B.C. election campaign intensifying with 2 months until vote

Expect more announcements like Tuesday’s—1,500 new student beds at the University of British Columbia—to come fast and furious in the next few weeks, as Premier David Eby and his NDP government prepare for the start of the official election campaign, which is one month away.

“We saw a raft of these announcements around health care in sort of May, June in Surrey. Last week it was Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley out to Abbotsford,” noted political scientist Hamish Telford on Tuesday.

With the actual election just two months away, expect plenty of attacks on opposing candidates, like the one Tuesday against Prince George-Mackenzie BC Conservative candidate, Rachael Weber, who was accused of promoting conspiracy theories about 5G cell towers in a social media post four years ago.

“I think John Rustad should explain how it is that consistently he is putting forward candidates that embrace and promote conspiracy theories from the darkest corners of the internet,” said Eby at his housing announcement on Tuesday.

The NDP have John Rustad's BC Conservatives increasingly in their sights as the latest poll released Tuesday from Mainstreet Research shows the Conservatives actually leading the NDP by three points among decided voters. Meanwhile, Kevin Falcon’s BC United and Sonia Furstenau’s Greens are both still well behind.

“I think that most people haven’t even begun to think about the election yet, and when they do, it will be when the election gets called, and then they’re going to have some really clear choices in front of them,” said Falcon Tuesday.

Those choices will include Falcon's big promise from last week, that if elected, he'd eliminate provincial income tax on the first $50,000.

“I’ve been saying for months that Kevin Falcon had to throw a ‘Hail Mary pass’ if he had had one, and he did,” said Telford. “It doesn’t seem to have had much pickup, at least not yet. Of course people are still on summer vacation, getting kids ready to go back to school.”

The writ drop to kick off the official campaign will be no later than Sept. 21.

Expect a flurry of government announcements before then, and lots of political attacks from all sides between now and Oct. 19, when voters will elect the next government.