Trump is and does.

04:06:45.280 And it's really funny

04:06:46.780 because I can agree with both of you guys there.

04:06:49.460 I agree.

04:06:50.460 I also see the same dialectic.

04:06:53.280 Yes, both of those things can be true at once.

04:06:55.980 I believe we've called it Trump Disappointment Syndrome, Trump Behavior Syndrome.

04:07:01.940 Yes, that sort of toxic obsession with Trump, whether it be negative or positive, exists on both ends.

04:07:09.020 Trump Disappointment Syndrome is my go-to. That's what I would describe it as.

04:07:14.220 I mean, here we are talking about Donald Trump.

04:07:16.860 I mean, he's not really that relevant to a provincial election.

04:07:20.460 Not at all.

04:07:20.900 The premier of any province doesn't have jurisdiction over trade.

04:07:24.020 this trade war was never going to be won or lost

04:07:26.740 off of A to E B

04:07:28.300 keeping or taking

04:07:30.400 off American liquor from

04:07:32.360 DC liquor stores.

04:07:34.180 It was almost an insult

04:07:36.620 to the public's intelligence.

04:07:39.000 Dude, Pierre Polyev

04:07:40.460 could have won a super majority.

04:07:43.260 Polyev could have won a super

04:07:44.600 majority and just been given a

04:07:46.460 mandate to do whatever he wanted

04:07:48.000 and it wouldn't have made a lick of difference

04:07:50.660 with our relationship with the United States

04:07:52.460 right now. They would continue to move the

04:07:54.480 goalposts, and we wouldn't

04:07:56.400 be treated any differently just because we had

04:07:58.460 a conservative. Jack Layton could

04:08:00.440 have personally rose from the dead

04:08:02.100 and won and ran for prime

04:08:04.420 mister, and it still wouldn't matter.

04:08:06.180 It doesn't matter, man.

04:08:08.700 No, I think you're right.

04:08:10.160 I mean, we've talked about this on your show, even, Johnny.

04:08:12.340 One of the funny things about the whole Trump thing

04:08:14.160 is that something doors start

04:08:15.440 is that you're right.

04:08:18.780 Exactly.

04:08:20.800 And that's

04:08:21.560 That's something that a lot of people in this country don't realize.

04:08:24.880 By not using the clip of Donald Trump basically saying he wants Mark Carney in there

04:08:32.040 because dealing with a liberal would be easier.

04:08:34.620 The conservatives really screwed up by not making that a campaign ad.

04:08:39.800 Absolutely.

04:08:41.620 I'm going to nerd out again a little bit, if you'll forgive me,

04:08:45.560 over these writing-by-writing results.

04:08:48.440 Please.

04:08:49.040 I'm just going to sort this by late.

04:08:53.160 Caroline Elliott is going to walk away with West Van Kiefer Capilano, no problem.

04:08:58.420 So they're ahead by $7,000 with $3,578.

04:09:04.880 So that one people will find interesting.

04:09:09.960 It looks as though everybody's favorite long-time MLA's Adrian Jax is only leading by $600,000.

04:09:19.040 I

04:09:49.040 over for them man the mdp that is yeah and they're calling it gtb global news we're calling it have

04:09:59.280 to at the restaurant where you called it yeah yeah so it looks as though the dc conservatives

04:10:12.960 a will-formed government,

04:10:17.500 and David Eby is no longer our premier.

04:10:20.280 The nightmare is over.

04:10:23.400 It's finally over, BC.

04:10:25.300 I'm happy for you.

04:10:28.240 No, I think this is where you kind of have to

04:10:31.140 not get too high on your own supply,

04:10:34.980 and you have to look forward.

04:10:37.420 And I think the question of all questions now becomes,

04:10:40.020 can this BC conservative party

04:10:42.380 that a storming government

04:10:43.540 will remain cohesive

04:10:45.540 and united enough

04:10:47.160 to do what's best for the province.

04:10:50.140 And I think that'll be the interesting thing

04:10:51.580 to watch in the fall of this.

04:10:53.840 Can they stick together?

04:10:55.480 Mind you, if you have a

04:10:56.900 42 majority,

04:10:59.900 that gives you a lot of leeway

04:11:01.220 for this group.

04:11:02.900 Well, yeah, because

04:11:03.560 the reason that E.B. did this

04:11:06.460 was because he was sensing

04:11:07.580 a little bit of blood in the water

04:11:08.900 with the conservative party, right?

04:11:10.320 like there's

04:11:11.640 there's definitely

04:11:12.880 there's tension

04:11:14.200 as to like

04:11:14.840 what direction

04:11:15.680 the party wants to go

04:11:16.840 yeah that's a blue wave

04:11:24.160 I did not expect it to be

04:11:27.580 that

04:11:30.060 that extreme

04:11:31.540 somebody asked again

04:11:32.460 about David EDC

04:11:33.540 everybody's curious

04:11:35.020 and he's going to

04:11:35.620 call you

04:11:36.300 and lose his own speed

04:11:38.060 I understand

04:11:39.220 but it is

04:11:39.700 Question the ballot box is more than half

04:11:50.060 Still watching that one

04:12:09.700 It's generally one of the safer areas in the province.

04:12:28.580 How are the urban areas looking?

04:12:34.340 Can you zoom in on the map and maybe check out Vancouver?

04:12:37.020 yeah so i'm not sure how familiar you are with the geography of vancouver

04:12:42.820 bernamby is a suburb of vancouver so it would be kind of like

04:12:47.460 what's that place over the bridge yeah yeah exactly no i've only ever

04:12:55.680 i've only ever been inside your great province once

04:12:58.500 oh i'm sorry to hear that where'd you go i went to vancouver and i went to vancouver island i was

04:13:05.600 there for about six days it was awesome i went surfing in tofino yeah tofino is beautiful

04:13:11.420 i've written the entire time but i didn't care i was on a surfboard so

04:13:15.120 yeah that's great uh that's so actually you can kind of see in the map here i can narrate this a

04:13:20.860 little bit that's like the most crazy or lucky place in the province really you don't even call

04:13:26.540 it pincerland islands anymore it's a little old-fashioned um over here you can see Vancouver

04:13:32.440 Island generally is

04:14:02.440 28 months. So a lot of these

04:14:04.580 writings are really, really close.

04:14:07.900 Let's go.

04:14:09.560 Everybody's following us.

04:14:11.340 Yeah, as there would be.

04:14:12.560 I mean, it's the same thing in Nova Scotia, right?

04:14:14.720 The entire rural

04:14:16.760 areas go blue, and

04:14:18.500 Halifax is always liberal NDP.

04:14:22.320 Do you guys not have a provincial liberal

04:14:24.680 party?

04:14:26.860 Well, we did, and

04:14:28.520 technically that was our conservative

04:14:30.600 party. That's

04:14:32.360 how left-wing B.C. is.

04:14:34.540 Wow, okay.

04:14:35.600 We didn't even have a B.C. conservative party,

04:14:37.500 but our right-of-center party was the B.C. left.

04:14:41.300 Wow, okay.

04:14:42.600 So, hence the infighting then, eh?

04:14:44.960 There's still some, you know,

04:14:47.300 there's still some people in the party

04:14:48.540 that want to take them even more left.

04:14:51.940 Yeah, I mean, there really isn't a huge appetite for,

04:14:56.240 you know, we all hate this, right?

04:14:57.680 It's the far-right politics in B.C.

04:14:59.560 and I think that's materializing here

04:15:02.060 the 1BC vote share

04:15:04.320 1.4%

04:15:05.580 yeah but like define far right

04:15:08.020 like are we talking like

04:15:09.840 push back on Sogi you know what I mean

04:15:12.400 like is that like some sort of

04:15:13.840 unreasonable take

04:15:15.500 well absolutely it's such a nebulous term

04:15:18.580 and nobody really knows what it means far right

04:15:20.700 but what I will say is

04:15:22.560 Vancouver or 1BC I should say

04:15:24.460 it's much like Washington State, Oregon

04:15:26.440 California it's a west coast

04:15:28.640 thing. People are generally very, very progressive. It's not to say that we don't appreciate right-wing

04:15:33.420 voices in the province. These are very necessary. I mean, it's good to have them in a legislature

04:15:38.600 if they don't generally carry a big portion of the votes there. And that's why I think

04:15:42.940 it was important for the conservatives to have sort of a big-tent approach for the

04:15:46.480 included moderates.

04:15:52.300 Yeah, Northern Gal again says, holy, I haven't seen that much blue over in Vancouver.

04:15:56.400 Yeah, Vancouver is generally also a very orange place, orange according to the NDP, and she

04:16:06.040 is right.

04:16:07.040 Vancouver, a lot of riders are leaving.

04:16:10.040 They're heading to Vancouver, Fraser, Vancouver Langara, wow, Vancouver Point Grey, still

04:16:19.820 has yeah that is that is strange now is that there's an interesting thing going on there as

04:16:30.200 well in Vancouver which is that it just like every election recently and they elected their

04:16:37.200 first

04:16:56.160 kind of have a balance and i appears as though that may actually be the case

04:17:00.720 Because you can even go to me as well as you can see, do you need the Wi-Fi?

04:17:05.700 Yeah, of course.

04:17:06.800 Hey, I'm not in charge of everything.

04:17:09.500 RMS events.

04:17:11.180 And actually, I don't.

04:17:12.860 Do you still have the password?

04:17:14.960 He has the password.

04:17:16.240 So when he gets back, I thought it was, like, six hours or something.

04:17:20.440 Yeah, good job.

04:17:27.040 Yeah.

04:17:27.520 hey um do you have the wi-fi the password um i'll give it to you in a second

04:17:36.820 i'm working on it for you sorry if anybody has the wi-fi password just throw it in the chat

04:17:46.700 so david new bigging says saskatchewan alberta and bc can create an economic corridor benefiting

04:17:54.620 the people if we get yukon northwest territories and none of it we will create the greatest trade

04:18:00.300 corridor ever that that's the kind of thing that can potentially happen strangely enough

04:18:09.980 someone says password password one two three

04:18:15.580 uh strangely enough on that idea of kind of a western alliance that was one of the key campaign

04:18:21.100 And Mick Monk says,

04:18:49.040 Wow, the CBC is hilarious. 0.96

04:18:50.720 They're so miserable, not even trying to hide it. 0.91

04:18:53.860 You know, I was sharing with a friend of the show.

04:18:57.160 Unfortunately, she wasn't able to make it.

04:18:59.000 I mean, I mean, Krishna.

04:19:00.840 But one of the best things about this election, for me personally,

04:19:03.560 is seeing all of the media people act normal.

04:19:07.260 Because I'm so used to, like, every peer-to-peer you have for us

04:19:10.120 or a CDC reporter crashing out, doing something wonky and saying.

04:19:14.860 And everybody in this election just quite focused on it.

04:19:17.980 Hi

04:19:47.980 for well over four hours, and so I'm wondering how much longer I can go for.

04:19:55.980 I don't think that any of these ridings are going to be fully cancelled.

04:20:01.980 I don't think there's a chance of too much of an upset here.

04:20:07.980 That NDP barter, the orange sliver is getting smaller and smaller, and I want him here for it.

04:20:17.980 Is it getting worse for them?

04:20:21.680 Oh, it was just for him.

04:20:24.100 Yeah, you got it.

04:20:25.020 Okay.

04:20:26.260 Thank you.

04:20:28.060 Yeah, no worries.

04:20:28.880 It's great.

04:20:29.200 It's great.

04:20:29.220 It was good.

04:20:36.080 They sure about Daniel Smith and Scott Lowe are on the line.

04:20:39.680 Congratulations.

04:20:42.920 Wow.

04:20:43.520 I can't overstate how strange of a story this is, given that Lauren Jerkson did not intend to be the leader of this party by a month ago.

04:20:55.520 He was an actor.

04:20:57.520 you know i was joking before about like it's great to see bad things happen to bad people

04:21:06.920 but lauren jerkson is a pretty stand-up guy it's nice to see

04:21:12.000 yeah that's a good way to put it but david eby could not deserve this anymore

04:21:21.720 Yeah, he's sort of the

04:21:26.500 We have a very similar situation

04:21:29.060 In Nova Scotia, like we've got

04:21:30.500 Our progressive

04:21:32.480 Conservative Premier, though

04:21:34.380 He's like, he needs to go

04:21:36.200 They're saying we can shut her down

04:21:46.560 So I think I'm going to shut down the live stream

04:21:50.760 Thank you so much to everybody watching.

04:21:53.540 Maybe we'll let people throw in any party shots or ask any questions if they watch it, and we'll shut it down.

04:22:01.720 Thank you again for joining me on here.

04:22:03.640 Always a great co-host.

04:22:05.520 No problem, Alex.

04:22:06.400 Thanks for having me on, man.

04:22:08.300 I was like, get over here.

04:22:09.420 Yeah, I think it's time to go celebrate.

04:22:12.020 The nightmare is over.

04:22:13.060 Thank you again, everybody, for joining us.

04:22:43.060 Thank you.

04:23:13.060 Thank you.

04:23:43.060 Thank you.

04:24:13.060 Thank you.

04:24:43.060 Thank you.

04:25:13.060 Thank you.

04:25:43.060 Thank you.

04:26:13.060 Thank you.

04:26:43.060 Thank you.

04:27:13.060 Thank you.

04:27:43.060 Thank you.

04:28:13.060 Thank you.

04:28:43.060 Thank you.

04:29:13.060 Thank you.

04:29:43.060 Thank you.

Western Standard - October 25, 2026

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