Saturday April 25, 2026 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 11:37 am PT]
Editorial analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Angus Reid Executive Director Shachi Kurl says BC Premier David Eby “is in trouble”.
In the “short to medium term his leadership is not in question”, said Kurl. But she predicts that internal caucus rebellion will eventually come despite many in the BC NDP caucus “owing their political upward mobility to Eby”.
Kurl was addressing a room of about 300 delegates at the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) in Victoria on Friday afternoon.
She had the audience’s full attention given that in the room were many of the mayors, municipal councillors and others who work in and around municipal and the BC NDP provincial government (that has supported municipalities in various ways over the years).
A bit of data:
In Angus Reid polling data, evidently the BC Conservatives are currently leading the NDP by three points “even without a leader”, said Kurl. Indeed, that is without a leader — so it’s an assymmetrical comparison coloured by the current BC Conservatives leadership race.
It’s possible Kurl may have underestimated the political savvy of the AVICC audience. To say “there is already a level of dissatisfaction and malaise” and to claim those polled as “driven by a level of dissatisfaction with progress with issues that are at the top of the list”, is to step aside from identifying that the Angus Reid polling base starts from a point of leaning centre-right or right.
It’s unclear how Kurl’s missive that (the Angus Reid polling base, at least, if not the BC-wide population which she purports the data represents) is “left with a feeling this is not necessarily a government in control of its own legislative agenda or in control of the narrative”.
That was targeted, in part, to how Eby’s government is handling the property-rights issue stirred up by a court case that appears to say that Cowichan Tribes have land rights in the Richmond, BC area that are possibly at least equivalent to standard property rights for current titled owners of residential and commercial property.
Kurl said that “57% of those polled see BC on the wrong track”. She claimed — at that level of response — that it must include people who usually vote NDP.
As a broader macroeconomic challenge, affordability concerns everyone across Canada. That was seen politically in the sweeping Liberal success in the April 2025 federal election; over a year later, Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney continues enjoys a political honeymoon based largely on the expectation that he can steer Canada to safer economic harbours.
Kurl seemed to heap challenges in that area onto the current BC NDP government as well. Provincial economies are certainly not shielded from economic headwinds. Premier Eby recently announced a working group on dealing with economic challenges resulting from the US-instigated war in Iran.
Where the BC NDP is at:
The BC cabinet and government have indeed been struggling to surface in their messaging above the discontent about health-care challenges (not enough primary care providers and the toxic drug crisis) and key socioeconomic challenges (like housing and affordability) as well as legal challenges related to a brewing property crisis as happen to be related to DRIPA-related Indigenous rights.
But they keep hammering away at it, notably having Health Minister Josie Osborne deliver a speech on day one of the AVICC convention in which she signaled health-care as the government’s highest priority (at least in terms of addressing municipal leaders).
Osborne did not stay to hear Kurl’s keynote address. She did tell Island Social Trends afterward that she supports the work of municipalities to come up with local solutions for health care delivery.
Kurl on BC Conservatives:
After further similar marks loosely related to data that Angus Reid gleans from surveys of their membership, Kurl leaned heavily into her observations about the BC Conservative leadership race (voting for that takes place May 9 to 30).
She seems to have dashed hopes for a good outcome there, saying that after the ‘grocery guy’ (Darrell Jones) who was ‘most recognized’ (by the public, perhaps) dropped out that there is no particular candidate in the lead.
Kurl did cite from Angus Reid polls that “thirty percent choose none of these people” (i.e. the now remaining five candidates), which she off-handedly listed off as “Caroline Elliott, Peter Milobar, Yuri Fulmer and the others”.
But it should be noted that Angus Reid Institute polling base appears to overall lean centre-right, and that people who participate in the organization’s polls have in the past been seen to be coy or even imprecise about their true positions.
As an example, close to the end of the 2013 provincial election campaign period there was polling data showing a strong win for the BC NDP which was in effect a ruse that gave undue confidence to the NDP running under Dix’s leadership at that time. The BC Liberals won handily only a week or two later.
The Angus Reid Institute executive director got deep into the weeds about how the current BC Conservative leadership race has evolved. She took that back to 2024 and jumped around various aspects of John Rustad’s leadership heading into the Fall 2024 election, as well as the BC United fiasco led by former leader Kevin Falcon. She may have lost the audience’s otherwise keen attention there.
Kurl claimed that it was the BC NDP’s “lack of enthusiasm” in the Fall 2024 provincial election that brought the party (that had been in power since John Horgan’s NDP formed government in 2017) “within a hair’s breadth of losing”.
During a Q&A on stage following her speech yesterday, Kurl made an interesting remark that the BC Conservatives can’t perform their best as official opposition when there is a far-right splinter party (i.e. OneBC) in the mix.
Indeed, Premier Eby himself said a few months ago during BC Legislative Assembly Question Period that he ‘wonders’ how such far-right attitudes (referring to OneBC) made their way into the House… it was of course due to the wide-tent sweep that the BC Conservatives made during the 2024 election cycle as part of forming the official opposition at any cost (the OneBC Party was formed after a few BC Conservative MLAs splintered off).
Do voters care?
All levels of government in recent years have become highly attuned to the need for collaboration and partnership to get big things done.
But it’s becoming a bit tiresome — such as from Kurl yesterday — to hear that ‘voters don’t care’ about which level of government delivers services and results, they just want doctors, affordability, livabiliy and so on — no matter who delivers it.
National TV political pundit panels (such as ones that Kurl participates in) have in recent weeks and months really drilled down on saying that ‘regular Canadians’ don’t follow the machinations of politics and government — which is to dumb down the audience that tunes in (if not to mention the attentive active Canadian public).
Voters do care, and are paying closer attention. Dismissing or misrepresenting that is to sorely underestimate or even devalue the attentiveness and importance of households, businesses, communities and various levels of government in being part of understanding what’s going on at such a critical time in Canada’s economic evolution. A brewing political shift is happening across the country, not just in BC, as part of keeping up with greater tensions related to teh US and overall economic and sovereignty impacts.
AVICC for two more days:
The AVICC convention continues today and tomorrow (April 25 and 26) in Victoria.
It’s unclear why AVICC chose to open the convention yesterday with such a controversial keynote but it certainly will keep people talking.
Among those in the audience yesterday were Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and former Cowichan-Malahat-Langford MP Alistair MacGregor who is now Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Cowichan Tribes.
Earlier, Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto and Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities Brittny Anderson were also in attendance, both of whom delivered some brief remarks of welcome.
===== RELATED:
- AVICC 2026 convention in Victoria this weekend (April 23, 2026)
- Hardest file for Premier Eby, issues statement with First Nations Leadership Council about DRIPA (April 20, 2026)
- NEWS SECTIONS: HEALTH | 43rd BC PARLIAMENT | MUNICIPAL & CIVIC | AVICC