Eby And The Damage Done

Could The NDP Lose?

If David Eby and the BC NDP don’t get their heads out of their asses they will lose this fall.

There are a lot of theoretically interesting arguments against this, and I have been biting my tongue because some of them are interesting. Are IVR pollsters potentially overreading the BC Con vote? Sure. Is BC United maybe stronger than those polls say? Maybe. Are the NDP really in the high 30s in vote share, like Mainstreet today has? Maybe it’s more like 42. But here’s the thing, squabbling about the details is a bit like arguing about who forgot to close the gate properly when an animal has gotten out.

Eby’s gambit, that BC was ready for transformational change on multiple fronts, is under threat. It’s not shocking that an Opposition actually prepared to oppose the government is finding headway, because the thing about transformational change is that it is a really fucking hard thing to implement in a way that isn’t rocky. From housing reforms, which, as needed as they are are obviously controversial amongst those who have benefitted from the housing status quo, to drug decriminalization and a host of other issues this government has been a progressive dream. Eby has been substantially more radical than John Horgan.

Now, controversial doesn’t inherently mean something is bad – most progress in this country or in most others were originally controversial. Civil rights, gay marriage, universal medicare, and a host of others were controversial. But they were also bumpy rides, but the bumps are lost to time. It’s possible that in 15 years we’ll look at decriminalization as some form of immense success, and the issues are forgotten. But right, Eby has an election to win, and those bumps are hitting fucking hard.

The problem for the BC NDP stems from both policy choices – the weird move on ending letter grades, the way that decriminalization has been managed, and their relationships with municipalities (on housing and outside of it) – but also arrogance. The BC NDP have been expecting a landslide basically since that first Mainstreet poll last year had the Cons in second place and the floodgates away from Falcon’s BC FC started in earnest. And that arrogance might end their government if their heads don’t get out of their asses fast.

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There are a lot of good reasons to think that the NDP will be fine. There is, genuinely, a case I can make that everything is fine. Mainstreet’s federal vote intention in BC has the CPC at 55%, and they’ve been a bit higher on the CPC than consensus there for the last few years. It’s possible that they have the delta right, but that the CPC are at 45 and the Cons provincially are 30. That’s possible. Hell, Research Co had the NDP lead at 45/27 yesterday. It’s not a guarantee, by any means.

David Coletto has pointed out that IVR (or, to those not addicted to the jargon, phone pollsters without live callers) pollsters all grossly overestimated the PPC in 2021. IVR is susceptible to overstating parties with particularly enthusiastic supporters, as the 2019 Green surge showed. It was almost always IVR pollsters who had the Greens at or above 10, and the IVR pollsters had the PPC flirting with 10 in 2021 even at the end. Here's the thing, though – I don’t believe that’s why.

The IVR stuff might be true, but here’s the thing – even if they’re really at 33% and the NDP’s at 42% the trend line is still the same, and now the BC Cons are about to benefit from the advantage of First Past The Post. The BC FC vote has a minimal floor to it, because the thing is, if you want an anti-NDP government voters will run from you sooner than you can finish saying “formerly BC Liberal”.

What might end up happening is a version of what happened in Ontario 2018, where the race hits a tie, the insurgents get hit with a stiff ad blitz and more direct focus, the wackier members of the insurgent party take the spotlight, and the formerly strong party gets a high teens vote and deprives the insurgents government. Maybe that happens, but the thing is, the Ontario Liberals walked into 2018 the government, which made the coverage of that race a three way contest. If BC FC walks into the writ period where they are in Mainstreet today, they won’t be covered, and it’s a lot easier to see them ending up at 12% by election day. But more importantly, Eby shouldn’t be in a position where getting a lucky vote split is what he needs.

Today the BC Government is asking for Ottawa to allow it to amend its decriminalization pilot to include prohibitions on drug use in public places like hospitals and parks, which has been subject to a lot of scrutiny in recent weeks and months. It’s the kind of thing that in an ideal world would have been ironed out before decriminalization occurred, but that’s the price paid for trying to move quickly on multiple fronts. I get that these things have issues, but the problem for the NDP is that Horgan acted like he was a non-ideological leader, willing to do idiosyncratic things when they were right. Caring for the environment but supporting LNG, for example, was an example of that.

Now, Eby’s government seems to produce a headline every other week that makes even my progressive, bleeding heart roll my eyes. The abolition of letter grades is moronic. The way decriminalization has been rolled out looks like it was designed by the right to make all of us who are pro-decriminalization look as crazy and out of touch as possible. And this is a problem when the government is attempting to make political hay out of overriding other levels of government.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why the Feds haven’t gotten a budget bounce in any poll not named EKOS, and one of the possible explanations is that the public aren’t enthused by the prospect of a government they mostly dislike and don’t think are particularly competent handling even more responsibility and overreaching into another jurisdiction. It’s not a proven theory, but I suspect this budget and the pre-budget blitz would have been much better received if the government was trusted to get the details right.

In the same vein, it's not unreasonable to be doubtful about Eby’s competence, either. Things in BC have been messy, decisions are (in my view, entirely fairly) seen as more ideological now than they were under Horgan, and this is a government that’s rocking up to 7 years in office. Does this mean the government will lose? No, because I think they will get their heads out of their asses. But they better.

We have all seen the consequences of a provincial NDP that doesn’t listen to its critics on the left, that goes into an election it should win, and runs a suboptimal campaign. Albertans are living with the consequences of that election right now. I do not want progressives a province over to see their chances of winning wasted because Eby and co. couldn’t see what was plainly in front of them.

The NDP need to not just quietly announce on a Friday a backtracking on decriminalization but they need to put Eby in front of the cameras and have him acknowledge that this government has been imperfect. He needs to acknowledge there are legitimate concerns with how his government has handled some issues and show that he’s willing to listen. I know I recommend this a lot, but how about announce an expert commission into not whether safe supply works but how best to get the balance right – one that will conveniently punt the issue past the election.

If the BC NDP want to win this fall’s election they have to treat their current polling as a crisis. It might not be one, in reality. But they have to act like it is. Or BC might actually fall ass backwards into Premier John Rustad.