Farewell, NDP? Could an “Anger Vote” Reshape B.C. Politics?
British Columbia’s snap election campaign has barely begun, and the first major poll has already thrown cold water on David Eby.
The B.C. Conservatives are at 43 percent.
The NDP is at 35 percent.
Just around ten days earlier, the same polling organization had the NDP leading by four points.
Even more striking, 62 percent of British Columbians say the election was called too early. Only 21 percent believe the timing is right.
None of this tells us who will win on October 24.
Twenty percent of voters are still undecided, and only 35 percent say they are “very certain” about their current choice.
But the numbers raise an important question:
Could British Columbia be heading toward an “anger vote”?
By “anger vote,” I do not mean a term used by the pollster itself. I mean a political phenomenon in which a voter’s first motivation is not necessarily enthusiasm for the opposition, but a desire to punish the government already in power.
In the same poll, 54 percent said it is time for a change in government.
In other words, some ballots may first be votes against the government, and only secondarily votes for the alternative.
So why did David Eby choose to call an election now?
The NDP is not a minority government struggling to survive. It still holds a majority, and the next scheduled provincial election was not due until 2028.
Eby’s public explanation is that Donald Trump’s trade war and the economic pressure coming from the United States have created an “existential moment,” requiring a new mandate from British Columbians.
The pressure from the United States is real.
But the legislature was not paralyzed. The government had not lost a confidence vote. The NDP was still capable of governing.
So why was an election necessary two years early?
The political landscape at the time offers part of the answer.
The B.C. Conservatives had just gone through a serious internal crisis. Party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned. Members of the caucus had left. Lorne Doerkson had only just taken over as interim leader.
There was another timing issue that received far less attention.
B.C.’s municipal elections are scheduled for October 17.
The provincial election is October 24.
Just one week apart.
Municipal candidate nominations closed on September 11. The normal deadline to withdraw was September 18. The formal campaign period began September 19.
Eby called the provincial election on September 22.
That meant many local centre-right politicians who might otherwise have been potential provincial candidates were already running for mayor, council or school board.
Legally, withdrawing was not necessarily impossible.
Politically, it was much harder.
Campaign teams had already been assembled. Money had been spent. Supporters had been mobilized. Walking away in the middle of a municipal campaign to run provincially would carry a real political and reputational cost.
There is no evidence that Eby chose September 22 specifically to “lock up” potential Conservative candidates.
But the practical effect is difficult to ignore:
He chose a moment when the B.C. Conservatives would have had an unusually difficult time finding candidates at short notice.
Then something unexpected happened.
The snap election acted almost like a sudden call to assemble.
Seven MLAs who had joined another political formation quickly returned to the B.C. Conservatives. A party that had been fighting and fragmenting only days earlier suddenly began pulling itself back together.
Its candidate recruitment accelerated as well.
By the evening of September 29, roughly 72 named candidates could be counted on the B.C. Conservative website.
There are 93 ridings in the province, and nominations do not officially close until 1 p.m. on October 3.
The bigger question is therefore no longer whether the Conservatives can simply find enough names.
It is whether the candidates recruited in such a short period are strong enough.
Putting 93 names on ballots is one thing.
Building a team capable of running the Government of British Columbia is something else entirely.
That brings us to perhaps the most revealing contradiction in the entire election.
When voters were asked whether it was time for a change in government, 54 percent said yes.
But when they were asked whether the B.C. Conservatives were ready to govern, 56 percent said no.
Many British Columbians may already want to say goodbye to the NDP.
They simply have not yet found a way to do so that feels safe.
That may be David Eby’s biggest political protection at the moment.
Wanting a change of government and being willing to hand power to another party are not the same thing.
There is a threshold between the two.
The B.C. Conservatives therefore have to prove three things:
That they have people.
That they have policies.
And that they have the capacity to govern a province.
They have begun trying to answer those questions.
Doerkson has promised that a Conservative government would introduce no new taxes and would not raise existing tax rates.
The political message is clear.
But British Columbia is also facing a massive deficit.
So “no new taxes” answers only half the question.
What happens to spending?
How is the deficit reduced?
If revenues are not increased, which expenditures would be adjusted?
The Conservatives still need a much more complete fiscal answer.
They have also proposed a major expansion of liquefied natural gas production, faster project approvals and a more stable tax and royalty environment for the energy sector.
Eby, meanwhile, has been rolling out his own economic agenda.
His critical minerals plan calls for doubling B.C.’s production and exports of critical minerals within five years, speeding up mine approvals, expanding the North Coast Transmission Line, building more domestic refining and processing capacity, and increasing the capacity of the Port of Prince Rupert.
On resource development, the message is fairly aggressive:
Approve projects faster.
Build more infrastructure.
Produce more minerals.
Export more.
But when it comes to housing, Eby has chosen a very different set of tools.
On September 25, he proposed increasing B.C.’s speculation and vacancy tax and creating a new tax on unsold condominiums.
Under the proposal, a completed condo that remains vacant and unsold for more than a year would face a 2 percent tax in the second year, 3 percent in the third, and another percentage point for every additional year.
The NDP says there may be around 5,000 such units in Metro Vancouver, and argues that higher carrying costs could force developers to lower prices and bring those units onto the market.
The political language behind this approach sounds very familiar.
Ten years ago, when Greater Vancouver housing prices were rising rapidly, some of the most emotionally powerful terms in B.C. housing politics were:
Foreign buyers.
Chinese money.
Real-estate speculation.
Vacant homes.
At the time, David Eby was the NDP’s housing critic and one of the most active provincial politicians pushing the issue.
In 2015, Eby provided land-title data from a group of West Side Vancouver real-estate transactions to urban planner Andy Yan.
Yan later conducted a study that became highly controversial because one of the indicators used to infer buyers’ backgrounds was whether their names were “non-anglicized Chinese names.”
The debate over “Chinese buyers,” foreign money and housing prices quickly expanded, while many in the Chinese community argued that the discussion was turning into stigmatization.
In 2016, the NDP brought a real-estate speculation tax proposal into the legislature.
The B.C. Liberal government under Christy Clark initially resisted that approach.
Then, in July 2016, it abruptly changed course and introduced a 15 percent additional property transfer tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver.
The design of that tax was not identical to the NDP’s earlier proposed 2 percent speculation tax.
But politically, something important had happened:
An issue the NDP had spent considerable time developing — that foreign capital and real-estate speculation required tax intervention — had effectively been taken over by the governing party.
In 2021, during hearings of B.C.’s public inquiry into money laundering, Eby was again questioned about the 2015 study and expressed regret over his involvement and the impact the controversy had had on the Chinese community.
Now, ten years later, many of the same political terms have returned:
Foreign speculators.
Vacant homes.
Property hoarding.
Unsold developer inventory.
But the housing market has changed.
According to the B.C. Real Estate Association, residential sales in August were 25.4 percent below the ten-year average for that month. The average sale price was also down 1 percent year over year, while active listings were approaching their highest levels since 2015.
Ten years ago, the questions were:
Why are so many people fighting to buy homes?
Why do prices keep going up?
Today, the questions are different:
Why are buyers staying away?
Why are completed condos not selling?
Why are prices still so high?
And perhaps most importantly:
Who will build the next round of housing?
That is the real question raised by the proposed tax on unsold condos.
One of Canada’s biggest housing-policy problems today is simply that not enough homes are being built.
According to the CMHC estimate cited in the video, Canada would need roughly 417,000 to 469,000 new homes a year through 2036 to restore housing affordability to 2019 levels.
At the current pace, the country is on track for only about 231,000 per year.
If a development is already sitting near the edge of financial viability, and unsold inventory would also face a progressively higher tax, could some developers simply decide not to start the next project?
There is no evidence yet showing exactly how many projects such a tax would cancel.
It could also succeed in forcing some existing inventory onto the market and lowering prices in the short term.
But housing policy cannot look only at today’s inventory.
Land supply, municipal development charges, financing costs, labour and material costs, and approval times are already major components of the cost of building.
If those pressures remain unresolved while a new tax is added at the very end of the development process, one question has to be asked:
Could forcing several thousand completed units onto the market today result in fewer homes being built tomorrow?
That brings us back to the election.
Fifty-four percent say they want a change of government.
Fifty-six percent say the B.C. Conservatives are not ready to govern.
Those numbers are not contradictory.
They describe the political anxiety at the heart of this election.
Many voters may be angry with the NDP.
But anger alone does not automatically change a government.
It needs somewhere to go.
If the B.C. Conservatives can use the remaining weeks to convince voters that they are organized, credible and capable of governing, the existing anti-government mood could become a powerful electoral force.
If they cannot, voters may reach the ballot box still angry with the NDP and ask themselves one final question:
Would the alternative actually be better?
David Eby was able to choose the moment when his opponents appeared most divided and least prepared.
What he cannot control is whether this snap election ultimately gives that same unprepared opposition the reason it needed to regroup — and become a government-in-waiting.
