When Premier David Eby unveiled his new cabinet on Nov. 18, he poked fun at himself over a close election that nearly cost him his office.
"I would like to thank Elections BC," he said. "They are going to provide us with updates throughout my speech — you are not going to miss anything."
Eby was referring to the fact that his single-seat majority government did not become declared reality until Nov. 8 — nearly three weeks after election day. Officials first needed to complete the judicial recount for the riding of Surrey-Guildford where New Democrat Garry Begg had come from behind to retain his seat by 22 votes.
Begg trailed Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa by 103 votes, when British Columbians had gone to bed on Oct. 19. He started making up that difference once officials started counting mail-in and absentee ballots in the days that followed. But his victory — and with it Eby's fate as head of a majority government — was not certain until the judicial recount.
While a one-seat majority is preferable to a minority, Eby knows voters sent him a message. His party holds 47 seats, eight fewer than at dissolution. New Democratic losses included not just backbenchers, but senior cabinet ministers. The Conservative Party of B.C. won 44 seats, nearly sweeping the Interior and making major in-roads in the fast-growing, ethnically diverse suburbs of Vancouver.
Conservatives even gained seats on Vancouver Island — a traditional New Democratic stronghold -- and punctured an aura of inevitability and invincibility that surrounded New Democrats at the start of the year.
"When you have a near-death experience as a politician, it focuses the mind," Eby told business leaders in early December. "This is the last time I want to hit re-fresh on Elections BC's website — ever. I understand that to do that, we are going to have to deliver for British Columbians, and I understand that to deliver for British Columbians on their priorities, we can't do it without the people in this room."
This recognition of political realities also rang through in Eby's year-end-interview with Black Press Media.
“We did lose seats and the message I took...we need to be focused in a way that delivers for people on the key priorities that they want us to work on."
These include building provincial infrastructure and "delivering the services that people are looking for, health care and education, and addressing affordability and growing the economy."
To that end, Eby struck an agreement with the B.C. Greens on a set of policy goals in exchange for support from their two MLAs adding stability to his government.
And he says critics questioning the pace of his government are wrong.
“The work has already started,” he said. “We have had ministers go down to (Los Angeles) to promote the film industry and the work that we are doing on the tax credit reform to grow that that sector in the province…we have got our Minister of Forests all over the province meeting with stakeholders (to deal with) the crisis in that industry. The Minister of Finance is working on the affordability credit right now.”
Eby also promised 90 per cent of B.C. households would receive $1,000 to help with bills starting in 2025, first as a rebate, then as a permanent tax cut.
“I know the urgency,” he said. “I know that people need support right away and we are also designing it for the long term. We are doing a tax cut going forward to support families. This isn’t a temporary tax holiday.”
“Wherever we can find opportunities to support families, we are going to do it," he continued, pointing to an upcoming review of ICBC. “We have got work to do with BC Ferries around some of the challenges that Crown corporation is facing (and) keeping hydro rates low.
"So we are going to continue to do that work to ensure affordability and also recognize we are at the bottom of the economic cycle. There are big pressures on our budget.”
Some economists may consider that an understatement given a budget deficit at an all-time high of $9 billion. Eby has already signalled some belt-tightening measures while promising to grow the economy, which he called necessary for delivering services.
“I’ll paraphrase our finance minister, but you can’t pour from an empty cup,” Eby told business leaders last week. “You can’t deliver high-quality services that people need without a way to pay for those services. And that payment is generated through the prosperity and wealth generation from our province, through the economy.
“We have to make sure that we are showing declining deficits over time, that we’ve got a path back to balance.”
Critics have not been kind of Eby’s fiscal management skills, nor his ability to bring new economic projects to B.C.
“B.C. is now so un-competitive we can’t even get investment here when government throws money at projects,” Conservatives’ finance critic Peter Milobar said on X after a Taiwanese company paused a battery plant project in Maple Ridge. Both Ottawa and Victoria had touted the $1 billion project a major step toward building a clean economy and subsidized it.
Milobar also pointed to in-limbo plans for a $2-billion clean hydrogen project in Prince George and long-standing concerns about forestry permitting delays as evidence of Eby over-promising and under-delivering.
Eby, naturally, rejects the argument, pointing to critical minerals and energy as opportunities.
“We have got some big challenges ahead with the president-elect threatening major tariffs. The silver lining of that is bringing business together in the province, bringing labour together, to respond to this threat. It gives us the opportunity to do a few things, to talk about other issues about how to grow our economy.”
He intends to "deepen and strengthen our relationship with the Americans” but “also expand our trade presence overseas with other trading partners” and “deal with long-standing permitting and delay issues around getting major projects across the line."
“We will take this crisis as Mr. Trump has presented us with and turn it into an opportunity. We know that it is critically important.”
Concerns about the economic direction of the B.C. cannot be divorced from larger political trends that favour protectionism and populism. Eby did not shy away from that when he addressed supporters on Oct. 19.
“We don’t know what the final count is going to be in the province, but what we do know is that there was a clear majority for the progressive values that are so important to all of us here in this room,” Eby said.
“More than half of British Columbians (53.1 per cent) voted for parties with progressive values. I think though that there is an important lesson in the election. It was extremely close.”
How that split breaks down in the legislature is relevant. All but five New Democrats represent Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Conservatives, meanwhile, dominate in suburban but rapidly urbanizing Surrey, the Fraser Valley and most of the Interior.
Eby has promised to bridge the rural-urban divide in B.C. and some of the cabinet appointments, especially Josie Osborne as health minister, point in that direction. But Eby has also articulated a test when it comes to working — or not — with Conservative MLAs.
“Open racism from Conservative candidates, open homophobia, anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-woman sentiment — and those are bright lines for us,” Eby told the CBC in early November.
He acknowledged it is “more challenging” to represent the entire province without MLAs in certain parts of the province.
“So we are going to need to make extra efforts to ensure that we are hearing the voices from across the province and that we are acting for them.”
“If you want to advance…a proposal that promotes discrimination, hate, racism, misogyny, all those different things that we have heard from Conservative candidates, there’s just no time for that. But if you want to advance a proposal as a Conservative MLA that benefits British Columbians, that addresses the core priorities, I think that we could see helpful proposals from Conservatives that could actually be advanced.”
Eby specifically pointed to new rules that promise to give private member bills more room.
“I hope that they use that time for constructive proposals that are going to benefit British Columbians. But if they don’t, if they want to advance some kind of imagined culture war that they are fighting that actually just hurts people, then it’s just not going to work. That’s what I am talking about.”
