If the Municipal election results proved anything, it was that BC voters … province-wide … really care about the ISSUES most affecting us.
We are “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” when it comes to: high taxes; ever-increasing development fees, parking rates; deteriorating community centers, schools, pools; homelessness, druggies and crazies everywhere; as are thieves, muggers, stabbings …endangering our very safety just walking down our streets.
The result showed it: incumbent leaders (Mayors and Councillors) in a dozen cities and towns throughout the province were turfed from office: Vancouver; Surrey; New Westminster; West Vancouver; Prince George; Port Moody; Kamloops; Vernon; Langley City; Langley Township; ?Delta; Maple Ridge.
Voters want RESULTS, not just PROMISES and PANDERING to their elected officials’/bureaucrats’ favored few!
And I believe incumbent provincial NDP politicians and strategists have been well aware of their own weaknesses in that regard for some time now … on the economy, jobs, rising unemployment, people leaving the province by the thousands, increasing hospital Emergency closures, long health care waitlists, homelessness, druggies, crime, Courts, revealed secret land deals with First Nations, DRIPA.
So in the current provincial campaign the NDP have been trying a different tactic to divert attention: mud slinging.
Within 15 minutes of the start of the televised debate, NDP Leader Dave Eby zeroed in on PERSONAL weaknesses among the BC Conservatives and their candidates … a theme he returned to repeatedly during the debate and ever since.
“When you have the campaign director attacking Muslims; when you have a candidate in Chilliwack telling a colleague that she’s immoral because she’s gay and linking people who are gay to being pedophiles; and, when you have the leader of the party who voted for “An Act to Repeal the Human Rights Code”, I struggle to know what areas we have in common,” Eby admonished Doerkson.
Eby also told TV viewers … in a debate segment entitled “Why you should be Premier” … that the Conservatives’ campaign manager’s Twitter feed “reads like the worst corners of the Dark Web.”
Nothing to do with the issues, but no doubt about it: embarrassing for the Conservatives.
Friday, Doerkson fired the party’s candidate in Vancouver-Strathcona for a social media post suggesting “Hitler “may not have intended death” during the Holocaust, and that “lots of Jews died” not because Hitler “hated them specifically” but because there were so many of them.” (Read the story here: https://www.castanet.net/news/Metro-Vancouver/634545/B-C-Conservatives-dump-candidate-accused-of-making-Hitler-remarks.)
Two weeks ago, Doerkson also dropped the Conservative Victoria-Beacon Hill candidate, who wrote on social media that ” a car running into a pro-Palestinian rally in Lausanne, Switzerland. “Il aurait du faire une marche arrière aussi,” he wrote in French, which translates as “He should have reversed too.” (That story here: https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/10/08/No-Excuse-Doerkson-Fires-Conservative-Candidate/).
And the NDP has also repeatedly drawn attention to statements by the Conservatives’ campaign manager for, as CTV News put it, ” some provocative anti-Islam social media posts” and incumbent MLA and Chilliwack North candidate Heather Maahs, who “hosted a reception at the B.C. legislature in 2025 for a group called the Association for Reformed Political Action, a Christian lobby group that believes homosexuality is immoral, abortion should be criminalized and conversion therapy bans should be reversed.” (More here: https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/bc-conservative-leader-disagrees-with-candidates-lgbt-remarks-but-wont-remove-her-as-candidate/)
Great fodder for Eby/NDP … and a diversion from their own record in office dealing with the hard issues impacting British Columbians.
Until the Conservative Leader struck back!
“You had a woman leave your caucus, either because she didn’t feel safe or she didn’t feel supported with regard to comments made by many in your caucus,” Doerkson reminded Eby.
Selina Robinson was an NDP MLA from 2013 to 2024 and served as both the Minister of Finance and Minister of Post Secondary Education.
She was also Jewish and a strong supporter of Canada’s Jewish communities and Israel.
Eby fired Robinson as Minister after “her controversial remark describing pre‑1948 Palestine as “a crappy piece of land” (Wikipedia) … but her woes didn’t end there. Robinson apologized, but said later she still encountered antisemitism within the NDP caucus … enough to make her quit and sit as an Independent in the Legislature.
One media pundit termed the Jewish MLA’s treatment by the BC NDP as a “lynching”. (Full story here: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-despicable-untruths-behind-selina-robinsons-political-lynching).
What a terrible indictment for a party whose members speak so often publicly about our need for understanding, compassion, accommodation and cultural sensitivity … especially for minorities!
“Does anti-Semitic behaviour in your caucus qualify as hate or not?” the Conservative Leader asked Eby. “Selina Robinson left your caucus because she did not feel safe or didn’t feel supported by you.”
Eby did not answer the question.
Earlier this month, the Conservatives also questioned Eby’s approval of former NDP Richmond-Queensborough MLA and current Vancouver-Fraserview candidate Aman Singh “after his well-documented history of antisemitism”. (Full release here: https://conservativebc.ca/why-did-david-eby-appoint-aman-singh-with-his-history-of-antisemitism/).
“Within days of the October 7th terrorist attack that claimed the lives of thousands of Jews, Aman Singh called for the Government of British Columbia to make a public statement about the plight of the Palestinians,” the party said in a press release.
And just last week, another NDP candidate, Linda Li, running for the party in Richmond , was fined $8,500 by BC’s Financial Services Authority for THREE real estate-related violations: conflict of interest; backdating signatures; and, providing incomplete and misleading information. (details here: https://www.richmond-news.com/2026-bc-votes/bc-votes-richmond-bc-ndp-candidate-sanctioned-by-financial-authority-12904080.)
Looks to me like the Conservatives AND the NDP both live in glass houses when it comes to impropriety, extremism, racism and intolerance within their caucuses.
Better they stick to the economy, health care and crime … issues the public REALLY care about … before they both end up covered in mud when they pretend their candidates are morally/ethically better than their opponents.
Harv Oberfeld
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