Thursday October 3, 2024 | SURREY, BC
BC ELECTION CAMPAIGN DAY 13 of 28
Political analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Your 28-day voter’s guide for BC Election 2024
The full BC NDP platform for BC Election 2024 was announced today in Surrey Premier David Eby.
He addressed a small crowd at a home in Surrey, and media on the ground as well as remotely. BC NDP Surrey-Serpentine River candidate MLA Baltej Dhillon was the host.
Action Plan for You platform:
“This platform was developed for British Columbians,” said Eby today, earmarking the BC NDP’s efforts around affordability, health-care (emergency rooms and family doctors), economy (expansion and growth, and high paying jobs).
“I believe in BC’s potential and our biggest asset is our people. Building up you and your family is part of all of us being successful,” said Eby.
The plan is called “An Action Plan for You” which Eby says took a while in development, not just quickly or recently drafted for the 2024 election campaign.
Delivering effectively:
The BC NDP government has been trying to address the economic condition of low- and moderate-income individuals and households throughout their two terms so far (2017-2020, and 2020-2024; Eby has been premier since November 2022).
So perhaps it was tough to come up with brand new ‘shiny things’ for this campaign. Unfortunately that’s what voters want or expect to hear during a campaign, more so than ‘we’ve been doing things right and we’re going to do more’.
In that respect, Eby is going to have to come up with some jazzier delivery over the next few weeks as the BC Conservatives ride the momentum of ‘we want change’. His own intelligence and intuitive insights need to shine through the weight of the politics and the campaign, if he hopes to win over more of the independent voters and any usual BC NDP voters who are wavering.
Challenging the BC Conservatives:
“The Conservatives are just not focused on what matters to you and your family,” said Eby today. “The impact of climate change, the fact that vaccines work…” Eby trailed off on the list he could have extended about shocking and unvalidated things the BC Conservatives campaign under John Rustad is delivering.
Eby was rightly challenged by media that the platform contains more references to the BC Conservatives and their leader John Rustad than it mentions Premier Eby. The pushback during a campaign is understandable but the communications delivery is still not well thought-out by the communications team.
In attending an all-candidates meeting in Victoria-Swan Lake recently, for Island Social Trends it was also apparent from audience reaction this ‘bashing of the other guy’ is not appealing. Especially the new-to-politics candidates are not handling the anti-Conservative messaging all that well. If they didn’t live it (as individuals or as politicians) during 2001-2016 they seem to be having a hard time articulating it with the validity that it deserves.
Voters want facts, explanations and reasons to vote BC NDP on October 19. The BC NDP have done a lot for people over seven years, but they often fall short on the communications piece to deliver that effectively.
The Action Plan:
This is the BC NDP Action Plan For You commitments:
- Help with your daily costs: $1,000 boost for household budgets with a middle-class tax cut, each and every year.
- Deliver homes you can afford: Cracking down on speculators and helping create 300,000 more homes for the middle-class.
- Better health care for you: Hiring more healthcare workers than ever before and creating a second medical school to train the next generation of doctors.
- Make our streets safer: Supporting people who need help while giving police the tools to keep assault weapons and handguns away from gangs.
- Build a stronger economy–for everyone: Expanding training opportunities for family-supporting jobs while fighting climate change and making polluters pay.
Services for people:
In particular, in Surrey, the BC NDP government since 2017 needed to “play catch up” for the shortfalls of the previous BC Liberal government (during 2001-2017) that BC Conservative Leader John Rustad was a cabinet minister (and is now the BC Conservatives party leader in 2024).
Eby outlined today that global inflation has pushed up costs and that interest rates “are rising the fastest in a generation” (impacting households with consumer debt or mortgages) which results in “less money at the end of the month”.
Eby says a BC NDP government budget after October 19 “there are declining deficits and we will get back to balance over time”.
“We’re just struggling with the cost of daily life,” said Eby, as to what he hears from people. He noted that the BC NDP delivered rebates through ICBC and BC Hydro but realizes that doesn’t reach everyone.
He says the $500 grocery allowance is to support people “right away”. It will support people who are low income (if their annual income is below $22,000 they wouldn’t see the middle-income tax cut).
He points out that “people need support right now” and that multigenerational families will benefit from the program in ways that wouldn’t happen under a BC Conservative model. “People in small communities with lower costs benefit the same way as 90% of British Columbians.”
“We think that’s fair and right,” Premier Eby said today.
Some new items for future delivery by a re-elected BC NDP government include free transit for seniors in non-peak hours and subsidized insurance for landlords — those are two examples of upstream thinking with broader lifestyle impacts.
Media in the room:
While it’s great to acknowledge the hard work of journalists who are covering the BC Election campaign, the premier’s communications moderator handling media questions today seemed to get a bit giddy with media introductions. Some campaign fatigue might be setting in but it’s not the first time by a range of practitioners.
While it does take a lot of work for media to travel and attend in person (which is often under-appreciated), there were also media on the phone line and others across BC working equally as hard to tune in and report responsibly on the campaign.
As important as our work as media is (to report on political campaigns and the statements of politicians and elected leaders as part of democracy), media professionals are not the focus of an event or government announcement and entertainment-style introductions is off-putting (whether by communications staff or MLAs) even while it’s an acknowledgement of hard work. A first-name recognition to media while responding to questions (as Eby did today, and other cabinet minister and MLAs have done at the microphone over the years) is the usual standard.
Media asking questions of the Premier in Surrey today included Richard Zussman (Global News), Penny Daflos (CTV), Alec Lazenby (Vancouver Sun), Rob Shaw (CHEK TV), Meera Bains on behalf of a colleague (CBC), Wolf Depner (Black Press), Justine Hunter (Globe and Mail), Brieanna Charlebois (Canadian Press) and others.
===== RELATED:
NEWS SECTIONS: BC ELECTION 2024 NEWS | POLITICS
EXTERNAL LINKS: BC NDP CANDIDATES