Eby can only blame his predecessor for snap vote skepticism
Frustrated premier insists he'll follow fixed election date for October 2024
Premier David Eby betrayed a touch of exasperation this week, when facing yet another question about the prospect of an early election.
“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.”
The answer was what reporters call a keeper: A statement that gets archived for playback when the politician who said it changes his mind for whatever reason and does the opposite.
For that skepticism, Eby can thank his predecessor, John Horgan.
Twenty years ago, the B.C. Liberals enacted fixed election dates on a schedule of once every four years in May. When Horgan took office in 2017, he changed the four-year political cycle from May to October to separate it from the spring budget cycle.
He and the entire NDP caucus signed a power-sharing agreement with the Greens that committed them to govern for the full four years.
Then in mid-2020, with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic approaching, Horgan began scheming for an early election, all the while pretending it was the furthest thing from his mind.
The New Democrats sequestered more than $1 billion in economic recovery funding, approved with all-party support in the legislature, and recast it as the first plank in their election platform.
When the cabinet was alerted to a serious geotechnical problem at the multibillion-dollar Site C project, Horgan contrived a review that prolonged the coverup until after the election.
He concocted a bogus rationalization for tearing up the agreement with the Greens, then called the vote.
The public told pollsters they didn't want an early election.
But once the deed was done, people focused on one question: Did they want to change governments mid-pandemic? The Liberals, running an incompetent campaign under a weak leader, made it easy to answer No.
Horgan went on to win a huge majority.
He thereby generated a precedent for future governments to ignore the fixed election date if the conditions are ripe for an act of political self-interest.
The B.C. Greens served up a reminder of Horgan's cynicism on the eve of this week's cabinet shuffle.
They announced that they were opening up candidate nominations in anticipation of a possible snap election call.
“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.”
Apart from the dig at the New Democrats, Furstenau also got ahead of the B.C. Liberals.
The Liberals could use a head start in raising money and nominating candidates. Except they are in the midst of changing their name without knowing when the actual changeover will occur. They could scarcely invite candidates to seek the nomination to run for a party to be named later.
The Green announcement was what prompted a reporter to ask Eby about an early election. Safe to say, the New Democrats are frustrated by that line of questioning. It harks back to the days before fixed election dates, when everything a government did after the midpoint of a mandate was interpreted as helping or hurting the chances of an early election.
Eby, for his part, is adamant that he's not looking to create the conditions for an election call — he's fulfilling the NDP's mandate from the 2020 election.
“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.”
In Eby's mind, the mandate started with him taking the oath of office as premier on Nov. 18.
But many of the problems he's trying to fix — housing affordability, public safety, waiting lists for cancer treatment, the shortage of family doctors, the cost of living — have got worse since the government of which he is a part took office in 2017.
Eby figures that he and his team should have two more years to show what they do.
Yet it is also the case that the New Democrats have already, collectively, taken five years and made not nearly enough progress on the priorities he has now identified.
So, the voters may not be nearly as patient with the Eby-led government as the new premier wants them to be.