PENTICTON — Ten days after the writ dropped, British Columbians are being asked to navigate two elections in eight days, and the lawn signs are running wild.
Municipal civic voting day lands on Saturday, October 17, overlapping directly with provincial advance voting, which runs October 16 through October 21. Final voting day for the provincial election is Saturday, October 24.
Update — 1:15 p.m. PDT
The 10-point lead is gone
Ten days after dropping the writ, the cushion the BC NDP and David Eby carried into the campaign has completely dissolved.
A new Ipsos poll published Thursday by Global News puts the Conservative Party of BC at 42% among decided voters — a seven-point jump from mid-September — while the BC NDP has dropped five points to 40%.
The resulting two-point Conservative edge sits well within the survey's 3.7-point credibility interval, but it marks a dramatic reversal from the 10-point lead — 45% to 35% — the New Democrats held just two weeks ago.
Among minor parties, the BC Greens stand at 10%, while OneBC and CentreBC sit tied at 3% apiece, with other choices at 2%. Undecided voters and those expressing no preference account for 27% of the total sample and were excluded from the decided-voter percentages.
"It’s hard to imagine a worse start to a campaign for the NDP than what we see here," Ipsos senior vice-president Kyle Braid told Global. "They’ve gone from a 10-point lead in our polling just two weeks ago to a two-point deficit to the Conservatives."
Braid highlighted several warning signs for the incumbent government: Eby’s unfavorable ratings have surged seven points, and fewer British Columbians believe the NDP deserves re-election than during their razor-thin victory in 2024. Furthermore, the premier's central campaign pitch—focusing on U.S. trade policies and tariffs—has failed to resonate with voters, actually declining in priority since the campaign began.
Voter frustration with the timing of the vote also remains high. Half of respondents express disapproval of calling an election now, compared to just 32% who approve—a level of discontent approaching the 46% who opposed the September 2020 snap call.
Disapproval is particularly pronounced among Conservative voters (64%) and older residents aged 55 and over (59%), compared to 34% among NDP supporters and 36% among voters aged 18 to 34.
Update — 11:59 a.m. PDT
COVID, again
Jennifer Whiteside, the labour minister and the New Democrat incumbent in New Westminster-Coquitlam, posted at 8:43 am PDT and called on BC Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson to fire Anna Kindy.
“Anna Kindy stood outside the Legislature and said COVID vaccines aren’t safe, and getting COVID is better than getting vaccinated,” Whiteside wrote. “Vaccine misinformation made the pandemic worse and has led to Canada losing its measles elimination status. Lorne Doerkson should fire her today.”
Kindy, a physician and the Conservative MLA for North Island, was at a microphone on the BC Legislature steps, a Canadian flag across the podium, a crowd behind her with signs reading “What about early COVID treatment?” and “Charter of Rights.” She said, “The shots are not safe and not effective. It’s a fact.”
Sitka Media posted a follow-up at 9:19 am PDT, with what amounts to a remote hit from Whiteside on the Conservatives North Island incumbent candidate.
“I think it’s really important that Lorne Doerkson, the leader of the opposition, the leader of the BC Conservatives, stand up and say these views are not acceptable in his party,” she said. “He can disqualify her as a candidate. He has the power to do that.”
Whiteside called the comments dangerous, said misinformation had driven vaccine hesitancy, and said, “I think it’s time for Lorne Doerkson to show some leadership.” Whiteside is not Kindy’s opponent. She holds New Westminster-Coquitlam.
The Conservatives named Michele Lau as their candidate there yesterday.
Kindy holds North Island, taken in 2024 by 639 votes, 14,100 to Michele Babchuk’s 13,461. OneBC said on September 30, 2026, it will now run a candidate against her. That name is still unannounced.
Kinda holds an MD (Doctor of Medicine) from the University of Alberta, graduating in 1986. She subsequently practiced as a family physician for decades before entering politics.
Whiteside does not have medical degree.
Update — 11:05 a.m. PDT
Doerkson welcomes Pacific Link federal designation
On Thursday morning, Conservative Party of BC Interim Leader Lorne Doerkson issued a statement from Vancouver welcoming Ottawa’s decision to designate the proposed Pacific Link pipeline as a project of national interest.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the listing earlier in the day alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Fort McMurray, marking the first project assigned to Schedule 1 under the new Building Canada Act.
The proposed $35.2-billion to $43.7-billion project would move one million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta to BC’s southern coast. According to the Prime Minister's Office, the route protects the North Coast and bypasses the Great Bear Sea, creating up to 140,000 jobs, generating over $20 billion annually in GDP contributions, and delivering $100 billion in government revenues by 2060.
Ownership details for the project remain multi-layered. Federal reporting indicates Trans Mountain Corporation and the Alberta government will each hold a 45% stake, with Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corporation taking a 10% commercial interest. Indigenous communities will also be offered a minimum 10% equity stake financed through federal and provincial loan-guarantee programs.
While Ottawa’s framework outlines an initial review timeline, Doerkson’s official response framed the designation as a firm commitment to construct the line.
“I’m delighted that Prime Minister Carney has committed to building the Pacific Link Pipeline,” Doerkson said. “This nation-building project will lead to billions of dollars of investment, thousands of jobs, and revenues that build schools and hospitals.”
The BC Conservative statement omitted any reference to coastal tanker bans, terminal site selection, or Premier David Eby, who spent Tuesday taking credit for the $33-billion LNG Canada Phase 2 expansion in Kitimat, before holding a Surrey press conference Thursday to pledge caps on oil company margins.
Doerkson was asked, twice, about the North Coast tanker ban during his own press conference on Thursday morning. He did not offer clarity on whether a BC Conservative provincial government would advocate that the federal government remove the ban.
"I am supportive of being very careful around our environment and want to make sure we do nothing that would hurt it," Doerkson told reporters.
Update — 10:17 a.m. PDT
Eby borrows Findlay campaign pledge
Speaking under a gas-station canopy in front of a campaign sign reading “$20 a tank,” Eby delivered his formal proposal on gas prices on Thursday.
“Today in Surrey I committed to cutting gas prices by up to 30 cents a litre,” Eby posted on X before the presser began.
“When Trump started his war with Iran, big oil companies used it as cover. They padded their margins by 20 cents a litre at B.C. pumps, took an estimated $865 million out of British Columbians’ pockets, and doubled their profits to $13.3 billion in a single quarter.”
The NDP proposal relies on a two-pronged strategy: “We’ll suspend 10 cents a litre of the provincial gas tax, and bring in a price guard so the BC Utilities Commission can cap what oil companies charge,” Eby explained. “That’s savings of up to $20 every time you fill up, and up to $100 every month for a two-car family.”
The party even launched a online fuel-savings calculator, framing the policy around what appears to be a new campaign narrative: “The conservative parties won’t stand up to big oil. I will.”
Six minutes after Eby's post, veteran BC journalist Bob Mackin challenged the premier's claim on social media. Observing that Eby spoke from a Shell station, Mackin highlighted a March 19 leadership graphic from former Conservative Party Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay (also photographed at a Shell pump) asking, “Where did he get that idea from?”
Findlay’s pledge went further than Eby’s 10-cent suspension, promising “NO TAX ON GAS” and “NO TAX ON DIESEL” to yield an estimated 44-cent savings per litre.
Update — 9:30 a.m. PDT
Eby goes after 'big oil,' two days after celebrating LNG expansion
avid Eby is set to make his first public appearance Thursday in Surrey at a pump-price event framed as a rebuke of “big oil.”
Eby posted about the event on social media at 9:15 a.m. PDT, writing: “Big oil has been making record profits while you pay more at the pump. I’m in Surrey at 9:30 a.m. PT with my plan to do something about it, and the choice in front of us this election.”
The post included a link to a YouTube livestream but did not detail what the plan entails.
The timing of the announcement is perhaps the real story (and curiosity). On Tuesday, Eby stood in Vancouver alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney for the LNG Canada Phase 2 sanction.
The joint venture — Shell (40%), PETRONAS (25%), PetroChina (15%), Mitsubishi Corporation (15%), and KOGAS (5%) — approved two more processing trains at Kitimat, doubling the project’s capacity from 14 million to 28 million tonnes a year.
Several of the companies involved are global energy firms with interests across oil and gas.
Update — 8:16 a.m. PDT
Conservatives name Iain Black and Christine Day campaign co-chairs
The Conservative Party of BC named Iain Black and Christine Day campaign co-chairs on Thursday morning.
“Leadership comes in different forms, and at different times,” Conservative Party Interim Leader Lorne Doerkson said in the release. “That we can attract Iain and Christine to lend their time and talents to helping our team win this election speaks to both the unity we have achieved and the credibility of our candidates, our platform and our party.”
Day, a values-based executive who spent 20 years at Starbucks – ending as president of Asia Pacific operations – followed by six years as chief executive of Lululemon, focused her remarks on the economy.
“What an opportunity we have ahead of us to get BC back on track,” Day said. “In the coming weeks, British Columbians will see a positive, forward-looking plan for our economy that will undo a decade of damaging decisions that have driven away investment and jobs.”
Black is a former Liberal MLA for Port Moody-Westwood and Port Moody-Coquitlam from 2005 to 2011, serving as a cabinet minister under Gordon Campbell. He left the legislature in 2011 to lead the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade until 2019, and later ran federally in Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam in 2025. On May 30, he was eliminated on the third ballot of the Conservative leadership race won by Kerry-Lynne Findlay.
“The people of British Columbia are quickly getting to learn what I already know: Lorne Doerkson will be an outstanding premier of British Columbia,” Black said.
Election-mania
An early contender for "photo of the 2026 British Columbia election season" surfaced Wednesday morning, capturing the sheer absurdity of running municipal and provincial campaigns side-by-side.
Sarbraj Singh Kahlon posted a photograph of a chain-link fence at a busy Surrey intersection with a brief, two-word caption: "Meanwhile Surrey." The frame captures a corner lot in front of a grey house, traffic light at the curb, and political signs stacked shoulder-to-shoulder from the sidewalk several feet into the air.
The wall of political cardboard includes placards for mayoral candidates Brenda Locke, Doug McCallum, and Troy Van Vliet; council candidates Gagan Nahal, Linda Annis, Pardeep Kooner, and Rahul Gill; a Conservative Party of Surrey slate board; and, squeezed onto the same fence, an orange re-elect sign for BC NDP candidate Jessie Sunner.
Locals have voiced growing frustration that the wild, unruly thicket of competing placards leaves voters overwhelmed, while homeowners find their windows and views completely blocked by campaign sign wars. Motorists stopped at the adjacent traffic light noted it is virtually impossible to read all the competing names before the light turns green.
The visual spectacle highlights precisely what municipal leaders warned Premier David Eby about on writ day.
Delta Mayor George Harvie told CBC he was "pissed off," calling a provincial election during local campaigns "insulting." Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto warned the overlap could confuse voters and stoke disenfranchisement, while Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke noted municipal turnout is already historically low.
As Union of BC Municipalities Councillor Cori Ramsay cautioned just days before the writ drop, the public and journalists only have "so much bandwidth." On Surrey street corners, it would appear physical space itself is running out just as fast.
Orange shirt good
David Eby spent Wednesday leaning heavily into statutory holiday symbolism, embracing every available drop of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
The premier began his morning at 7 a.m. PDT with a 56-second standup monologue wearing a white-collared shirt beneath an orange "Every Child Matters" t-shirt.
“Today is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day,” Eby declared. “We honour survivors, remember the children who never came home, and stand with the families and communities still healing. We know the truth about residential schools. Survivors told it. The courts confirmed it. And yet denialism and hate are still with us. We saw it on Sunday, when masked white nationalists showed up on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc land to frighten people in their own homes. That’s how we build a stronger BC, where every child knows they matter."
Eby then traveled to Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc for official commemorations alongside Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak.
At 1:28 p.m. PDT, while in Kamloops, Eby posted to X about a tragic collision 350 kilometres away in South Delta that left two people dead.
“On a day already set aside for solemn reflection, a tragedy during the Tsawwassen First Nation Truth and Reconciliation event has shocked and saddened us all,” Eby wrote.
“Delta police have confirmed two people have died in a vehicle collision. Others who were injured are receiving medical attention. Police say it appears the driver of the vehicle experienced a medical event before the collision. As we wait for more details, our thoughts are with the families, with those injured, and with everyone at Tsawwassen First Nation," Eby continued.
The Delta Police Department had already issued an official update at 12:20 p.m. PDT clarifying that the fatal crash “is not related to the Truth and Reconciliation Walk that was taking place on Tsawwassen First Nation lands at the time,” adding that “the incident is not related to the Truth and Reconciliation Walk... There is no ongoing risk to public safety."
Social media users quickly appended a Community Note to Eby's post highlighting the official police findings. Eby has not amended his original post, provided additional context, or offered an explanation for why he chose to tie a fatal off-site traffic incident to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
By the end of the day, his team had released a 21-second video montage featuring Eby in his orange shirt near a drum group at the Powwow Arbour, captioned simply: "Every Child Matters, today and every day."
Doerkson takes the mic again
Conservative Party of BC Interim Leader Lorne Doerkson is stepping back in front of media cameras in Vancouver on Thursday morning following a multi-day policy sequence and fresh polling showing his party in the lead.
The Conservative Party of BC issued a media advisory Wednesday scheduling a 10 a.m. PDT press conference in Vancouver, promising a live stream on party channels.
The upcoming presser follows Doerkson's Tuesday stop in Langley, where he pledged to remove the provincial sales tax from Canadian-made beer, wine, and spirits.
On Monday in Vancouver, Doerkson unveiled his "BC Energy Superpower Plan," promising to double provincial liquefied natural gas roduction by 2032 and triple it by 2035 off a baseline of roughly 20 million tonnes.
That energy plan builds on his Sunday campaign kickoff in Surrey, where he pledged a total freeze on new taxes across the duration of a Conservative administration.
For the last ten years, David Eby and the NDP refused to build. That changes with me," Doerkson said during his energy launch.
The expanded campaign tour comes as new polling data from Leger puts the Conservatives at 39% among decided voters, holding a narrow three-point edge over the NDP's 36%, with the Greens at 13%, OneBC at 5%, and CentreBC at 5%.
When asked about the figures during a Vancouver availability, Doerkson sought to dispel suggestions that his party is unready to form government.
OneBC reneges on non-aggression deal in two tight ridings
OneBC has officially abandoned its courtesy stand-down agreement in two key ridings, announcing plans to run candidates against sitting right-of-centre incumbents in North Island and Kelowna Centre.
OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie posted a video to X at 3:13 p.m. PDT Wednesday declaring the party is active in both districts.
Conservative MLA Anna Kindy holds North Island, while Conservative incumbent Kristina Loewen holds Kelowna Centre by just 40 votes following the November 8, 2024 judicial recount.
“As you know, OneBC has decided to optimize the conservative movement,” Brodie said. “In a gesture of good will we were willing to avoid running candidates against real conservatives in tight ridings. In response, not only was there no cooperation, but also the same corruption and backroom dealing that has derailed the province. This is not acceptable behaviour, and as a result, we will be running two amazing candidates in North Island and in Kelowna Centre”.
Brodie did not disclose the names of the two OneBC nominees.
The move collapses the "principled eight" courtesy list circulating earlier this week, in which OneBC indicated it would leave select Conservatives unchallenged. The party had already corrected its sheet to run in Prince George-North Cariboo and Salmon Arm-Shuswap, while opting against running in Peace River North, where former Conservative Jordan Kealy sits as an Independent.
Brodie made no mention of Carson Binda, whom the Conservatives nominated in Vancouver-Quilchena on Tuesday night to run directly against Brodie and an NDP candidate.
The addition of a second right-of-centre candidate in Kelowna Centre poses a direct threat to Loewen's paper-thin margin. Justice Alison Beames confirmed Loewen's 2024 victory at 11,033 votes to NDP candidate Loyal Wooldridge's 10,993. With Wooldridge nominated for the rematch, a split right-of-centre vote significantly lowers the threshold for an NDP pickup.
Loewen previously told the Western Standard that right-of-centre voters should “come together, put differences aside, and focus on the issues that matter most,” emphasizing that her attention remains squarely on Kelowna Centre. OneBC's entry guarantees a three-way battle on one of the closest ballots in the province
What Polymarket is saying about the 2026 BC provincial election
OneBC has positioned itself as a potential game changer in the 2026 BC provincial election, but it would appear a small group of Polymarket gamblers disagree.
Offshore crypto prediction market Polymarket was pricing the October 24 election as a narrow two-party race late Wednesday, giving the Conservative Party of BC a slight edge to secure the most seats while leaving the premier's chair at a virtual coin-flip.
A contract paying out if the Conservatives win the highest number of seats in the 93-seat Legislative Assembly sat at 55 cents at 11 p.m. PDT, while the BC NDP contract was marked at 45 cents.
On which party is most likely to secure the third-most seats, the BC Greens were running at 85% as of Wednesday evening, with CentreBC and OneBC far behind.
For overall winnability, Greens, CentreBC, and OneBC were each pinned at a tenth of a cent.
