Eby Asks Green Voters to Back NDP in Final Week of BC Election

British Columbia's election entered its final week on Sunday with the premier asking another party's voters to lend him theirs.

NDP Leader David Eby, speaking in Campbell River, appealed directly to Green Party supporters. He said he respects Green Leader Emily Lowan, but she will not be premier next week, and votes for her party could end up electing a Conservative government. The damage from a Conservative government would last for generations, he said, and some of it would be impossible to undo.

Eby put a number on the risk. He said the Green vote was the difference between a Conservative and a New Democrat winning in 11 ridings at the last election, including North Island, the riding he was visiting on Sunday. He also admitted his own part in the mood. Neither he nor his party has been perfect in government, he said, and many people are frustrated that an election is happening at all right now.

Lowan answered in a statement. David Eby called this snap election two years early, she said. Now he is trying to scare British Columbians into voting for him. Asked whether the appeal was an admission that his party is trailing, Eby said the only poll that matters happens on election day.

The other campaign on Sunday

Conservative interim leader Lorne Doerkson spent Sunday in Delta with a package aimed at families. He promised to expand school meal programs in high-need communities, create a refundable tax credit of up to 500 dollars per child per year for sports, recreation, music and art camps, ban cellphones in schools, and double the funding to replace playground equipment to 10 million dollars a year.

Doerkson also promised his party would release a fully costed platform on Sunday. The missing price tag has followed his campaign for weeks. The NDP platform is costed, the Conservatives went into advance voting without one, and Eby has pressed the point at every stop. Advance voting runs from Oct. 16 to Oct. 21, and election day is Saturday, Oct. 24.

Why it matters

Eby called the election two years early with a one-vote majority, after his government raised its deficit forecast to a record 13.8 billion dollars. That makes Sunday's appeal a measure of where the race stands. A governing party that asks a rival's voters for help in the final week is telling them, in public, that the margin in a dozen close ridings will decide who governs.

The Greens hold the balance in that math. If Green voters stay, the vote split that elected Conservatives in 11 ridings last time can repeat. If they move, the NDP keeps seats it would otherwise lose. Both leaders spent Sunday talking to exactly those voters, one asking for their ballots and the other telling them not to be frightened into giving them up.