Premier David Eby’s account of the precarious lives many British Columbians are living — delivered to the NDP’s weekend convention in Victoria — amounts to a paradox.
He noted emphatically the desperation many people feel. But he did so at a point where the NDP have been in power for more than six years. Of course, Eby also presented a long list of NDP accomplishments as well. Minimum wage hikes, paid sick leave, lower ICBC rates, cheaper child care and other measures.
But you’d think by now they would have made the overall picture a bit rosier than the one he painted.
“Middle-class families like the one I grew up in are barely hanging on. I hear it everywhere I go.”
Addressing 700 delegates, he said: “I know you hear it, too. People who have done everything right. They follow the rules and work hard, yet feel like they can’t get ahead, even people making good salaries tell me they can’t afford the life they thought they would be able to.”
Eby said owning an affordable home is the foundation of building a good life, but for too many people it’s not attainable.
Someone walking in cold might have thought they were listening to a critical opposition leader, not a key member of government through their run.
He pinned the blame for the grim state of affairs on the previous B.C. Liberal government and outside forces. “Cuts, privatization and deregulation” left people vulnerable and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and global interest rate hikes are continuing the feeling.
Eby’s assessment came with a warning: “There is a drumbeat — it’s getting louder out there — of right-wing politicians who say that governments should respond to these challenges by just getting out of the way.
“We’ll do just the opposite.”
As a tone-setting statement for the last 11 months (at most) before he has to go to the polls, it suggests he is more interested in staying in attack mode than explaining why the NDP is still playing catch-up in dealing with many of the problems he acknowledges.
It reflects exactly what one speaker who’s known him for years said in a video that was played to introduce the speech.
“He doesn’t go on the defensive. He goes on the offensive …”
So the NDP offensive will dwell on the right-wing approach that will “leave people vulnerable to those who take advantage in times of crisis. Everyone from real estate speculators to organized criminals.”
Twice he linked property speculators with criminals (drug dealers) and polluters as villains who prey on society. It illustrates the lengths to which he will go to defend the huge housing initiative launched last month.
Much of the NDP’s seat count next fall will depend on how it goes over. It’s too soon to gauge the response, but Eby said he has been pleasantly surprised at how most local governments are responding.
Considering how severely their power and authority is being curbed, it’s enough to keep the NDP optimistic the housing plan will be a net win.
The BC United Opposition is against most of the measures for assorted reasons, and is expected to take a major new stance against another keystone NDP policy — the measures to fight climate change.
They say the full economic cost of the measures has been dramatically underplayed and Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon will release a significant new policy on Tuesday on the topic.
Just So You Know: One resolution at the convention brought home how the NDP has changed since it took power.
A key campaign promise in the 2017 election was to eliminate all the portable classrooms in Surrey, where growth forced the district to rely extensively on them.
After the NDP took power, then-education minister Rob Fleming pledged to reduce them and set out a four-year timeline to do so.
Times have changed. Surrey had 325 portables back then. Now it has 361. There are 2,116 across B.C., according to a CBC count last summer.
The resolution called on the government not to try harder to keep the promise but to commit funding to buy, move and install more portables, so school districts don’t have to cover the costs.
It never got debated. Resolutions that could prompt embarrassment always seem to wind up way down the batting order, and rarely make it to the floor.
But it looks like the portables will be around for a while longer.
