When British Columbians go to the polls on Saturday, they will face the starkest choice in a generation. Premier David Eby’s NDP are well left of centre, while John Rustad’s Conservatives stand as far to the right.
In the most recent 338Canada poll aggregation, the NDP have a narrow lead, 45 per cent to the Conservatives’ 43.
However, despite the closeness of the race, if those numbers hold true, the NDP are forecast to win a seven seat majority, 49 to 42. That’s because though their popularity ratings are basically tied, the NDP’s support is concentrated in vote-rich regions of the province.
In third place, the Greens are stuck at just 10 per cent popularity, which would forecast between two and four seats. For this reason we intend to focus primarily on the two leading parties. And the gap between them is huge.
Perhaps the biggest contrast lies in finance. Eby plans ever-higher deficits. The impression grows that this is not just a scheme to win votes with financial largesse.
It also begins to look like a scheme to leave the pantry bare for whichever party wins four years from now.
For his part, Rustad is promising to balance the budget, though he says it will take two terms in office to do it.
The role and size of government is also at stake. Since 2017, NDP administrations have increased the provincial public service by 11,000 additional employees, a 31-per-cent hike.
Notably, in the previous six years, there was only a four-per-cent increase.
Rustad has given no details, but his platform suggests he intends to cut government staff and concentrate on private sector job creation.
But perhaps the greatest difference between the two parties lies in their underlying belief systems.
The NDP, of course, are champions of social justice and government-led progress. Yet Eby’s style of governing is far more authoritarian than that of his predecessor, John Horgan.
He has bullied condo-owners into accepting renters, he has bullied municipalities into building more low-income housing, he has bullied government lawyers into joining a union they want no part of.
Rustad, meanwhile, is an anti-vaxxer, refuses to accept that climate change is a serious threat, and promises to end sexual orientation and gender identity programs in schools.
If elected, he will preside over a caucus that would include many MLAs with little knowledge about government. Some of them are conspiracy theorists, and a few, like Brent Chapman, racists. Chapman has called Palestinians “inbred, walking, talking time bombs.”
Though in fairness, Eby’s post-secondary minister, Selina Robinson, quit the NDP caucus after calling some of its members anti-semites.
In short, not a lot to choose from.
The larger question is why have our politics become so extreme? Certainly B.C. is no exception. We see the same south of the border, and throughout the European Union. Perhaps there is a clue to be found in the genuinely intractable nature of the issues confronting society. Across such troubled fields as unaffordable housing, street violence, global warming and the crisis in health care, there are no easy solutions in sight.
That leads to a well-known phenomenon in politics. If you don’t have an answer, shout louder.
Perhaps here Sonia Furstenau’s Greens have a role to play. Furstenau’s policies, like those of the NDP, are well left of centre. As former Green party leader Andrew Weaver puts it, the Greens are “lost in an ecosocialist hinterland,” and “virtue-signalling a pathway to economic collapse.”
However, Furstenau’s style of dialogue, and her handling of the leadership role, are far more moderate and accommodating.
If she and her party can win some seats, that might go some way to returning a long-lost atmosphere of decorum to the provincial legislature. Or so we can hope.
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