Anger steamrolled reason in BC's bitter election showdown

British Columbia stands on a political knife edge, with last week’s election ending in a virtual tie. Should the current seat count hold, the Greens will once again wield the balance of power, able to choose which party forms government.

It is an unenviable task, as it puts the Greens squarely between the NDP and the Conservatives. While the situation would seem like a near repeat of 2017, the politics of the province are far more polarized and antagonistic. Indeed, far from committing to making the new legislature work, the leader of the BC Conservatives, John Rustad, has already promised to make life “as difficult as possible” for the NDP should it once again form government.

How did we get here? 

The election was driven by not only provincial, but also national and even international political trends. It has proven a microcosm of politics more broadly around the world, and we would all do well to heed the results. 

While the campaign was superficially about short-term tax relief, it was actually more about competing appeals to anger and fear. The Conservatives, for their part, tried hard to tap into the widespread frustration of voters with the intent of building that anger into a potent movement to demand change. 

David Eby and the NDP, meanwhile, tried hard to draw attention to the many controversial comments that Rustad and other Conservative candidates have made, highlighting the possible dangers should they form a government. 

The end result, to no one’s surprise, has pleased no one, with the NDP left chastened, the Conservatives with the sense of opportunity missed, the Greens rebuilding their caucus of two from scratch, and British Columbians anxiously watching it all unfold.

It is a far cry from where things were even a couple of months ago. Indeed, the NDP had every reason to be confident coming into this race. Eight weeks ago, the party had a small but healthy lead in most polls and was facing a divided opposition. 

A changing pattern

Despite that calm, there were ominous signs. The BC Conservatives had steadily won ground following Rustad’s move to join it. By early 2024, they passed BC United as voters’ second option and continued to climb.

Meanwhile, voters repeatedly told pollsters about their high levels of frustration around just about everything, but above all issues of affordability, housing, healthcare and the state of the economy. Most ominously, the NDP was losing support among younger voters — a traditional source of strength for the party. 

It is here we see a larger pattern in evidence. The NDP was not alone in facing such a backlash from the public. Incumbent parties across the democratic world — from the federal Liberals to governments in France, Germany and the US — face significant headwinds. Quite often it is younger voters, those feeling left behind and unseen, that are most willing to look to more radical alternatives. 

Still, it seemed like the party could ease through this election, continue its policy of investment in housing and healthcare and hopefully address some of the gaps leaving voters angry.

Then BC United suspended its campaign — something unheard of in a Canadian election — and everything changed.

It’s worth pausing to note how unusual that moment was. We have repeatedly seen parties of the right replaced in BC, from the BC Conservatives and Liberals of the early 20th century, to Social Credit, and then BC Liberals/United, the province has cycled through a series of right-of-centre options. 

When those periodic changes happen, however, the losing party disappears after an election, not before one. Kevin Falcon’s decision to stop the United campaign was akin to a presidential primary, where one candidate steps aside for another more successful option. It speaks to the reality of the polarized electoral system BC has, driven by a divided electorate and the relentless logic of the first-past-the-post system.

Vote-splitting on the right disappears

Once BC United departed the scene, a number of things happened. With vote splitting on the right no longer a possibility, the NDP’s margin virtually disappeared. Premier David Eby took quick action to try and minimize lines of attack on points of vulnerability. Just weeks before the election began, he signaled reversals on two key issues. 

First, he announced his government would scrap the consumer carbon tax if a federal backstop disappeared. He also reversed course on the possibility of involuntary treatment for British Columbians facing combined mental health challenges and addiction.

The calculus was clear enough: This was a government all in on fixing some long-term problems for the province — housing above all. And to be sure, many problems can trace their origin in no small measure to the lack of affordable shelter in the province. The fixes, moreover, would take time and sustained investment, meaning the NDP would need to remain in government. 

Successive governments, both provincial and federal, had made little real investment in social housing in more than a generation. Digging out of that deficit and restoring some sanity to the housing market economy would take time. Regrettable as it may be, Eby seems to have concluded that other policies were expendable to protect that larger goal.

However, politics is never so simple. While those moves perhaps limited some attacks, they enabled others. 

Combined with the abortive attempt to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs — summarily abandoned in the spring — the moves created the impression of a government willing to cut bait at the first sign of opposition, more interested in its survival than its principles. Anyone passionate about battling climate, or dealing progressively with the opioid crisis, was left feeling abandoned, depressing enthusiasm for the NDP’s reelection.

It also had the effect of validating the Conservative attacks, lending additional credence to claims that the NDP were out of touch and the Conservatives had the right answers. Rustad returned to those themes often, including in his triumphant and defiant election night speech. 

BC Conservative leader John Rustad (pictured above holding the microphone) focused on pocket-book issues during a divisive campaign. Photo: screen grab from John Rustad's X page

Once underway, the election campaign itself was sharp and often negative. The Conservatives wanted the election to be a referendum on the NDP, and were relentless in their attacks. Their message was a simple one: everything is awful and the NDP’s fault. Vote for the Conservatives, and they would reverse the NDP changes. In doing so, the party leaned unapologetically on the images and language of the popular federal Conservative Party, using similar imagery and even phrases like “common sense.”

While the NDP’s message mentioned the importance of investment — to build the province out of its housing and health care problems — much of the campaign was equally relentless in its attacks on the BC Conservatives, attempting to turn the election into a choice between starkly different visions. Eby seized every opportunity to cast Rustad and his fellow Conservative candidates as political reactionaries, pointing out past utterances of the Conservative leader and candidates who questioned the reality of climate change, the efficacy of vaccines and the importance of meaningful reconciliation, all while voicing a range of other prejudiced and conspiratorial views. 

In the end, that negative campaigning took its toll. As it is with the province, so it is with the country — a polity divided by anger and fear, with little sense of common identity and hope in short supply.

Stewart Prest teaches political science in the University of British Columbia's political science department.