Thursday begins the one-year countdown to when British Columbians are next expected to head to the polls for a provincial election.
And while the old axiom stands true that a year is an eternity in politics, as it stands the governing B.C. NDP have plenty to feel good about.
New polling released Thursday by the Angus Reid Institute puts the New Democrats solidly in first place, with 43 per cent of respondents saying they’d cast their vote for the incumbent.
BC United, formerly the BC Liberal Party, and the Conservative Party of B.C. sit in a statistical tie at 22 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively. The BC Greens were the choice of 12 per cent of respondents.
UBC political scientist Gerald Baier told Global News he’ll be closely watching how the NDP makes use of its government status as the countdown to election day begins.
“The way that a party in power tries to use the levers that they have over a year to try to remind voters of the things they have done or the projects they are working on, that they are ready to be judged on a kind of record, things like housing, things like health-care, things like a post-COVID response.”
Despite their strong position in the polls, the NDP face a multitude of challenge — ongoing pressure in the health-care system, the rising cost of living and sky-high housing prices.
“For me, success is having those sign posts, those projects, on where we are going on this,” Premier David Eby told Global News in an interview.
“This is why I got into politics is housing, but just making sure politics works for people, and when it doesn’t it is very distressing.”
A year into the province’s top job after former premier John Horgan’s exit, Eby still faces several key unfulfilled NDP promises, including a silver alert, a ban on single-use plastics and eliminating portables in Surrey.
He’s also inherited the unrelenting toxic drug crisis, and persistent homeless encampments that he has staked some of his own political capital on eliminating.
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“We are planning some legislation to provide clarity about when can we move someone inside,” he said.
The Official Opposition BC United, meanwhile, are facing challenges of their own — namely a slide in the polls that’s followed their spring rebrand.
“We are going to make sure by the time the next election rolls around people know exactly what BC United stands for, that we are going to be fighting to reduce the cost of living,” leader Kevin Falcon told reporters on Wednesday.
Falcon has found himself fighting a two-front war.
On one side, BC United is focused on challenging the NDP’s record, while on the other side they’re fending off a B.C. Conservative Party that’s pulling poll numbers unseen in generations.
“Is it just a polling error that 20 per cent of the voters when asked say they are voting for the Conservative Party because they are associating it with the federal conservative party, or is there genuinely a move away from the former BC Liberals and now BC United?” Baier said.
“If they are both reasonably strong, that’s really bad for both of them in the sense that if they are splitting the centre right, that really does give the centre left to the NDP.”
The BC Conservatives currently have two MLAs, but both are former BC United members, and the party has not elected anyone under their banner in the 21st century.
The party has tacked to the right of BC United on social conservative issues, running one candidate in June byelections who focused heavily on transgender issues and with party leader John Rustad using his first question in the legislature question period to attack SOGI-123 LGBTQ2 inclusion resources in schools.
Conservative Abbotsford South MLA Bruce Banman told Global News the upstart party remains bullish on its prospects come the 2024 vote.
“I predict you are going to see an absolute seismic change,” he said.
“Today it was mentioned by (NDP Minister Mike) Farnworth that we would become the official opposition. I would say that’s a good prize to go for, but we are going for to form government, that’s the goal.”
Baier said with B.C.’s next election date set by law, meaning reasonable certainty about the countdown clock, the coming 12 months will likely see all party leaders in campaign mode.
British Columbians are scheduled to go to the polls on Oct. 19, 2024.
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