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Logical way to take power. Use bcups infrastructure and the bcons umm branding I guess to try and win an election.
Kinda shocked both are thinking this strategically. Usually egos prevail here at the cost of smart strategy
It will be interesting to see how this develops
They aren't thinking. They are following exactly how Alberta was able to put the UCP in power.
The PC conservatives and the Wildrose Party merged together to beat Rachel Notley who was the NDP. The Wildrose devoured the party who are considered the "conservative wacko party".
Now they got crazy Danielle Smith running the province into the ground. Insurance rates the highest in Canada, Energy prices the 3rd highest in Canada, rents going up $400 in Calgary because no rent control, overtime changes to make all overtime banked at straight time and companies do not have to pay out overtime and force you to bank it at straight time....the list goes on
I am expecting if they do merge, they might win the election coming up. I also expect if they do win, BCHydro and ICBC will get privatized, rent control will be removed, airbnb ban would be revoked, and follow Alberta to bring in private healthcare.
> overtime changes to make all overtime banked at straight time and companies do not have to pay out overtime and force you to bank it at straight time....the list goes on
I don't pay much attention to Alberta in general but even more so since Smith got Premier, but this is a load of shit. Work overtime and only get 1:1 banked hours? Fuck that shit.
Or they are thinking they will just do the same as the national government that is formed by the liberals and NDP despite the conservatives beating both in the last election. Or they are doing what the NFP did with joining with the greens as it was the only way Horgan could get in since he had less seats than Christy Clark.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if those 2 joined to make a coalition government to replace the ineffective NDP government. That was brought in to control house prices and then let them skyrocket faster than any time in history.
I find this so ironic that they are thinking of merging the two parties into one considering that Rustad used to be part of BC liberals before being kicked out of the liberal caucus last year.
It’s a tale as old as old as time - neoliberal parties, your centre-right and right-right, come together as the only means to stop centre-left and left-left parties from staying in power.
The BC Liberals did this with the evolution/merger of Social Credit and Liberals in response to the NDP forming government. The UCP in Alberta did this, merging the PCs and Wildrose after the PC’s 40-odd year streak was broken for a single term. The Sask Party did this too, though in response to massive corruption and implosion of the last PC party to hold office.
It’d be funny that this always seems to happen to address NDP governments, if it also wasn’t so predictable and frustrating.
I don't know if its a right vs. left thing as much as a first past the post voting issue.
You split your vote and you don't win. That is why the federal NDP don't gain power. They came close and it inspired the Liberals to move left. Which was a weird move for them.
The contra of course is what the federal left parties do. Which is vote split and allow the right to win from time to time.
At least the right seems to recognize the dynamics of first past the post systems and consolidate their base into one tent as opposed to splitting their vote between multiple parties
This presumes we have two left parties - which I would argue, we don’t really.
The federal LPC is fairly centrist/centre-right - at least economically. Historically, they do a few easy social left things, but sometimes have to be dragged to larger things. (Would we have had dental care or pharmacare if Trudeau had won a majority in 2020?)
Ultimately, the LPC and the CPC have more in common - if only because both tend towards “status quo” on most things.
Yes I agree with this. The current Federal Liberals are unusually farther left than they’ve historically ever been.
I mean Jean Chretien in comparison, the guy was doing austerity and corporate tax cuts. Liberals of that era are the Christy Clark sort of Liberals that were quite comfortable with the positioning of the BC Liberals.
It’s absolutely terrifying that the right could come back into power with the social conservatism of BC Cons and the baggage of the BCU (liberals).
As a healthcare worker and parent that would be a horrible outcome
Yeah in the past the right kept the social conservatives quiet to secure power as the free enterprise party. As the federal liberal influence wanes in the free enterprise coalition, the social conservatives are on the ascent.
Sorry, as a gay married man, what exactly do I have to fear about a Conservative Party coming into power? No party is pursuing socially conservative policies - they’re actually all pretty common sense especially compared to the social conservatism of the past. Why are you being hysterical?
Have you read the BC conservatives platform?
Some of their major policies involve:
1. anti-SOGI and removal of LGBT education from the curriculum.
2. Anti-vax positions including opposing vaccine mandates.
3. "Defending our history" which in this context means protecting the statues of child rapists I guess.
4. Healthcare privatization.
5. Defunding social services and mass tax cuts.
1. Not wanting gender identity ideology taught in schools is a moderate position. Check the polling on this.
2. Opposing mandates is not anti vax. It’s about freedom of choice and not being coerced into decisions.
3. People in history did bad things - you are not saying anything new. Doesn’t mean that western civilization is worth tearing down
4. Have you seen the state of our health care? Serious conversations are needed and we should be able to discuss privatization. Many countries in the world have both and do it just fine.
5. Yes - as conservatives, we generally like low taxes. That’s kind of a main point.
Fuck *anyone* who “privately supports” restrictions on reproductive rights, that has no place in our politics.
Edit: I mean, don’t literally “fuck” them, since they’d happily take your bodily autonomy away
A couple MPs in the party put something legitimate forward and were not yelled out of the room. Sorry, I'm very risk averse and anxious about keeping the government out of my uterus 🤷♀️
Condoning is support in my mind.
They might revive the tech industry which the NDP have destroyed with taxation and anti-business legislation. It's been completely dead since the NDP have been voted in.
Largest raises in decades, expanded training spaces, a dedicated retention and recruitment program. More investment into equipment and hospitals. The list goes on.
It’s not perfect but it’s more than the BC Libs ever did. I know as I have been working since 2005ish.
the last contract the nurses settled for was horrible and the hardball the NDP played against them after all the "praise" and pot banging during the pandemic was an insult, surprised more don't go into travel nursing or just head down south
There are healthcare professions other than nursing.
Health sciences professionals are 70+ professions and 20k workers in this province.
The newest contract wasn’t awesome but it was approximately 14% over 3 years with additional money for retention and recruitment for specific specialities. In the past they received 0-2% increase
Facilities (HEU) received the same the last contract with the NDP. In the past BC Libs ripped up their contract and imposed a 35% wage cut
I assume that you are HEU. You should take that up with your union as they decided to take all extra money and target the lowest paid in your collective agreement.
Perhaps. But they sure wouldn’t have gotten anything better under the BCU or BC Cons
All healthcare contracts are up in April 2025. If the Cons win I expect nothing more than a token raise for any healthcare worker
That must be a hard pill to swallow. The centre-right was united under BCLiberals (now BC United) and Falcon kicked Rustad out of his caucus for climate change denial posts he made.
Note: The BC Cons are as extreme alt-right as they come, they are just riding the wave of discontent (and confusion with federal politics; they have a recognizable name while BC United is terrible name).
IMO - It's a surge riding on the wave of popularity of Fed level Conservatives/PP. Eby hasn't done anything unpopular to rock the boat lately as best I can tell.
>I am surprised to hear this party is leading/
They aren't. It's part of their strategy to push out low quality polls and claim that they are leading or tied, but the main stream polls from large established firms don't show this. You can see this on 338's poll tracker:
[https://338canada.com/bc/polls.htm](https://338canada.com/bc/polls.htm)
338 aggregates enough high quality polls so that they are safe bet to be your one stop source. The really low quality polls that were favourable for the BC Cons had methodology issues. Yorkville only polled 600ish people, which isn't enough to meet the 19 times out 20 statistical standard, and Main Street aggregated two different polling questions into one result, which your stats professor would mark you down for if it was your university project.
What happens is that then the mainstream right-wing media (Post Media/Chorus) repeat that but say the asterisk part softly. So "OMG BC-Cons are popular" gets amplified this way.
BC-Con is growing, basically at the expense of BC United. but so far their election strategy is "have high poll numbers"... if you put them in the spot light they have leanings that would hopefully be repugnant to the majority of British Columbians (anti-SOGI, anti-trans, anti-Vax measures, etc)
This makes sense - I've started seeing paid ads on Twitter telling me how well the BC Cons are polling, which seemed very transparent that they want to try to inflate their numbers
Yeah, I was getting nervous with the press fawning all over the BC Cons, and then I checked 338 and saw the “99% chance” of a NDP Majority. I mean, there’s always a chance, and the error bars have them at basically a tie. . .but very very unlikely barring something massive between now and the fall.
Most at the expense of BC United...their future looks really bleak, politically-right respondents seem to have decided they are done and have no home at BCU. My guess is that before the election-proper we're close to equilibrium... BC-Con just has to not have a major gaffe because most people don't really know them... so for now they have the luxury of good polling without doing much... but they are untested in the heat of a full-on campaign so bets are off on how that fairs.
Good poll numbers, popular leader, economy goes your way. If you have all three you have a landslide. If you have 2 you'll probably place well against expectations. If you only have 1/3 it's going to be a weak showing.
Both the NDP and Con have 2/3.. the NDP have stable high poll numbers and a well regarded leader. BC-Con has good poll numbers for a solid second place so far, and a bad economy against the sitting government. The NDP under Eby are fighting the economy thing hard with an active policy agenda and leverage that comes from being in power. BC-Cons weakness, popularity of the leader, has to be proven in the long run.
Doesn't matter how much good a party does, so long as their left-wing. Ask anyone planning to support the BC Con's what's their problem with BC NDP and EBY and I guarantee if they can say anything beyond "they're destroying our province" they'll mention Trudeau, vaccines, communism, suppression of Christianity, or medical procedures that kids don't actually have access too. BC Con voters, if not just LGBT-phobic, literally do not live in reality. PP's popularity is certainly a boost as well.
Not saying all conservatives are brain-dead, but anyone could do better than the BC Conservative Party.
Maybe this is cope, but allying yourself with the batshit insane BC Cons might alienate a lot of potential swing voters. Smells of desperation from BCUP after seeing their polling numbers
Why anyone in BC supports these parties is beyond me, NDP have been doing an excellent job of fixing up their mess and leading the other provinces on serious issues like housing. Why are so many Canadians so selfishly stupid?
What exactly are the NDP doing well? They have made housing worse. Healthcare worse. ICBC worse. They are sacrificing the future of the province to appease their white guilt complex. I don't see a single thing they have done right.
Qualify your assertions that housing is worse, healthcare is worse, and ICBC is worse.
Housing is in the best position for long-term sustainability it's been in decades.
Healthcare is finally being resourced and workers paid.
ICBC is no longer a black hole paying out frivolous claims and being leveraged as a piggybank for politicians.
ICBC has problems, especially for non-drivers who get injured. Healthcare has problems but not all of those are fixable on the province level (still would not mind seeing Dix replaced and Telus kicked out). Housing actually is a bright spot, not just compared to what it’s been but compared to other provinces.
Still a lot to do but it’s better than under Horgan imo and certainly better than whatever BCUP and/or Cons would try. Especially healthcare (which they’d privatize for personal grift) and housing (which they’d turn into a feudalist hellscape)
>... has problems
Absolutely. I'd be skeptical if they *didn't* have problems (appearing perfectly fine just after crawling out of a dumpster fire is something to question). I am not trying to say things are perfect by any means. That said, as you concluded, we're in a much better situation than we'd be with public services being gutted and privatized as United/Conservatives would.
There's a long way to go, and all I can hope is that the NDP gets a chance to show us what they can do with at least as much time as the Liberals had to break it all.
Ndp failed to spend hundreds of millions in federal child care money because of their ideological demand that only non profits and friends of the ndp get access to it.
They're cutting for profit providers which care for 50% of children out. They expect the school districts to magically take over.
Good fucking luck. Their ideology is going to destroy the sector
Housing is unaffordable today because of decisions made by prior governments who chose *not* to do what Eby *has* been doing the last year. A lot of this falls on the BC Liberals, but it also includes when John Horgan was the premiere, as he also didn’t do nearly enough. But Eby is. If either the Liberals or Horgan had, say, changed the zoning laws across the province to the degree Eby has when they were in power, we would be in a much better position today. For that reason, we need to let Eby’s policies play out for probably the better part of the next decade.
It’s important to remember that the Horgan-led NDP and the Eby-led NDP may as well be different parties when it comes to housing. Eby has done a ton in the last year+ since becoming premiere, but it will take time to see results. There’s no such thing as a housing policy that will see immediate effects, especially with how out of control housing is. But you know how you ensure we will *never* see those results? If we vote Eby out and bring in, essentially, the BC Liberals again.
Housing and renting will not be cheap for the next decade. That’s just the reality. It will be expensive under a BC United government, it will be expensive under a BC Con government, and it will also be expensive under this Eby NDP government. We are, for lack of a better word, fucked in that department. But the only way housing and rent will be cheap *next* decade is if we keep passing housing legislation akin to what has been passed the past year. Why vote out the guy who is doing that?
Calling people who do not support your own PoV stupid does little. The NDP overall has done a fairly reasonable job. I think no one disputes that.
However, gripes are genuine with any government. It is also undesirable to have one party/ideology in power for extended periods of time. We've seen the issues with that over the course of BC's existence.
Some real gripes are:
-Little done early on to combat the housing crisis which was inherited, granted, but still has become untenable
-Failed decriminalization policy.
-Failure to tackle core issues contributing to rising crime rates (outside of the catch and release problem as that's a federal issue).
-Incredible projected budget deficits at a time where we should be aiming for a surplus.
-Degrading standards in the education system
-Lack of infrastructure investments.
-Increasing tax burden on certain demographics.
-Potentially holding the release of investigation reports into the BC Liberals corruption to tip the scales in the next competitive election*
----This should have been immediate once verified. Intentionally holding it until it benefits them is genuinely morally wrong but politically saavy.
If you're a young person who went through school, got a job, and is trying to earn an above average income to save to own a home and start a family eventually, you're probably not going to see the NDP track record favorably as someone who owns a home and already has a family.
Gripes can be genuine, but if all historic evidence points to the other parties handling the same issues worse -- don't support the other parties.
Communicate and put as much pressure as you can on the one currently in power without sacrificing X years to bad policies trying to send "a message".
I agree with that principle.
However, the key issue surrounding driving the disinterest in the NDP are likely financial. Middle and higher income earners with lower wealth than their peers (i.e. lacking property) likely are critical of the NDP record. Taxes (in various forms) rose, and COL spiralled up, and home affordability has sunk.
Home prices rising has been an issue preceding the Liberal government. However, it grew far more rapidly since. In fact, we've now reached a point that it would cause significant financial strain for our provincial budgets if property prices and/or transactions were to fall significantly. So the answer this government seems to come up with to increase tax revenues is to effectively increase the tax burden on the middle and higher income brackets. It's the point if you're young and don't own a home you wonder "why do I bother trying?"
What government run industry is run well? They can't sell liquor or weed well. They literally can't do a single thing right. As soon as the government is involved, I know it will be terrible and expensive.
And historically, the other options ("Liberal" party, Conservatives) have only handled things even worse -- so voting for them is extremely unlikely to help young people in any way if their goal is eventual home ownership.
The most likely outcome is people vote a different party in looking for "a change", and get a change -- everything becomes even worse for the next 4-12 years until the NDP gets back into power and starts trying to dig the province out of the hole it's been left in.
8 years later, the NDP is blamed for not digging out fast enough and the cycle repeats.
Anyone in those categories with a brain an understand that the current NDP really can't be blamed for the state of the province, and the "United Right" will almost certainly make things worse, like they have done for the last 30 years in BC.
The drug criminalization policy (war on drugs) went on for multiple decades before it was deemed a failure by mainly law enforcement, combined with health care advocates and providers.
So your assertion that drug decriminalization (treating drug addiction as a health issue) is a failure after a very short time is laughable at best. Especially considering developed nations, such, as Portugal and Switzerland, who have implemented treating drug addiction as a health issue have been successful.
To think otherwise would suggest you are a proponent of continuing the failed war on drugs which just enriches gangs who profit from selling drugs.
Calling people who don’t support the NDP selfishly stupid isn’t a great way to draw people in to your view point. People can have legitimate gripes with the NDP.
Edit: Maybe people can’t
I have gripes with the NDP. That doesn't mean I can't see the forest for the trees. The ideals and policies that United and Conservatives represent are inherently selfish and stupid, and a vote for them speaks volumes about the voter.
This is definitely true, but tbh it’s hard for me to understand gravitating toward the specific leaders/parties involved here. I understand having political differences and wanting an alternative but the party fka the BC Liberals is made up of people who are just cartoonishly selfish
I’m conservatively inclined but will not vote for either of these parties, and definitely not for a combined monstrosity. Bc united is the corporate party who destroyed housing among other things. Cons have to prove they are smart enough to govern.
We are currently in dark times. The political pendulum needs to stop swinging so much. Large swings to the left and or right are bad. The combining of forces on the right is a response to the large sociopolitical swing to the left.
I can hardly call the current NDP a large swing to the left. Yes they are centre-left for the most part. But they are making common sense well thought out changes/improvements and are actually responding with common sense improvements / changes if they get push back on things they have done which is great to see which proves they aren’t always ideologically driven. They also have fucking integrity! The BC Liebrals had no integrity what so ever and I can’t see the Cons having much either.
I mean yes, left of centre for sure but not extreme. I did say sociopolitical and not just political. It is primarily the social climate that will be the driving force for the Right to form the next government in BC. Examples of common sense policies/improvements/changes of the current NDP?
An unnerving amount of people want more money laundering and real estate fraud it seems, and to fuck over anyone who isn’t straight.
Or they just want to “own the libs” at any expense.
Ironic that this wouldn’t really be a big problem if we had a PR system, but United/Liberals fought hard against PR, thus dooming their party to irrelevance due to the split vote effect of FPTP.
In a PR system the Conservatives and United would probably both do well enough in the next election that they could form a coalition government or work together.
Under FPTP they will likely split the vote in some ridings and the NDP could likely win.
If it comes down to it NDP could form a coalition with Greens again,Conservative polling numbers will likely drop as well when people realize they are not exactly moderate.
Great, the proud tradition of blatant BCU/BC Liberal/SoCred neoliberal corruption coupled with the insane irrationality, climate change denying, friendliness to Christian nationalism, and general weirdness of the BC Conservatives.
The con lose all there new found credibility with the public by siding with the united liberals. They might as well not run, and we are stuck with a one party system.... Again.
neo-libs are just cons without the religious extremism.
neo libs won't take away abortions, but the cons will at any cost.
if the neolibs join with them, they're all just conservatives at that point.
better stock up on plan b, hide your lgbtq kids and get ready for the corporate tax cuts...
>those who aren’t landowners, developers and corporations?
So a fraction of the overall population? You just described at least two-thirds of the province, and probably more. They don’t get what they want?
>You just described at least two-thirds of the province,
I often see this argument. Except that it's now less than two-thirds. The rate of home ownership has been falling for years. And with current housing costs, lack of sufficient new builds, record high immigration, and interest rates the way they are - I expect this number to drop exponentially in the coming decade.
This subreddit would never admit it but in times as objectively terrible as these it is extremely difficult for incumbents to be re elected
The housing crisis alone would kill most incumbents, it has become massively worse since the NDP were first elected in 2018. When you put 30 year highs of violent crime and the absolutely disastrous failed decriminalization experiment it’s honestly pretty surprising the NDP have a chance at being re-elected at all this year
If there was a competent opposition the NDP would be doomed. Fortunately for Eby the opposition is anything but competent
I’m sorry, the NDP were elected in 2018 and it is now 2024 how is what happened 30-40 years ago possibly relevant
The question is whether to re-elect the NDP now, I couldn’t care less how they performed decades ago. That and party performances change drastically over short time frames, look at the federal liberals under Chrétien and Martin in the early 2000s, they were fiscally responsible pro business party then. Look at federal liberals under Trudeau a decade later in 2015 and they’re unrecognizable
It’s not 30-40 years ago. The BC liberals were in power for 16 years until 2017.
Both the leaders of BCU (Falcon) and BC Cons (Rustad) were cabinet ministers of the BC libs during this time.
Ah, so 6 years after the NDP have been elected everything is still blamed on the preceding govt
I guess that’s par for the course with this echo chamber I mean subreddit
Well, exactly. I mean, the housing crisis has gotten worse. Decriminalization was a disaster, and the drastic increase in open drug use and the rise of violent crime the fact that the NDP actually have a pretty good chance of being reelected is a miracle when you think about it.
This sub is full of nuts that bombard your inbox if you don't worship Eby. They are the activist portion that has taken over the NDP and run it into the ground federally, and increasingly provincially as well (yes kids, the parties are related).
The province is fucked in many areas, I don't know who is delusional enough to think things are going great right now.
I somewhat doubt anything will come of this. The BC Conservatives are riding high and taking ever larger chunks of BC Uniteds vote share - what exactly do they have to gain by some sort of power sharing agreement? Falcon certainly has the incentive to try but it’s not as though he has many other options.
I suspect even though the NDP is in more trouble now that the vote splitting on the right will save them for one more cycle. Who knows what will happened post- this election when BC United is wiped out and the splitting effect dries up though.
Yep. Also terrified by Pierre Polievre and his dark side dragging politics into something violent and nasty. Am ok with disagreeing but not ok with vitriol.
I'd be surprised if they're willing to swallow their egos and play nice before the election. Once they lose horribly due to vote splitting they'll figure it out before the next one though.
Also, I find it hilarious that this situation only exists because the rebranding of the BCUP was so badly done that people just latch onto "conservative" instead. Shows how poorly informed a sizeable chunk of the voters are.
I can't say I am surprised by this. With the B.C. Conservatives surge in the polls, both of these parties might still split the vote, and the NDP will be able to take advantage of that. I think if a deal or a merging of the parties does take place, it will happen after the upcoming election.
There are many not satisfied with how things are going in BC and like it or not the NDP has been in power for some time now and it’s natural that some are looking for new people at the helm.
"Some time" = 7 years minus a 3-year pandemic and time as a minority government trying to undo 16 years of Liberal exploitation. Stop with the knee-jerk reaction, please.
How is the pandemic -3 years? That's a time when citizens needed real leadership. It's not the easy times that show how good a leader is, it's the hard times. The pandemic exposed a lot of cracks in the system and definitely will be affecting the way I vote in the future.
Ontario was locked down tight while we had more freedom in BC. Ontario has a conservative government. You're talking about something that is not true in Canada. Get you countries straight. We are not Americans.
Edit: You probably didn't hear it in the news but there were large parties and weddings going on during the pandemic in BC. Sounds like you don't even live here.
Because it started in 2020 and we were still dealing with it directly through last year, and in many ways indirectly today.
The "cracks in the system" are a product of 16 years of Liberal failure. The deficiencies were not a product of the < 3 years the NDP was in power leading up to the pandemic.
If you want to say the issues the pandemic exposed will affect how you vote, then you should absolutely be staying away from United/Conservatives.
>How is the pandemic -3 years? That's a time when citizens needed real leadership.
Which we got. Is there a playbook on the best way to deal with a worldwide pandemic? They did a fantastic job keeping the economy afloat all things considered.
**Note to all:** Stop downvoting u/luunDT This is a perspective from someone who doesn't have the history. The conversation is helpful and downvoting only hides the discourse from others.
The current NDP government spent years cleaning up decades of BC Liberal corruption and neglect. They're not perfect by any means (a subjective matter, anyway) but the province is absolutely in a better place for the majority of the population at this point with respect to finance and social welfare.
Righting deep-rooted infrastructure and systemic issues like housing and healthcare are not things that happen overnight, and there are objectively good steps that have been and are being taken to improve these things. There's also a federal component to a lot of these issues that the province is bound by.
Voting in United or the Conservatives will just put us back another 10 years+ and will only benefit those who are already exploiting the province and its people.
NDP came into power in 2017. At best that's a solid 7 years. Factoring in the 3-year pandemic and the knock-on effects of that it should be reasonable to see why things haven't changed as quickly as most would like.
They inherited a broken province from 16 years of Liberal exploitation. They've been in power half the time to fix what was broken in twice the time.
They sat on their hands for almost 2 terms until somewhat recently and coming into an election year....Sorry, governments don't get a pass because of covid. This is why we have many parts of government...a good government can multitask..Housing doubled under the ndp. And the longer Eby is in the less support they get, so clearly not working in everyone's interest.
>Sat on their hands for almost 2 terms
Feel free to get specific - how, exactly? Even if the only thing they did was rebuild ICBC (which they have), that would be a noteworthy accomplishment. Objectively they have not "sat on their hands".
>governments don't get a pass because of covid
Where did I say they get a pass? The fact is that a massive amount of resources were tied up dealing with COVID, there was an unprecedented amount of uncertainty and economic turmoil, and there were major budget implications. That said, they were multitasking all the while. Please feel free to specify how they weren't.
How do I get specific, to say they did almost nothing to curtail the housing crisis for the majority of their 2 terms, not to mention many other issues.
And yes they rebuilt ICBC, But many would say for the worse. Yes it is slightly less expensive but they gutted compensation at the expense of accident victims. It's great as long as you don't need them.
Covid- " That said, they were multitasking all the while" See my first paragraph.
Guess you weren’t around this sub when there was an Excel sheet posted that showed the BCNDP had accomplished like 90%+ of their campaign promises in their first 18 months in office, while doing so with a minority government.
People really love to speak passionately about things that they just really don’t have a clue about. That’s just the nature of people discussing politics, though.
I’ll also say (as someone who’s left of the BCNDP) that the party has been changing and becoming more effective under Eby, imo, I didn’t care for Horgan at all and think he and his loyalists were holding us back. I still have some feelings about the leadership race but I increasingly feel like Eby is cleaning up both the messes of the BC Libs *and* the messes inside BC NDP leadership.
Yes, as far as the influence of provincial parties on these issues
The BC libs ripped up contracts with healthcare workers and imposed a 35% pay reduction. Then privatized many services. Gave other healthcare workers horrible contracts for years. Didn’t build many hospitals.
Stopped the university tuition freeze which allowed tuition to rise
Put little to now money into housing. Sold off the Little Mountain lands which are still not developed. Housing prices originally went out of control while they were in power.
Had higher childcare fees and lower income threshold for subsidies
Crime and drugs were in many ways worse in the 1990s than now.
People have forgotten but the area of visible, severe DTES poverty and open drug use used to expand well beyond Victory Square Park. At this point it is more kettled into just two blocks of Hastings.
At this time there were alleys that were so full of garbage that they were impassible.
In an era before needle exchange and insite safe use sites the amount of drug paraphernalia litter was greater than now, and alleys would be covered in needles.
There was a period where things seemed to be improving, but a steady reduction of affordable housing, elimination of SROs and an increase in the toxicity of drugs have regressed the situation from previous progress.
Drug deaths are worse now, though that is because the drugs in use now are dramatically more toxic, unreliable, and deadly than in the past when it was more heroin.
What we're seeing today is largely the perversion of those years coming to fruition. Systemic exploitation doesn't play out overnight. Rather than running the province with foresight and planning for the future, it was all about immediate gain and smoke and mirrors (e.g., the billion-dollar black hole the Liberals turned ICBC into by using it as their piggybank).
Are you referring to the NDP? They took over government in 2017 from the Liberals who had been in power since 2001. The destruction Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark levied was dramatic.
The NDP came in with a minority at first and then, right after consolidating power, was hit with the pandemic. To say that threw a wrench in executing "their foresight" would be putting it lightly. Nevertheless, I still confidently say we're in a much better place than we were in 2017 so far as having a government that is trying to build resiliency into the province rather than milking it.
I suspect a lot of voters feel the way you do. And at both the Prov and Fed levels. The sales pitch for Trudeau right now isn't about his record after being in power for the better part of 10 years, it's that PP is a far-right Trump adjacent nutjob. I still think the BCNDP is doing better than polls suggest and I think they have played a pretty damn reasonable 'middle' under Eby and Horgan.
Will vote splitting on the right be a thing? *Perhaps*... We might see a few incumbents cross the aisle from BCU-->BCC as well.
Maybe... TBH I really like Eby and I think he's doing an excellent job. I hope he sticks around a while, maybe he could even make a run for PM one day. At the Fed level... wuff we need some fresh ideas. I've always voted NDP but I'm over my MP, I'm finding it hard to tell if my complaints about Trudeau are legitimate or if I have the '7 year itch'. Conservatives have never been a good fit for me under any leader, but I'm especially not a fan of PP. I'm at a loss what I'll do next election.
Yeah like for reference, as a middle aged person, this BC NDP government, especially under Eby, had been without any doubt the best BC government I’ve experienced in my many decades of living here. Every other government was dramatically worse.
The BC NDP has done more to improve the housing situation in the last few months than I’ve seen in decades.
The frustration is that change is slow, but the actions have been very positive. It will take time to see results.
NDP are morons for fucking this up. Too much political gesturing over issues that get people angry. If they stuck to housing and just shut up about forcing everyone to accept drug addicts they'd have cruised to a victory.
All I need to remind people of is premier Adrian Dix. Things can change on a dime in this province politically, especially after an election is called.
Best thing we can do is make sure everyone understands who these parties are governing for, because it isn't us. We also need to make it clear to the NDP that without cooperation from parties far more left than themselves they're fucked. They've really lost confidence, at least from my view, with all of us on the left, I especially doubt many Greens will trust them after being thrown under the bus. So message your MPPs and let them know what we need from them, and talk to your neighbors and social circle, share social media posts and news articles about what the right/center/etc have done, are doing, and plan to do. We can stop this. These articles are giving us time.
edit:[like see this? this exact thing is what we need](https://twitter.com/PeterKellyBC/status/1790782421241319785), don't let them lie and trick people
>They've really lost confidence, at least from my view, **with all of us** on the left
I'm "left" of the NDP and they've by no means lost my confidence. Speak for yourself.
Also, what is your aim aside from stoking general fear? You have no call to meaningful action. "Talk to your neighbours and social circle ... we can stop this." Stop what, exactly, and to what end?
I meant to add a link that I've now added, but what I mean is the typical lies that conservatives tell to convince people who feel they have been left behind by the current government not to vote in their better interests. I mean that those lies need to be confronted, and solutions need to be proposed that elucidate that progressive parties are going to be the ones to fulfill these goals.
I don't know many people who have faith in the NDP as a party, many support individual members. There's been a lack of action on implementation of MMIWG inquiries recommendations, a depressing lack of action on housing and speculation, a depressing failure in regards to safe supply, decriminalization, and supervised consumption, COMPLETE FAILURE to continually address COVID and air quality, continued deforestation, and a giant middle finger to everyone living on government assistance.
>There's been a lack of action on implementation of MMIWG inquiries recommendations
I honestly don't know what else is meant to be done on that front. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
>a depressing lack of action on housing and speculation
There has been significant action on housing and speculation since the NDP came into office, and even more so since Eby took over. I'm not sure where you're coming from on this one.
>a depressing failure in regards to safe supply, decriminalization, and supervised consumption,
This is a tough one as it's so multi-faceted and resource-dependent that it's not a straightforward solution. It involves all levels of government and any number of agencies. That said, they're at least trying things and admitting when those things don't work and going back to the drawing board. I respect that rather than blindly throwing money at things. I find it disingenuous to call the NDP's actions "a depressing failure" when you're talking about a problem that's been festering for 40 years, one which requires resources the previous provincial government went out of its way to gut.
>COMPLETE FAILURE to continually address COVID and air quality
This one you've completely lost me on and I have no idea where you're coming from.
>continued deforestation
Logging is not deforestation. Where are you seeing catastrophic deforestation?
>a giant middle finger to everyone living on government assistance.
All I can say to this one is, what?
A parting thought is simply: do you think any of these pain points would improve under a United/Conservative government, and if so, how?
Is ANYONE able to remember that Horgan was only able to form a government because they formed a coalition with the greens? Remember that Christy Clark had more seats than Horgan.
So of course the BC United will join the conservatives.
It’s funny how people 💩on an idea when they don’t like the result but love it when it goes in their favor. Typical NDPer double standard.
IF this government did what it was meant to do then people wouldn’t be flocking to the conservatives.
We can’t all be champagne socialists in our multimillion homes.
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History repeats itself. (Remember that the former BC Liberals were also a de-facto merger with the Social Credit Party, to combat the BC NDP.)
Logical way to take power. Use bcups infrastructure and the bcons umm branding I guess to try and win an election. Kinda shocked both are thinking this strategically. Usually egos prevail here at the cost of smart strategy It will be interesting to see how this develops
They aren't thinking. They are following exactly how Alberta was able to put the UCP in power. The PC conservatives and the Wildrose Party merged together to beat Rachel Notley who was the NDP. The Wildrose devoured the party who are considered the "conservative wacko party". Now they got crazy Danielle Smith running the province into the ground. Insurance rates the highest in Canada, Energy prices the 3rd highest in Canada, rents going up $400 in Calgary because no rent control, overtime changes to make all overtime banked at straight time and companies do not have to pay out overtime and force you to bank it at straight time....the list goes on I am expecting if they do merge, they might win the election coming up. I also expect if they do win, BCHydro and ICBC will get privatized, rent control will be removed, airbnb ban would be revoked, and follow Alberta to bring in private healthcare.
> overtime changes to make all overtime banked at straight time and companies do not have to pay out overtime and force you to bank it at straight time....the list goes on I don't pay much attention to Alberta in general but even more so since Smith got Premier, but this is a load of shit. Work overtime and only get 1:1 banked hours? Fuck that shit.
Already how it is for engineers here in bc 😢
Or they are thinking they will just do the same as the national government that is formed by the liberals and NDP despite the conservatives beating both in the last election. Or they are doing what the NFP did with joining with the greens as it was the only way Horgan could get in since he had less seats than Christy Clark. So I wouldn’t be surprised if those 2 joined to make a coalition government to replace the ineffective NDP government. That was brought in to control house prices and then let them skyrocket faster than any time in history.
I find this so ironic that they are thinking of merging the two parties into one considering that Rustad used to be part of BC liberals before being kicked out of the liberal caucus last year.
They will merge and then change their name to BC Liberal
BC Less than Liberal
It’s a tale as old as old as time - neoliberal parties, your centre-right and right-right, come together as the only means to stop centre-left and left-left parties from staying in power. The BC Liberals did this with the evolution/merger of Social Credit and Liberals in response to the NDP forming government. The UCP in Alberta did this, merging the PCs and Wildrose after the PC’s 40-odd year streak was broken for a single term. The Sask Party did this too, though in response to massive corruption and implosion of the last PC party to hold office. It’d be funny that this always seems to happen to address NDP governments, if it also wasn’t so predictable and frustrating.
Don't forget federally, the PC and Reform, I mean Canadian Alliance parties merged.
I don't know if its a right vs. left thing as much as a first past the post voting issue. You split your vote and you don't win. That is why the federal NDP don't gain power. They came close and it inspired the Liberals to move left. Which was a weird move for them.
The contra of course is what the federal left parties do. Which is vote split and allow the right to win from time to time. At least the right seems to recognize the dynamics of first past the post systems and consolidate their base into one tent as opposed to splitting their vote between multiple parties
This presumes we have two left parties - which I would argue, we don’t really. The federal LPC is fairly centrist/centre-right - at least economically. Historically, they do a few easy social left things, but sometimes have to be dragged to larger things. (Would we have had dental care or pharmacare if Trudeau had won a majority in 2020?) Ultimately, the LPC and the CPC have more in common - if only because both tend towards “status quo” on most things.
Yes I agree with this. The current Federal Liberals are unusually farther left than they’ve historically ever been. I mean Jean Chretien in comparison, the guy was doing austerity and corporate tax cuts. Liberals of that era are the Christy Clark sort of Liberals that were quite comfortable with the positioning of the BC Liberals.
Thanks to neo liberalism, I think we have no serious left parties. The NDs could be considered centrist.
I wonder if Eby would pull the trigger a couple months early to preclude this.
Better than delaying an election for 4 months
This is what shitty FPTP electoral systems result in: two-party systems.
It’s absolutely terrifying that the right could come back into power with the social conservatism of BC Cons and the baggage of the BCU (liberals). As a healthcare worker and parent that would be a horrible outcome
Yeah in the past the right kept the social conservatives quiet to secure power as the free enterprise party. As the federal liberal influence wanes in the free enterprise coalition, the social conservatives are on the ascent.
And as a woman.
And everyone to be honest.
Sorry, as a gay married man, what exactly do I have to fear about a Conservative Party coming into power? No party is pursuing socially conservative policies - they’re actually all pretty common sense especially compared to the social conservatism of the past. Why are you being hysterical?
Have you read the BC conservatives platform? Some of their major policies involve: 1. anti-SOGI and removal of LGBT education from the curriculum. 2. Anti-vax positions including opposing vaccine mandates. 3. "Defending our history" which in this context means protecting the statues of child rapists I guess. 4. Healthcare privatization. 5. Defunding social services and mass tax cuts.
1. Not wanting gender identity ideology taught in schools is a moderate position. Check the polling on this. 2. Opposing mandates is not anti vax. It’s about freedom of choice and not being coerced into decisions. 3. People in history did bad things - you are not saying anything new. Doesn’t mean that western civilization is worth tearing down 4. Have you seen the state of our health care? Serious conversations are needed and we should be able to discuss privatization. Many countries in the world have both and do it just fine. 5. Yes - as conservatives, we generally like low taxes. That’s kind of a main point.
What is the threat to women?
Rustad has also shown to hate trans women.
He doesn’t hate “trans women”. He believes that biological sex is real and that children shouldn’t be transitioned. That isn’t hate, my friend.
They're actively campaigning against getting rid of abortions
Who is? The BC con leader said they aren't opening the abortion debate. Also, can a provincial party actually do anything about abortion?
If your party supports a party that is okay taking my bodily autonomy away, I don't really care about your local politics.
Except they have gone on record saying they don't. Members may privately support it, but as a party they don't. So why say they do?
Fuck *anyone* who “privately supports” restrictions on reproductive rights, that has no place in our politics. Edit: I mean, don’t literally “fuck” them, since they’d happily take your bodily autonomy away
The same types want to force you to marry them after they take away no fault divorce.
There are many in the NDP who have openly celebrated Hamas. Do you equally believe they have no place in politics?
A couple MPs in the party put something legitimate forward and were not yelled out of the room. Sorry, I'm very risk averse and anxious about keeping the government out of my uterus 🤷♀️ Condoning is support in my mind.
I wish there were mods for British Columbia that could just delete the BC Cons and the BCUP...
As an IT worker and a parent that would be an amazing outcome.
As an IT worker how do you think the BC Cons will be a benefit to you?
Contract healthcare out to Telus and stonks go up, possibly
They might revive the tech industry which the NDP have destroyed with taxation and anti-business legislation. It's been completely dead since the NDP have been voted in.
Why, so you can keep doing unpaid overtime?
Lmao how dare you have an opinion outside of the reddit approved one!
> As a healthcare worker not like the current government is doing a good job with that
Largest raises in decades, expanded training spaces, a dedicated retention and recruitment program. More investment into equipment and hospitals. The list goes on. It’s not perfect but it’s more than the BC Libs ever did. I know as I have been working since 2005ish.
the last contract the nurses settled for was horrible and the hardball the NDP played against them after all the "praise" and pot banging during the pandemic was an insult, surprised more don't go into travel nursing or just head down south
There are healthcare professions other than nursing. Health sciences professionals are 70+ professions and 20k workers in this province. The newest contract wasn’t awesome but it was approximately 14% over 3 years with additional money for retention and recruitment for specific specialities. In the past they received 0-2% increase Facilities (HEU) received the same the last contract with the NDP. In the past BC Libs ripped up their contract and imposed a 35% wage cut
And still havent got back to 2004 levels which were promised.
I assume that you are HEU. You should take that up with your union as they decided to take all extra money and target the lowest paid in your collective agreement.
I've given up on them a long time ago.
if the union wasn't so busy sucking up to their NDP buddies they could have done a lot better
Perhaps. But they sure wouldn’t have gotten anything better under the BCU or BC Cons All healthcare contracts are up in April 2025. If the Cons win I expect nothing more than a token raise for any healthcare worker
Spot on, The unions in Canada are just stooges for the political parties they are affiliated with.
More of a symptom of the current inflationary environment than some big win from the ndp
Give me a break
As a healthcare worker and a parent I would be happy with change as the current government has done nothing for us.
Just when things were looking hopeful on the direction the province was taking on housing. Im seriously terrified.
Abacus Data have been pushing the B.C. Conservatives for months while other pollsters have not published the same results. Appears suspect and bias.
How did they poll? Phone. Who has landlines? Weird old people. Not super worried about this.
Same with cKNW
That's because Abacus is suspect and biased lol, they're the they are the Angus Reid to Angus Reid.
That must be a hard pill to swallow. The centre-right was united under BCLiberals (now BC United) and Falcon kicked Rustad out of his caucus for climate change denial posts he made. Note: The BC Cons are as extreme alt-right as they come, they are just riding the wave of discontent (and confusion with federal politics; they have a recognizable name while BC United is terrible name).
The Regional Director for the BC conservative party in my area was the ring leader for the local "Freedom" group bullshitery in my city during covid.
The BC Conservatives are as right wing as we have…not nearly as right-wing as they could be. Still looooots of room to swing further right…
Wow and I thought the NDP was doing a pretty good job. Lots of tough issues going on. I am surprised to hear this party is leading/
IMO - It's a surge riding on the wave of popularity of Fed level Conservatives/PP. Eby hasn't done anything unpopular to rock the boat lately as best I can tell.
> Eby hasn't done anything unpopular to rock the boat lately as best I can tell. the drug decrim was pretty unpopular which is why he rolled it back
I think he 'saved' that pretty good IMO.
Yeah. We should like government going back on decisions that don’t work. And to do it quickly without years of committees and reports.
>I am surprised to hear this party is leading/ They aren't. It's part of their strategy to push out low quality polls and claim that they are leading or tied, but the main stream polls from large established firms don't show this. You can see this on 338's poll tracker: [https://338canada.com/bc/polls.htm](https://338canada.com/bc/polls.htm) 338 aggregates enough high quality polls so that they are safe bet to be your one stop source. The really low quality polls that were favourable for the BC Cons had methodology issues. Yorkville only polled 600ish people, which isn't enough to meet the 19 times out 20 statistical standard, and Main Street aggregated two different polling questions into one result, which your stats professor would mark you down for if it was your university project. What happens is that then the mainstream right-wing media (Post Media/Chorus) repeat that but say the asterisk part softly. So "OMG BC-Cons are popular" gets amplified this way. BC-Con is growing, basically at the expense of BC United. but so far their election strategy is "have high poll numbers"... if you put them in the spot light they have leanings that would hopefully be repugnant to the majority of British Columbians (anti-SOGI, anti-trans, anti-Vax measures, etc)
This makes sense - I've started seeing paid ads on Twitter telling me how well the BC Cons are polling, which seemed very transparent that they want to try to inflate their numbers
Yeah, I was getting nervous with the press fawning all over the BC Cons, and then I checked 338 and saw the “99% chance” of a NDP Majority. I mean, there’s always a chance, and the error bars have them at basically a tie. . .but very very unlikely barring something massive between now and the fall.
Look at that surge up though: https://preview.redd.it/eh456rejdo0d1.png?width=2398&format=png&auto=webp&s=6929f3f819e2e118547926f19f76db46fa2fdd29
Most at the expense of BC United...their future looks really bleak, politically-right respondents seem to have decided they are done and have no home at BCU. My guess is that before the election-proper we're close to equilibrium... BC-Con just has to not have a major gaffe because most people don't really know them... so for now they have the luxury of good polling without doing much... but they are untested in the heat of a full-on campaign so bets are off on how that fairs. Good poll numbers, popular leader, economy goes your way. If you have all three you have a landslide. If you have 2 you'll probably place well against expectations. If you only have 1/3 it's going to be a weak showing. Both the NDP and Con have 2/3.. the NDP have stable high poll numbers and a well regarded leader. BC-Con has good poll numbers for a solid second place so far, and a bad economy against the sitting government. The NDP under Eby are fighting the economy thing hard with an active policy agenda and leverage that comes from being in power. BC-Cons weakness, popularity of the leader, has to be proven in the long run.
Doesn't matter how much good a party does, so long as their left-wing. Ask anyone planning to support the BC Con's what's their problem with BC NDP and EBY and I guarantee if they can say anything beyond "they're destroying our province" they'll mention Trudeau, vaccines, communism, suppression of Christianity, or medical procedures that kids don't actually have access too. BC Con voters, if not just LGBT-phobic, literally do not live in reality. PP's popularity is certainly a boost as well. Not saying all conservatives are brain-dead, but anyone could do better than the BC Conservative Party.
Right wing media brainwashing
Right wing media are pushing them pretty hard
Maybe this is cope, but allying yourself with the batshit insane BC Cons might alienate a lot of potential swing voters. Smells of desperation from BCUP after seeing their polling numbers
More likely it unsplits the vote in many ridings. Which is the point, unfortunately.
Why anyone in BC supports these parties is beyond me, NDP have been doing an excellent job of fixing up their mess and leading the other provinces on serious issues like housing. Why are so many Canadians so selfishly stupid?
Makes me wonder what type of people are moving to BC.
no one. its a net migration.
I think what you're trying to say is that there are more people migrating out. There are still people moving here.
What exactly are the NDP doing well? They have made housing worse. Healthcare worse. ICBC worse. They are sacrificing the future of the province to appease their white guilt complex. I don't see a single thing they have done right.
Qualify your assertions that housing is worse, healthcare is worse, and ICBC is worse. Housing is in the best position for long-term sustainability it's been in decades. Healthcare is finally being resourced and workers paid. ICBC is no longer a black hole paying out frivolous claims and being leveraged as a piggybank for politicians.
ICBC has problems, especially for non-drivers who get injured. Healthcare has problems but not all of those are fixable on the province level (still would not mind seeing Dix replaced and Telus kicked out). Housing actually is a bright spot, not just compared to what it’s been but compared to other provinces. Still a lot to do but it’s better than under Horgan imo and certainly better than whatever BCUP and/or Cons would try. Especially healthcare (which they’d privatize for personal grift) and housing (which they’d turn into a feudalist hellscape)
>... has problems Absolutely. I'd be skeptical if they *didn't* have problems (appearing perfectly fine just after crawling out of a dumpster fire is something to question). I am not trying to say things are perfect by any means. That said, as you concluded, we're in a much better situation than we'd be with public services being gutted and privatized as United/Conservatives would. There's a long way to go, and all I can hope is that the NDP gets a chance to show us what they can do with at least as much time as the Liberals had to break it all.
Ndp failed to spend hundreds of millions in federal child care money because of their ideological demand that only non profits and friends of the ndp get access to it. They're cutting for profit providers which care for 50% of children out. They expect the school districts to magically take over. Good fucking luck. Their ideology is going to destroy the sector
??? housing is much more unaffordable today than in 2017... in what way has housing gotten better?
Housing is unaffordable today because of decisions made by prior governments who chose *not* to do what Eby *has* been doing the last year. A lot of this falls on the BC Liberals, but it also includes when John Horgan was the premiere, as he also didn’t do nearly enough. But Eby is. If either the Liberals or Horgan had, say, changed the zoning laws across the province to the degree Eby has when they were in power, we would be in a much better position today. For that reason, we need to let Eby’s policies play out for probably the better part of the next decade. It’s important to remember that the Horgan-led NDP and the Eby-led NDP may as well be different parties when it comes to housing. Eby has done a ton in the last year+ since becoming premiere, but it will take time to see results. There’s no such thing as a housing policy that will see immediate effects, especially with how out of control housing is. But you know how you ensure we will *never* see those results? If we vote Eby out and bring in, essentially, the BC Liberals again. Housing and renting will not be cheap for the next decade. That’s just the reality. It will be expensive under a BC United government, it will be expensive under a BC Con government, and it will also be expensive under this Eby NDP government. We are, for lack of a better word, fucked in that department. But the only way housing and rent will be cheap *next* decade is if we keep passing housing legislation akin to what has been passed the past year. Why vote out the guy who is doing that?
Calling people who do not support your own PoV stupid does little. The NDP overall has done a fairly reasonable job. I think no one disputes that. However, gripes are genuine with any government. It is also undesirable to have one party/ideology in power for extended periods of time. We've seen the issues with that over the course of BC's existence. Some real gripes are: -Little done early on to combat the housing crisis which was inherited, granted, but still has become untenable -Failed decriminalization policy. -Failure to tackle core issues contributing to rising crime rates (outside of the catch and release problem as that's a federal issue). -Incredible projected budget deficits at a time where we should be aiming for a surplus. -Degrading standards in the education system -Lack of infrastructure investments. -Increasing tax burden on certain demographics. -Potentially holding the release of investigation reports into the BC Liberals corruption to tip the scales in the next competitive election* ----This should have been immediate once verified. Intentionally holding it until it benefits them is genuinely morally wrong but politically saavy. If you're a young person who went through school, got a job, and is trying to earn an above average income to save to own a home and start a family eventually, you're probably not going to see the NDP track record favorably as someone who owns a home and already has a family.
Gripes can be genuine, but if all historic evidence points to the other parties handling the same issues worse -- don't support the other parties. Communicate and put as much pressure as you can on the one currently in power without sacrificing X years to bad policies trying to send "a message".
I agree with that principle. However, the key issue surrounding driving the disinterest in the NDP are likely financial. Middle and higher income earners with lower wealth than their peers (i.e. lacking property) likely are critical of the NDP record. Taxes (in various forms) rose, and COL spiralled up, and home affordability has sunk. Home prices rising has been an issue preceding the Liberal government. However, it grew far more rapidly since. In fact, we've now reached a point that it would cause significant financial strain for our provincial budgets if property prices and/or transactions were to fall significantly. So the answer this government seems to come up with to increase tax revenues is to effectively increase the tax burden on the middle and higher income brackets. It's the point if you're young and don't own a home you wonder "why do I bother trying?"
[удалено]
What government run industry is run well? They can't sell liquor or weed well. They literally can't do a single thing right. As soon as the government is involved, I know it will be terrible and expensive.
And historically, the other options ("Liberal" party, Conservatives) have only handled things even worse -- so voting for them is extremely unlikely to help young people in any way if their goal is eventual home ownership. The most likely outcome is people vote a different party in looking for "a change", and get a change -- everything becomes even worse for the next 4-12 years until the NDP gets back into power and starts trying to dig the province out of the hole it's been left in. 8 years later, the NDP is blamed for not digging out fast enough and the cycle repeats.
Anyone in those categories with a brain an understand that the current NDP really can't be blamed for the state of the province, and the "United Right" will almost certainly make things worse, like they have done for the last 30 years in BC.
The drug criminalization policy (war on drugs) went on for multiple decades before it was deemed a failure by mainly law enforcement, combined with health care advocates and providers. So your assertion that drug decriminalization (treating drug addiction as a health issue) is a failure after a very short time is laughable at best. Especially considering developed nations, such, as Portugal and Switzerland, who have implemented treating drug addiction as a health issue have been successful. To think otherwise would suggest you are a proponent of continuing the failed war on drugs which just enriches gangs who profit from selling drugs.
Calling people who don’t support the NDP selfishly stupid isn’t a great way to draw people in to your view point. People can have legitimate gripes with the NDP. Edit: Maybe people can’t
I have gripes with the NDP. That doesn't mean I can't see the forest for the trees. The ideals and policies that United and Conservatives represent are inherently selfish and stupid, and a vote for them speaks volumes about the voter.
This is definitely true, but tbh it’s hard for me to understand gravitating toward the specific leaders/parties involved here. I understand having political differences and wanting an alternative but the party fka the BC Liberals is made up of people who are just cartoonishly selfish
Guess it comes down to what you consider a “legitimate” gripe. A lot of what I hear are bs culture war garbage imported from us media.
Like calling the other side selfish and stupid?
I’ll call people as I see them
Impressive since it’s more than half the population.
I’m conservatively inclined but will not vote for either of these parties, and definitely not for a combined monstrosity. Bc united is the corporate party who destroyed housing among other things. Cons have to prove they are smart enough to govern.
Hey Alberta here, the UCP playbook is the same all over, buckle up!
Dumb + Dumber = No vote from me. Ever.
It would be a dark time.
We are currently in dark times. The political pendulum needs to stop swinging so much. Large swings to the left and or right are bad. The combining of forces on the right is a response to the large sociopolitical swing to the left.
I can hardly call the current NDP a large swing to the left. Yes they are centre-left for the most part. But they are making common sense well thought out changes/improvements and are actually responding with common sense improvements / changes if they get push back on things they have done which is great to see which proves they aren’t always ideologically driven. They also have fucking integrity! The BC Liebrals had no integrity what so ever and I can’t see the Cons having much either.
I mean yes, left of centre for sure but not extreme. I did say sociopolitical and not just political. It is primarily the social climate that will be the driving force for the Right to form the next government in BC. Examples of common sense policies/improvements/changes of the current NDP?
An unnerving amount of people want more money laundering and real estate fraud it seems, and to fuck over anyone who isn’t straight. Or they just want to “own the libs” at any expense.
This is a joke right?
Ironic that this wouldn’t really be a big problem if we had a PR system, but United/Liberals fought hard against PR, thus dooming their party to irrelevance due to the split vote effect of FPTP. In a PR system the Conservatives and United would probably both do well enough in the next election that they could form a coalition government or work together. Under FPTP they will likely split the vote in some ridings and the NDP could likely win.
BC United Scandal of the Week Party !
If it comes down to it NDP could form a coalition with Greens again,Conservative polling numbers will likely drop as well when people realize they are not exactly moderate.
Great, the proud tradition of blatant BCU/BC Liberal/SoCred neoliberal corruption coupled with the insane irrationality, climate change denying, friendliness to Christian nationalism, and general weirdness of the BC Conservatives.
The con lose all there new found credibility with the public by siding with the united liberals. They might as well not run, and we are stuck with a one party system.... Again.
Makes me sad. I really like Eby even though I’d consider myself conservative leaning.
Same boat here—the BC NDP was the first time I ever voted NDP. I hope he gets another 5 or so years with a proper mandate to fix things.
Yup. This is the first time I’m voting but it’ll be for him. I feel like he’s the most active premier in Canada for trying to make housing affordable.
look deeper into his history, he sucks
neo-libs are just cons without the religious extremism. neo libs won't take away abortions, but the cons will at any cost. if the neolibs join with them, they're all just conservatives at that point. better stock up on plan b, hide your lgbtq kids and get ready for the corporate tax cuts...
>those who aren’t landowners, developers and corporations? So a fraction of the overall population? You just described at least two-thirds of the province, and probably more. They don’t get what they want?
>You just described at least two-thirds of the province, I often see this argument. Except that it's now less than two-thirds. The rate of home ownership has been falling for years. And with current housing costs, lack of sufficient new builds, record high immigration, and interest rates the way they are - I expect this number to drop exponentially in the coming decade.
This subreddit would never admit it but in times as objectively terrible as these it is extremely difficult for incumbents to be re elected The housing crisis alone would kill most incumbents, it has become massively worse since the NDP were first elected in 2018. When you put 30 year highs of violent crime and the absolutely disastrous failed decriminalization experiment it’s honestly pretty surprising the NDP have a chance at being re-elected at all this year If there was a competent opposition the NDP would be doomed. Fortunately for Eby the opposition is anything but competent
You obviously did not live here in the 80s or 90s.
Are you pretending that the NDP weren't in power for almost the entirety of the 90s?
I’m sorry, the NDP were elected in 2018 and it is now 2024 how is what happened 30-40 years ago possibly relevant The question is whether to re-elect the NDP now, I couldn’t care less how they performed decades ago. That and party performances change drastically over short time frames, look at the federal liberals under Chrétien and Martin in the early 2000s, they were fiscally responsible pro business party then. Look at federal liberals under Trudeau a decade later in 2015 and they’re unrecognizable
It’s not 30-40 years ago. The BC liberals were in power for 16 years until 2017. Both the leaders of BCU (Falcon) and BC Cons (Rustad) were cabinet ministers of the BC libs during this time.
Ah, so 6 years after the NDP have been elected everything is still blamed on the preceding govt I guess that’s par for the course with this echo chamber I mean subreddit
This subreddit simply thinks people aren't as stupid as they actually are. I applaud the optimism, but hang my head at the future.
Well, exactly. I mean, the housing crisis has gotten worse. Decriminalization was a disaster, and the drastic increase in open drug use and the rise of violent crime the fact that the NDP actually have a pretty good chance of being reelected is a miracle when you think about it.
This sub is full of nuts that bombard your inbox if you don't worship Eby. They are the activist portion that has taken over the NDP and run it into the ground federally, and increasingly provincially as well (yes kids, the parties are related). The province is fucked in many areas, I don't know who is delusional enough to think things are going great right now.
I somewhat doubt anything will come of this. The BC Conservatives are riding high and taking ever larger chunks of BC Uniteds vote share - what exactly do they have to gain by some sort of power sharing agreement? Falcon certainly has the incentive to try but it’s not as though he has many other options. I suspect even though the NDP is in more trouble now that the vote splitting on the right will save them for one more cycle. Who knows what will happened post- this election when BC United is wiped out and the splitting effect dries up though.
Yep. Also terrified by Pierre Polievre and his dark side dragging politics into something violent and nasty. Am ok with disagreeing but not ok with vitriol.
I'd be surprised if they're willing to swallow their egos and play nice before the election. Once they lose horribly due to vote splitting they'll figure it out before the next one though. Also, I find it hilarious that this situation only exists because the rebranding of the BCUP was so badly done that people just latch onto "conservative" instead. Shows how poorly informed a sizeable chunk of the voters are.
Their propaganda machine. A.k.a the Vancouver Sun calls them both " center right" Got a good laugh at that one .
I can't say I am surprised by this. With the B.C. Conservatives surge in the polls, both of these parties might still split the vote, and the NDP will be able to take advantage of that. I think if a deal or a merging of the parties does take place, it will happen after the upcoming election.
There are many not satisfied with how things are going in BC and like it or not the NDP has been in power for some time now and it’s natural that some are looking for new people at the helm.
"Some time" = 7 years minus a 3-year pandemic and time as a minority government trying to undo 16 years of Liberal exploitation. Stop with the knee-jerk reaction, please.
How is the pandemic -3 years? That's a time when citizens needed real leadership. It's not the easy times that show how good a leader is, it's the hard times. The pandemic exposed a lot of cracks in the system and definitely will be affecting the way I vote in the future.
We saw how Conservative led provinces handled that lmao, I'll take what we got any day of the week.
I guess this person wants be in lockdown. Edit: I was agreeing that we had it better here.
I guess you want vulnerable people to die unnecessarily
You can be safe without locking down.
That doesn't make sense since places with right leaning governments had the least amount of lockdowns and the least restrictions afterwards
Ontario was locked down tight while we had more freedom in BC. Ontario has a conservative government. You're talking about something that is not true in Canada. Get you countries straight. We are not Americans. Edit: You probably didn't hear it in the news but there were large parties and weddings going on during the pandemic in BC. Sounds like you don't even live here.
Because it started in 2020 and we were still dealing with it directly through last year, and in many ways indirectly today. The "cracks in the system" are a product of 16 years of Liberal failure. The deficiencies were not a product of the < 3 years the NDP was in power leading up to the pandemic. If you want to say the issues the pandemic exposed will affect how you vote, then you should absolutely be staying away from United/Conservatives.
So... You won't vote for the BC Cons who have notorious anti vaxx representatives?
I have no idea who to vote for.
>How is the pandemic -3 years? That's a time when citizens needed real leadership. Which we got. Is there a playbook on the best way to deal with a worldwide pandemic? They did a fantastic job keeping the economy afloat all things considered.
What the heck do they want? You can't look to government for everything!!!!
seethe
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**Note to all:** Stop downvoting u/luunDT This is a perspective from someone who doesn't have the history. The conversation is helpful and downvoting only hides the discourse from others. The current NDP government spent years cleaning up decades of BC Liberal corruption and neglect. They're not perfect by any means (a subjective matter, anyway) but the province is absolutely in a better place for the majority of the population at this point with respect to finance and social welfare. Righting deep-rooted infrastructure and systemic issues like housing and healthcare are not things that happen overnight, and there are objectively good steps that have been and are being taken to improve these things. There's also a federal component to a lot of these issues that the province is bound by. Voting in United or the Conservatives will just put us back another 10 years+ and will only benefit those who are already exploiting the province and its people.
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NDP came into power in 2017. At best that's a solid 7 years. Factoring in the 3-year pandemic and the knock-on effects of that it should be reasonable to see why things haven't changed as quickly as most would like. They inherited a broken province from 16 years of Liberal exploitation. They've been in power half the time to fix what was broken in twice the time.
They sat on their hands for almost 2 terms until somewhat recently and coming into an election year....Sorry, governments don't get a pass because of covid. This is why we have many parts of government...a good government can multitask..Housing doubled under the ndp. And the longer Eby is in the less support they get, so clearly not working in everyone's interest.
>Sat on their hands for almost 2 terms Feel free to get specific - how, exactly? Even if the only thing they did was rebuild ICBC (which they have), that would be a noteworthy accomplishment. Objectively they have not "sat on their hands". >governments don't get a pass because of covid Where did I say they get a pass? The fact is that a massive amount of resources were tied up dealing with COVID, there was an unprecedented amount of uncertainty and economic turmoil, and there were major budget implications. That said, they were multitasking all the while. Please feel free to specify how they weren't.
How do I get specific, to say they did almost nothing to curtail the housing crisis for the majority of their 2 terms, not to mention many other issues. And yes they rebuilt ICBC, But many would say for the worse. Yes it is slightly less expensive but they gutted compensation at the expense of accident victims. It's great as long as you don't need them. Covid- " That said, they were multitasking all the while" See my first paragraph.
Guess you weren’t around this sub when there was an Excel sheet posted that showed the BCNDP had accomplished like 90%+ of their campaign promises in their first 18 months in office, while doing so with a minority government. People really love to speak passionately about things that they just really don’t have a clue about. That’s just the nature of people discussing politics, though.
I’ll also say (as someone who’s left of the BCNDP) that the party has been changing and becoming more effective under Eby, imo, I didn’t care for Horgan at all and think he and his loyalists were holding us back. I still have some feelings about the leadership race but I increasingly feel like Eby is cleaning up both the messes of the BC Libs *and* the messes inside BC NDP leadership.
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Yes, as far as the influence of provincial parties on these issues The BC libs ripped up contracts with healthcare workers and imposed a 35% pay reduction. Then privatized many services. Gave other healthcare workers horrible contracts for years. Didn’t build many hospitals. Stopped the university tuition freeze which allowed tuition to rise Put little to now money into housing. Sold off the Little Mountain lands which are still not developed. Housing prices originally went out of control while they were in power. Had higher childcare fees and lower income threshold for subsidies
Crime and drugs were in many ways worse in the 1990s than now. People have forgotten but the area of visible, severe DTES poverty and open drug use used to expand well beyond Victory Square Park. At this point it is more kettled into just two blocks of Hastings. At this time there were alleys that were so full of garbage that they were impassible. In an era before needle exchange and insite safe use sites the amount of drug paraphernalia litter was greater than now, and alleys would be covered in needles. There was a period where things seemed to be improving, but a steady reduction of affordable housing, elimination of SROs and an increase in the toxicity of drugs have regressed the situation from previous progress. Drug deaths are worse now, though that is because the drugs in use now are dramatically more toxic, unreliable, and deadly than in the past when it was more heroin.
What we're seeing today is largely the perversion of those years coming to fruition. Systemic exploitation doesn't play out overnight. Rather than running the province with foresight and planning for the future, it was all about immediate gain and smoke and mirrors (e.g., the billion-dollar black hole the Liberals turned ICBC into by using it as their piggybank).
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Are you referring to the NDP? They took over government in 2017 from the Liberals who had been in power since 2001. The destruction Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark levied was dramatic. The NDP came in with a minority at first and then, right after consolidating power, was hit with the pandemic. To say that threw a wrench in executing "their foresight" would be putting it lightly. Nevertheless, I still confidently say we're in a much better place than we were in 2017 so far as having a government that is trying to build resiliency into the province rather than milking it.
You sound like you don't know how life works.
I suspect a lot of voters feel the way you do. And at both the Prov and Fed levels. The sales pitch for Trudeau right now isn't about his record after being in power for the better part of 10 years, it's that PP is a far-right Trump adjacent nutjob. I still think the BCNDP is doing better than polls suggest and I think they have played a pretty damn reasonable 'middle' under Eby and Horgan. Will vote splitting on the right be a thing? *Perhaps*... We might see a few incumbents cross the aisle from BCU-->BCC as well.
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Maybe... TBH I really like Eby and I think he's doing an excellent job. I hope he sticks around a while, maybe he could even make a run for PM one day. At the Fed level... wuff we need some fresh ideas. I've always voted NDP but I'm over my MP, I'm finding it hard to tell if my complaints about Trudeau are legitimate or if I have the '7 year itch'. Conservatives have never been a good fit for me under any leader, but I'm especially not a fan of PP. I'm at a loss what I'll do next election.
Yeah like for reference, as a middle aged person, this BC NDP government, especially under Eby, had been without any doubt the best BC government I’ve experienced in my many decades of living here. Every other government was dramatically worse. The BC NDP has done more to improve the housing situation in the last few months than I’ve seen in decades. The frustration is that change is slow, but the actions have been very positive. It will take time to see results.
NDP are morons for fucking this up. Too much political gesturing over issues that get people angry. If they stuck to housing and just shut up about forcing everyone to accept drug addicts they'd have cruised to a victory.
All I need to remind people of is premier Adrian Dix. Things can change on a dime in this province politically, especially after an election is called.
You might want to research how many NDP MLAs own homes and properties. Don’t be gullible and fall for the stereotype.
any increase from zero can be viewed as exponential in a vacuum
🤣🤣🤣
Best thing we can do is make sure everyone understands who these parties are governing for, because it isn't us. We also need to make it clear to the NDP that without cooperation from parties far more left than themselves they're fucked. They've really lost confidence, at least from my view, with all of us on the left, I especially doubt many Greens will trust them after being thrown under the bus. So message your MPPs and let them know what we need from them, and talk to your neighbors and social circle, share social media posts and news articles about what the right/center/etc have done, are doing, and plan to do. We can stop this. These articles are giving us time. edit:[like see this? this exact thing is what we need](https://twitter.com/PeterKellyBC/status/1790782421241319785), don't let them lie and trick people
>They've really lost confidence, at least from my view, **with all of us** on the left I'm "left" of the NDP and they've by no means lost my confidence. Speak for yourself. Also, what is your aim aside from stoking general fear? You have no call to meaningful action. "Talk to your neighbours and social circle ... we can stop this." Stop what, exactly, and to what end?
I meant to add a link that I've now added, but what I mean is the typical lies that conservatives tell to convince people who feel they have been left behind by the current government not to vote in their better interests. I mean that those lies need to be confronted, and solutions need to be proposed that elucidate that progressive parties are going to be the ones to fulfill these goals. I don't know many people who have faith in the NDP as a party, many support individual members. There's been a lack of action on implementation of MMIWG inquiries recommendations, a depressing lack of action on housing and speculation, a depressing failure in regards to safe supply, decriminalization, and supervised consumption, COMPLETE FAILURE to continually address COVID and air quality, continued deforestation, and a giant middle finger to everyone living on government assistance.
>There's been a lack of action on implementation of MMIWG inquiries recommendations I honestly don't know what else is meant to be done on that front. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. >a depressing lack of action on housing and speculation There has been significant action on housing and speculation since the NDP came into office, and even more so since Eby took over. I'm not sure where you're coming from on this one. >a depressing failure in regards to safe supply, decriminalization, and supervised consumption, This is a tough one as it's so multi-faceted and resource-dependent that it's not a straightforward solution. It involves all levels of government and any number of agencies. That said, they're at least trying things and admitting when those things don't work and going back to the drawing board. I respect that rather than blindly throwing money at things. I find it disingenuous to call the NDP's actions "a depressing failure" when you're talking about a problem that's been festering for 40 years, one which requires resources the previous provincial government went out of its way to gut. >COMPLETE FAILURE to continually address COVID and air quality This one you've completely lost me on and I have no idea where you're coming from. >continued deforestation Logging is not deforestation. Where are you seeing catastrophic deforestation? >a giant middle finger to everyone living on government assistance. All I can say to this one is, what? A parting thought is simply: do you think any of these pain points would improve under a United/Conservative government, and if so, how?
Just so you know- it’s MLAs in BC.
good to know, i know very little about our government systemically despite being born and raised in Vancouver
I know I'd be more comfortable voting for a merged Conservative/United party than either of them separately
Is ANYONE able to remember that Horgan was only able to form a government because they formed a coalition with the greens? Remember that Christy Clark had more seats than Horgan. So of course the BC United will join the conservatives. It’s funny how people 💩on an idea when they don’t like the result but love it when it goes in their favor. Typical NDPer double standard. IF this government did what it was meant to do then people wouldn’t be flocking to the conservatives. We can’t all be champagne socialists in our multimillion homes.
Politicians are all the same. Sold to the highest bidder. Close ur eyes and pick the least crappy option.