Thursday October 3, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC
Political analysis & Editorial by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
While it may be standard fare in traditional election campaigns, ‘bashing the other guy’ is a turnoff to attentive progressive voters who want to be reminded why to vote BC NDP in the 2024 provincial election.
Especially so, the new-to-politics BC NDP candidates aren’t handling the prescriptive anti-Conservative messaging in a way that produces the desired results.
If they didn’t live with struggles in 2001-2016 they seem to be having a hard time articulating it with the validity that it deserves.
For example, at a recent Victoria-Swan Lake all-candidates meeting the audience actually wiggled in their seats and occasionally made guttural sounds when every reply from the BC NDP candidate was how it was all the previous government’s fault.
And today in Premier David Eby’s press conference in Surrey one journalist rightly pointed out how the name of the BC Conservative leader was mentioned more times than his own in the newly released campaign platform An Action Plan for You.
Cleaning up after the BC Liberals:
This is not a new approach by the BC NDP.
The approach of ‘we need to clean up what the BC Liberals did wrong’ rightly started with John Horgan as premier in 2017 when his new NDP government had much to clean up from 16 years of BC Liberal policy and actions that crushed everyday families (both economically and in the education system) and through both policy and neglect damaged the health-care system.
Understandably, the BC NDP audio track has been to repair what was damaged or not even done during 2001-2016. But it seems the back-room policy writers are losing touch with what people who hope to vote NDP or ‘progressive’ in October 2024 need to hear in media clips, during all-candidates meetings, and on the doorstep.
Voters in 2024 will not remember most details about the political failures of BC Liberals: education cutbacks, same level of medical service plan premiums for everyone regardless of income, high auto insurance rates and draining the ICBC coffers, turning a blind eye to money laundering in cashions.
Yes, BC Liberals are now somewhat carrying forward on the right side of the political spectrum within the incarnation of BC Conservatives (and the BC United Party briefly before that).
Even people who lived through tough times in 2001-2016 (by direct or indirect impact of the provincial government) have moved on — not without damage necessarily but they have likely dismissed any top-of-mind remembrance of how life became so difficult for families, youth, seniors and various sectors (like education and health-care) in BC as they got on with their lives.
It all comes across as ‘inside ballball’, stuff that average voter doesn’t think about and doesn’t have time now to really put into context. Focusing on the opponent gives them more power than they might actually have.
Reorientation is overdue:
It’s not enough to get candidates out waving signs along city streets. The BC NDP communications team needs to sharpen their speech-writing and campaign-material pencils very fast now.
This reorientation should have been done months ago, if not when Eby first took over as Premier in November 2022.
The passion to run government ‘for the people’ certainly was ignited in 2017 and has run a good course through to 2024.
But if Eby hopes to bring the big prize of a majority BC NDP government home on October 19 he will need to brighten up and freshen up the campaign rhetoric to meet people where they are.
Beyond two parties:
Bashing John Rustad as the leader of a new (resurrected) political party is a tired old two-party system style of campaigning. There is a third party (the BC Greens) but that’s not even the main point here.
British Columbians have moved on to wanting to know facts, reasons and a vision for the future. They want to know how the BC NDP are ‘putting people first’ when the BC Greens in particular are legitimately using that slogan even though they are not likely to form government (but they could be a significant balance-of-power influence in the next BC Legislative Assembly, considering the progress they achieved with only two MLAs during 2020-2024).
By all means point out what could happen in BC based on the previous track record of the BC Liberals (let’s call a spade a spade, well, today they present as the BC Conservatives).
But if we’re really getting into the weeds on this, Rustad did not lead any major party platform initiatives during the Gordon Campbell or Christy Clark years. Yes, he sat at the cabinet table but he was not the guiding light of the 2001-2016 government in BC. And few former BC Liberal/BC United MLAs are left standing for the 2024 election cycle (after Kevin Falcon pulled the BC United plug).
Mixing it up with Alberta:
And while we’re at it … why bring in a critique of ‘Alberta-style politics’ to the social media mix? Most people haven’t much idea of the difference between provinces, they’re so busy dealing with their own lives.
And people who do realize the business-first approach of Alberta are not inclined to vote BC NDP anyhow.
Let it ring true:
This is not easy communications management for the BC NDP to undertake on the thirteenth day of a 28-day campaign. It’s almost too late. and especially if relying on BC NDP communicators who’ve been in the trenches for a long time. Fresh eyes are needed.
Every vote counts. So the effort is worth undertaking for the BC NDP message to ring true for every would-be BC NDP voter. It would be an unfortunate outcome for the hard-working seven-year government run of the BC NDP to lose even one vote over seeming to have lost their way.
A party that has led the government for seven years must tell voters why the current BC NDP team is right for the job of leading government for another four years. By all means defend disinformation and non-factual attacks, but otherwise tell people how you are looking forward, not back.
BC NDP loyalists will not jump ship. But for the needed independent voters (or anyone undecided) it makes sense to take the high-road by explaining policy. That approach will gain more votes than bashing a political party or leader they weren’t likely to vote for anyways.
If the BC NDP were to fail the moderate voter set through intellectual and emotional turn-offs during the campaign, what a shame that would be for all the people and communities that the BC NDP say they want to help.
===== RELATED:
NEWS SECTIONS: BC ELECTION 2024 NEWS | POLITICS | 28-DAY BC ELECTION CAMPAIGN ITINERARY CALENDAR
===== ABOUT THE WRITER:
Island Social Trends Editor Mary P Brooke has been covering BC political news since 2014, starting in the west shore area and expanding from there.
Since 2020 she has been reporting alongside the BC Legislative Press Gallery, providing insights on provincial-level news that impacts individuals, households, business and communities.
She publishes IslandSocialTrends.ca online from Langford, BC. Her previous print publications are permanently archived at the Sooke Region Museum: MapleLine Magazine (quarterly 2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (weekly 2011-2013), and West Shore Voice News (2014-2020). She holds a Certificate in Public Relations (U of R), with crisis management and mass media as a key focus. In 1981 she won the McGeachy Prize in Journalism (U of S).
In 2022 Ms Brooke ran for school trustee in SD62. In 2023 she was nominated for a Jack Webster Foundation journalism award for contributing to her community through journalist. With her B.Sc.(U of S) in nutrition in her back pocket, in 2024 she launched the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society.