PENTICTON — Premier David Eby asked Lt.-Gov. Wendy Cocchia to dissolve the legislature Tuesday. Elections BC set final voting day for Saturday, October 24, with advance polls October 16 to 21.
Ordinary nominations open 9 a.m. Friday and close October 3 at 1 p.m. Pacific. The agency’s accepted-candidate list was still blank Wednesday afternoon, but the major political parties are already announcing some of their candidates they intend to run — along with some of those who will not be seeking re-election.
Here's what you need to know on day three of the 2026 BC Election:
The poll making the rounds
Election modeller @RealAlbanianPat posted an Innovative Research poll Wednesday, which put the New Democrats at 43%, the Conservatives at 39%, the Greens at 14% and others at 4%.
The plus-and-minus on that card is against Innovative Research’s March 3 poll, when the Conservatives led 47–39.
CKNW radio host and former BC Liberal MLA Jas Johal commented on a satisfaction split of 47%-47% between both of the major parties, along with 57% of those asked by the pollster saying "it's time for a change."
The BC vote-intention field ran September 4 to 18, online. Kerry-Lynne Findlay still led the Conservatives for that entire window. The writ had not dropped and Lorne Doerkson was not yet interim leader.
Rustad passes the torch.
The Conservative Party said Wednesday, through Canadian Press, that Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad would not seek re-election. Rustad confirmed it himself Thursday morning.
“Serving this province, and serving Nechako Lakes, has been some of the most rewarding times of my life,” he wrote in a statement posted just before 5 a.m. PDT. “That time is now done.”
He thanked the riding for its trust, said the party built itself “from the political wilderness to the Official Opposition,” and wrote that interim Leader Lorne Doerkson is “a quality individual.” He said Eby “did not call this election to defend what his government has done. He called it to save his job.”
“I will not seek re-election in Nechako Lakes,” the statement said. “It is time to pass the torch to the next generation.”
A shorter post followed at 6 a.m. PDT. “My time is done. The work is not,” Rustad wrote. “God bless British Columbia.”
Two days earlier the same account had struck a different note. After Eby obtained the writ, Rustad wrote that he had accepted Doerkson’s invitation back to caucus and that “we will be on the doorstep.”
“We are not going anywhere,” he added Tuesday.
Monday, after he accepted the return, he had written, “My time as leader is over too. Serving this province is not.” On the same Victoria doorstep he told reporters, “That may mean time is over for me, too. I don’t know.”
He first won a version of the country in 2005, held Nechako Lakes from 2009, and led the Conservatives to 44 seats on October 19, 2024. In that election he took 7,851 votes (67.45%) against New Democrat Murphy Abraham’s 3,167 (27.21%).
Nominations in that riding close October 3.
NDP names Zussman in Saanich South.
The New Democrats filled Lana Popham’s seat Wednesday. Former Global News and CBC legislative reporter Richard Zussman is the party’s candidate in Saanich South.
“It is an honour to be the BC NDP candidate for the upcoming election in Saanich South,” he posted just after 3 p.m. PDT. “It would be the honour of a lifetime to serve you in the Legislature.”
Popham said Monday she would not seek a sixth term after 17 years. The riding has gone NDP in every general election since it was created in 1990. In 2024 she took 15,338 votes (49.76%) over Conservative Adam Kubel’s 10,003 (32.45%) and Green Ned Taylor’s 5,485 (17.79%).
Zussman’s statement said that after “interviewing leaders across all parties” he was joining the NDP because “I know they’ll stand up for B.C. and Canada by supporting workers and businesses, opening new markets beyond the United States, bringing down costs, and strengthening health-care.” He pointed to US President Donald Trump’s tariff file, the same argument Eby used at the writ. Eby called him deeply committed to his community and said he brought a “wealth of knowledge and experience.”
The announcement post had passed 130,000 views by Thursday morning, with hundreds of replies. The loudest line in that thread treated the jump as proof his old copy had leaned orange.
“Another ‘journalist’ from global running for the NDP. What a biased reporter,” one reply with more than 300 likes read. Others called the move a “sell-out,” said he had “ended the masquerade,” or wrote that he had “always” been on the NDP team.
Zussman is a six-time Jack Webster Award winner on the campaign biography and co-author, with Rob Shaw, of A Matter of Confidence, the 2018 book on the fall of Christy Clark’s BC Liberals. He later worked in public affairs. He sits on the boards of the Lakehill Baseball and Fastball Association and the Victoria Curling Club.
No other party had named a Saanich South candidate by Wednesday afternoon. He is not on the Elections BC accepted list until a district electoral officer takes the paper.
Gray asked to run. The BC Conservatives picked Singh instead.
Speaking of nominations, former Kelowna—Lake Country MP Tracy Gray posted Wednesday morning that she had put her name to the Conservative Party for Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream.
She wrote that “hundreds of people in our community” had asked her to run and called Eby’s overlap with the October 17 civic vote “callous” and “disrespectful to all the people running municipally.”
Just after noon she posted a form and asked residents to tell the party they supported her.
The authorized Conservative account named someone else after supper. At 6:39 p.m. PDT it posted vice-president Pavneet Singh as the candidate in the same riding.
“We’re pleased to announce Pavneet Singh in Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream,” the party wrote. “We’re unified and ready to bring the change BC deserves.”
Singh answered from his own account Wednesday evening.
“This riding has been home to me for more than 25 years,” he wrote. “I have built my businesses here, raised my family here. I am proud to stand with the @Conservative_BC and look forward to working hard.”
The sitting MLA is Tara Armstrong. She won the new riding in 2024, 14,303 to 9,350 over New Democrat Anna Warwick Sears, then left John Rustad’s caucus in March 2025 and has sat Independent since December 16, 2025.
Singh was the other conservative name on that ballot last cycle. BC United members nominated him on November 25, 2023. He ended that campaign on September 28, 2024, and endorsed Armstrong so the vote would not split.
Armstrong answered the writ Tuesday by breaking with the party that has now named her 2024 running-mate’s replacement.
“The BC Conservative Party has become the party of blackmail,” she wrote.
Gray sat on Kelowna city council from 2014 to 2018 and in the House of Commons from 2019 until Liberal Stephen Fuhr beat her on April 28, 2025. She had not posted a concession note Thursday morning. Singh’s candidate page does not mention her.
None of the three is on the Elections BC accepted list until a district electoral officer takes the paper.
That window opens 9 a.m. Friday.
Victoria firefighters enter the civic race already underway.
As many are already painfully aware, the provincial writ landed on top of a civic campaign that is already underway.
Victoria votes Saturday, October 17.
Victoria Firefighters IAFF Local 730 announced September 10 that it had registered with Elections BC as a third-party advertising sponsor — the first time in the local’s history, president Josh Montgomery said.
“Our members have identified six critical issues that affect public safety, firefighter safety, and our ability to do our jobs to the fullest extent,” Montgomery said in the union’s release.
The six asks are on the union’s SafeVictoria site: a second means of egress in new multi-storey residential buildings; more high-rise response capacity above the sixth floor; street design that accounts for apparatus and response times; a plan against violence on emergency calls; proactive mental-health support for first responders; and more coverage for the Inner Harbour, Victoria West and what the union calls Canada’s busiest water airport.
“This isn’t about political parties or personalities,” Montgomery said. “Every candidate has the same opportunity to listen to our members, understand the challenges we face and decide where they stand.”
The local hosted a charity barbecue September 11 at 530 Chatham St., with proceeds directed to Project Trauma Support. Throughout the civic window it is inviting every mayoral and council candidate to sign the six-point pledge in public.
Doerkson takes a hose to Eby's election metaphor.
If firefighters are your thing, Premier David Eby opened the campaign with a wildfire analogy, comparing the "existential threat" of Donald Trump to a "firebreak." Outside Government House on Tuesday he said, “When you smell smoke you don’t sit and wait to see what happens next,” and asked for a “firebreak” against the trade war and “Trump-style politics.”
BC legislative reporter for Northern Beat Fran Yanor counted the word fire 15 times and firebreak six times in that kickoff.
Overnight a clip of interim Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson came back, which may cause the BC NDP war room to rethink one of its key election metaphors.
The X account No Context BC posted the roughly 45-second tape just after 5:30 p.m. PDT Wednesday. It shows a first-term MLA in a T-shirt and jeans on a fire line, hose in hand, with a news crew on him. Andrew Reeve, a former legislature press secretary, wrote that for most British Columbians this would be the first time they had seen Doerkson.
CTV’s Robert Buffam asked the question the clip is built to ask.
“I wonder if this video of Lorne Doerkson fighting a wildfire will spark a metaphor shift from David Eby — who’s campaign has focused, so far, on the critical need to battle the wildfire that is Donald Trump.”
CBC’s Katie DeRosa went further.
“This is probably the mic-drop response to Eby’s fire break Trump metaphor which I don’t think landed with any British Columbians who have been threatened by real life wildfires,” she wrote.
Political consultant Brad Zubyk put it shorter: “Eby rhetorically cosplays about fire break. Lorne Doerkson actually has been on a fire break.”
Lowan says the fight is with Eby, not Trump.
The Greens opened their campaign Wednesday beside the legislature. Leader Emily Lowan stood with the two Green MLAs from the last House, Rob Botterell and Jeremy Valeriote.
“Lowan says election isn’t about Trump, it’s about David Eby,” Global’s Ben O’Hara-Byrne reported from the launch.
She will run in Saanich North and the Islands, the seat Botterell won in 2024 after Adam Olsen retired. Botterell said Wednesday he would not seek a second term.
He told reporters he had committed to four years and that Eby’s writ “upended all that with an irresponsible, reckless decision to call an election in the middle of the trade war.” He said the decision was his and that the party had not pushed him out for Lowan. He endorsed her.
Lowan called the snap “bittersweet” — a comment directed at her hometown riding and the loss of a colleague. She has led the party since September 2025 and has not held a seat. Valeriote remains the Green name in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky. She said most of the party’s resources would stay on southern Vancouver Island targets.
Eby’s Day 3 stop goes less than swimmingly.
Eby took the podium in Maple Ridge Thursday morning.
Global’s Ben O’Hara-Byrne flagged the two ridings under that stop. Conservative Lawrence Mok took Maple Ridge East by 97 votes in 2024. Education Minister Lisa Beare has held Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows for the NDP since 2017.
The announcement was “Built in B.C. and Canada” rules for public infrastructure: BC and Canadian wood, steel, aluminum and cement first, with penalties for US-made goods, starting with the North Coast Transmission Line at 70% Canadian steel in Phase 1 and 100% in Phase 2.
Eby named Doerkson once. “I've been asked about the Conservative leader … sure, seems like a nice guy,” he said, then said Doerkson had not stood up when some Conservative colleagues called for American liquor back on the shelves.
The crowd behind Eby looked less than impressed.
Reporters asked about Eby's "firebreak" line. O’Hara-Byrne wrote that Eby had no regrets about using it against Trump “despite accusations it was insensitive — although, notably, he didn't use it in Maple Ridge today.”
CHEK’s Rob Shaw called it “the worst press conference I have seen from @Dave_Eby in a long time,” saying the premier had numbers wrong, names wrong, got lost in his notes, had no compelling announcement and was snippy at questions.
Eby later posted a correction. He had said Conservative Sheldon Clare amplified a map of BC as a “US protectorate.” “That was, in fact, his colleague David Williams,” he wrote. “Sheldon Clare was the Conservative who last week said municipal representatives need ‘hanging.’ Apologies for the mixup.”
A rumour on the North Shore.
CKNW’s Jas Johal posted Thursday afternoon that he was “hearing rumours” West Vancouver-Capilano Conservative MLA Lynne Block “may move to a different riding to make way for Caroline Elliott.”
“You could stick a BCC sticker on a dishwasher in that riding and win,” he wrote. “Let’s see where this goes.”
That is remains only rumour as of Thursday afternoon. Block has not confirmed if she is leaving and Elliott has not said she is the nominee. The party has not posted either name for that seat.
Notably, Block declined to give up her seat earlier this year when allegedly approached by former BC Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay and her Chief of Staff Chris Delaney.
Elliott finished second to Kerry-Lynne Findlay on May 30, 49% to 51% on the last ballot. In June she told Sitka she was open to an MLA run and had talked to Findlay about it. Block has held West Vancouver-Capilano since 2024.
Angus Reid poll shows the BC Conservatives ahead by eight points.
The first post-writ national-brand tracker landed Thursday afternoon. The Angus Reid Institute surveyed 801 British Columbians online September 22 to 24, including voting day and the two days after.
Among 682 decided and leaning voters the Conservatives were at 43% and the NDP at 35%, an eight-point gap. The institute titled the release “Ballot Backlash.” The Conservative share matches the party’s 2024 popular vote; the NDP is 10 points under its 2024 share.
The majority of respondents, at 62%, said it is too soon for an election, including 52% of NDP voters. Even more respondents, at 65%, said Eby is putting his own interests ahead of the province. More than half of respondents, at 56%, said the Conservatives are not ready to govern, including 22% of current Conservative supporters.
One in five are undecided. Only 35% said they are “very certain” of their choice. The Conservatives take about half the vote in the Fraser Valley and the Interior and lead in Metro Vancouver. The NDP leads on Vancouver Island.
CentreBC names another candidate.
CentreBC posted a new name Thursday afternoon: Paul Brar, for Surrey-Fleetwood.
“Excited to welcome Paul as our CentreBC candidate for Surrey–Fleetwood,” the authorized account wrote.
The Western Standard interviewed CentreBC Leader Elenore Sturko on Thursday. She is the only sitting MLA still under that banner after Peter Milobar and six others walked back to the Conservatives on writ day.
Andrew Weaver is already the CentreBC name in Oak Bay-Gordon Head.
