All week David Eby faced a questions about the possibility of an early election and on thursday again he insisted to reporters he doesn’t ha
“I don’t know how many times I can say it,” he replied. “I am committed to a fixed election date for British Columbia. And the reason is quite straightforward. I was all across the province. I didn’t hear one British Columbian say, gosh, you know what I really hope happens now is a provincial election.
“They said deal with public safety. They said deal with housing, deal with health care. Make sure our economy is strong in the face of global headwinds. That’s what we’re going to do.”
John Horgan held a snap election just a couple years ago so people have a reason to be skeptical.
British Columbia is the first province in Canada to adopt fixed election dates.
The BC Liberals established the fixed day elections twenty years ago which were scheduled once every four years in May.
Horgan separated the four-year political cycle from the spring budget cycle when he took power in 2017, moving it from May to October.
He and the entire NDP caucus pledged to governing for the full four years by signing a confident and supply agreement with the BC Greens.
In mid 2020 during the “second wave” of Covid, then Premier John Horgan began to scheme for an early election while pretending it’s not even on his mind as John Horgan’s approval rating started to slide from it’s all time high peak.
With unanimous backing from all parties in the legislature, the New Democrats sequestered more than $1 billion in economic recovery assistance and repurposed it as the first tenet of their electoral campaign.
Geotechnical problems at the multi-billion-dollar Site C project came to the attention of the cabinet, Horgan ordered a review which would cover-up anything until after the election.
Horgan gave the excuse for the snap election that the COVID-19 pandemic required a “stable and secure government,” suggesting he required a majority government which he went on to overwhelmingly win.
Critics have said former Premier Horgan set the precedent for future governments to call snap elections when the conditions are perfect for self interest political gain.
According to pollsters the public didn’t want an election but they had no choice.
“I sincerely hope that Premier Eby follows the law and sees through the full term,” said the party leader, Sonia Furstenau.
“He has given me his personal assurance that the next time voters go to the ballot box, it will be in October 2024. Nevertheless, it is our job as a party to be ready for anything, so we will be prepared for a snap election should that come to pass.”
Unelected Premier David Eby insists that his goal is to carry out the NDP’s mandate from the 2020 election, not to set the stage for an election call.
“We have two years,” he told reporters Wednesday. “We have a mandate from British Columbians to deliver. And I know my colleagues and myself, we didn’t get into politics to run elections. We got into politics to deliver for British Columbians. We have an opportunity to do that, and we’re going to do it.”
Eby appears to be acting as if he just won an election and was given a mandate by the people when he was sworn in but the reality is he inherited a majority government
Eby has held previous positions to fix the problems like housing affordability, public safety, waiting lists for cancer treatment, the shortage of family doctors, the cost of living. However the BC NDP government has had these issues on their plate since 2017 when they formed government and it has just gotten worse over 5 years of being in power.
According to an Angus Reid poll premier has a low approval rating, 46 per cent say they approve of what they see so far and 26 per cent disapprove of premier Eby while three-in-ten B.C. residents (28%) say they’re not sure about their new unelected premier.
