I wonder how many MLAs regret joining the political party of the month club.
Those clout chasing bigots? Oh they relish the attention. But ya I agree lol
Well, I guess there’s a chance that the current chaos will benefit the greens, as the only semi-stable alternative to the incumbents, and with the backdrop of Trumpian right-wing politicians lurking in the shadows.
I’ve a feeling this may be a mis-calculation by Eby. Voters will see this as a blatant opportunistic political move, at a time when we really didn’t need an election - it’s not about what’s best for the electorate/province, but rather the NDP acting like toads. Most economic/well-being stats aren’t doing great, so many voters will likely be looking for ‘something different’.
It’s sorta like choosing a flavour of Ice Cream for dessert. There’s one flavour listed that you’ve had every day for nine years and you generally dislike at this point, and then there are three or four unknown flavours that look/sound pretty sketchy which were added to the menu yesterday (and are “totally not Trump flavoured shit-cream, trust us!”), and one weird green vegan “ice cream” that swears its maybe not terrible. Whatever you choose, you gotta eat every day for the next 4 years. Do you go with your traditional daily disappointment, gamble on something new, or just skip the choice altogether and hope someone else figures it out?
I expect potentially record low voter turn out.
I could see an NDP minority, with the Greens being the deciding votes on a lot of issues. Eby is going to lose seats because of this.
Chek News did a video discussion segment on whether the snap election would be good or not…
I feel like the local media and the UBCM have been saying “snap election? snap election?” continuously like the seagulls from Finding Nemo, that hearing it now is not really a surprise for people moderately in the know. For people not in the know, the municipal elections would be just as much news to them and possibly they’d think it convenient as a 2-for-1 election season. I think the “opportunism” critique will become an afterthought within days, at most. Political analysts have been figuratively screaming at Eby to take advantage of BC Conservative chaos over the summer so some are pretty much surprised he’s been as patient as he was.
I think the earlier 2026 issues like DRIPA and condo buyout suggestion are largely behind Eby, but a valid potential weakness is that since Oct 2024, no big province wide ribbon-cutting accomplishments have happened that the BCNDP can really tout. (Repurposing the Site C dam worker housing is a small one that happened, the Stalewasem bridge opening is another). And typical support bases have had run ins with the government (public sector union strikes, Indigenous groups, environmentalists etc.).
So all in all, we’ll see.
Yeah, the credibility of most political analyst sorts kinda went out the window with their predictions on recent elections, and their generally unchecked left-bias positions (which contributed to their ‘analysis’ being junk).
I don’t think many would deny something like competing in a 100 meter dash against no opponents, if you have the option, is likely going to result in you winning the race. And people who are only concerned with the technicalities of winning the race, would encourage you to do just that. But when you have an audience watching you time the start of the race so that you’re the only competitor, with the intention of not giving people a choice/chance to have viable alternatives, its a shit move that should be punished – and it’s highly unlikely that the crowd is going to be polite as you go through the motions of collecting your first place prize against a field of 0 competitors.
Another part of this, is that it’s an authoritarian move. In some ways, it’s more informative to look at current politics as authoritarian vs individualistic (libertarian?), than left vs right, as both left and right are trending heavily towards authoritarian, anti-democratic/anti-individual practices. It undermines basic democratic principles, for the benefit of an authoritarian government that wants to make it “look” like they’re giving the people a choice, but in reality they aren’t. They’re setting things up so that there is no realistic alternative. It’s a few degrees softer than places like Russia / NK / China, but its a similar playbook as when those dictatorships overtly ban opposition candidates from ballots. “Putin was re-elected! He has the support of the people!” … yea, no. He was just the one candidate that didnt accidentally fall out a window.
On CBC Power & Politics today it was described as a gamble. Lots for the BCNDP to potentially lose but lots also to potentially gain. It worked for Doug Ford but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for Eby.
The BC Cons were a bit of an unknown in Oct 2024, they were close to power but then fell apart continuously over two years. The same folks are in and around the alphabet soup of conservative parties that might reconstitute themselves into something, but one thing I am confident in is that trying the same playbook as just be anti-Eby and try to look competent for long enough, isn’t going to work out for them. Eby has room for one or two unforced errors compared to the chaotic summer of Conservative unforced errors, but I’ll keep my feelers out on the rate a new unified centre-right party picks up steam. Oh, and up until Friday, KLF was confident she wasn’t going anywhere, the BCNDP were already signalling election moves and didn’t just start thinking about it when they became leaderless, so it’s not that strong of a point even if it is a technically unprecedented situation to call an election without a decided election leader.
Grab the popcorn, this gonna be quite the ride.
Having a provincial election right after the local one is gonna be really confusing for busy voters.
The contempt for leftists from the CBC is so transparent with their blatant misspelling of Emily Lowan’s name as “Emily Loewen” meanwhile they get everyone else’s name impeccably right.
Provincially, voters will be choosing whether to keep the NDP in power after nine years or take the legislature in another direction, choosing from a slate of candidates to the political right.
Totally ignores the other leftist parties.
