Brock Stephenson is a political commentator from BC.Enough with bemoaning the barn door. The horse has left, and the election race is underway. Let’s stop talking about the cynical and opportunistic election. What needs to be talked about are the competing visions for British Columbia (BC).Commentators, man-on-the-street interviews, and federal Conservative MPs are all saying it’s not necessary. But here it is. Previous opposition leaders have decried early elections before. It does not win you the election. Move on. It may contribute to your argument against the government, but give the voters a better reason to vote against the government — or even for your party.Despite fixing a badly tattered fixed election law, even a majority government Premier can call the election. He can have a clumsy analogy to him and his NDP government being the “fire break” to the orange embers down south of us. He can say he’s fighting the forest fire. He can reverse PST being added to professional services. He can reverse a pause on phase two of Burnaby Hospital. He can do all this without explaining why he can make these reversals mere months after his provincial budget said the opposite. He can avoid talking about a $500 million oopsie rounding error that jumped the provincial deficit to $13.8 billion. If David Eby wins the election, in part it will be due to him managing to make President Donald Trump or David Eby the choice on October 24.David Eby’s big problem on day one of the campaign seems to be that he has finally given the non-NDP side of the Legislature a reason to get their ducks in a row. In five weeks, fifteen Conservative MLAs had left the caucus over previous leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s leadership, and, since her departure, two-thirds have already returned. Eby won the last election with 47 MLAs to the upstart Conservatives’ 44, and his narrowest three wins were by a total of less than 400 votes. Eby goes into the election with 44 incumbent government MLAs to approximately 32 Conservative incumbents. Last election, he went into the election with a 55-to-8 margin and almost blew it against an underfunded, upstart campaign..Under freshly minted leader Lorne Doerkson, the Conservatives are saying Eby made a mistake. If they stay united and focused on the goal of unseating the NDP, they have plenty to talk about with the Eby record. Eby blew the budget surplus he inherited from John Horgan, had to hike taxes, and now has the province facing a record $13.8 billion deficit — a number that had to be revised upwards earlier this summer. Eby said he would fix the Downtown Eastside problem. Instead, “stranger attack” has entered the lexicon. Crime and open drug use have spread to the suburbs and across the province, with widely documented social media accounts in Richmond and the Okanagan showing the damage. While trying to find other markets beyond the US, the Eby government has struggled. The forest sector continues its steep decline, with job losses regularly making the news.The Green Party enters the election with new 26-year-old leader Emily Lowan. Lowan appears to plan to spend the campaign showing off her progressive credentials. While not taking swings at the billionaires and “the oligarchs,” she turns her fire on the NDP for putting their party ahead of the needs of the province. She argues the Greens need to hold the balance of power to keep the NDP in check. She has yet to make the case that she needs to elect MLAs to keep anyone else in check. As the race narrows, it is likely she and her two MLAs will struggle to remain relevant.Breakaway factions from the Conservatives and the centre-right include OneBC, the hard right dissidents, and Centre BC, the remnants of the BC Liberal (BC United) Party that did not approve of Kevin Falcon’s withdrawal from the last election and those who believe the Conservatives need to moderate their views. Both parties may attack the Conservatives harder than the NDP. Their reunited former colleagues will hope for both groups to be on the margins as BC’s centre-right wins elections except when the NDP can exploit their divisions.While the Conservatives and other opposition parties hold the NDP’s feet to the fire and lay the blame for the province’s problems at the feet of David Eby, Eby will fire back that, much like Mark Carney and Doug Ford before him, now is not the time to change horses. In a few short weeks, voters will show whether Eby’s campaign versus Trump was the right call or if he’s been put out to pasture.Brock Stephenson is a political commentator from BC.
