Latest / Political Capital with Rob Shaw / #109 - BC targets short-term rentals, police act changes, Lytton, one-year mark to next election

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#109 - BC targets short-term rentals, police act changes, Lytton, one-year mark to next election · Political Capital with Rob Shaw

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Check Podcasts. Hey everyone, and welcome to Political Capital, your source for
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all the latest in BC politics. I'm your hosts Robshaw, coming to you
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from the Czech News World headquarters here in Victoria A. Lots to talk about
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this week, new legislation and short term rentals, Police Act changes, rebuilding
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Litton. Make sure you subscribe to our audio podcast for extras this week,
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including a look at the one year mark to the next provincial election. Let
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us bring in the pod squad to break it all down. Jeff Ferrier,
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Ali Blades, Jillian Oliver. Thank you for being here and thank you for
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jumping into something we have been waiting months now for, which is the ndyp's
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short term rental plan. The bill lands this week on the house and the
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sum total of it is essentially it kind of wipes out most people's ability to
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list their investment proper parties on Airbnb and Verbo because it limits a short term
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rental to a person's principal residence in an urban center, so you ran out
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of room or a secondary suite or maybe a lane way home or a cottage
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if you have one, but if you've got a multiple investment condo portfolio and
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you're in a big city, those long term they have to be long term
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rentals to tenants. Now, so that's the broad brush of it. Does
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it hit the mark for what we were hoping for? Ali, what do
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you think does it hit the mark? Probably not? And I say probably
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because we're still waiting to see how this really impacts the bulk of people involved
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in short term rental property management. Essentially, what we've been hearing a lot
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in the news this week are the unintended consequences from people who use this to
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help them pay their mortgage, to help them supplement their salaries for other things.
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There was this really interesting story about a a woman who is in her
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sixties, she's retired, She herself rents, but she owns this one property
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as kind of income for her. And so those are a lot of the
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stories that are coming up this week, and so that's the initial reaction.
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But the unintended consequences I think is going to be a big thing. The
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other piece about this that is still to be determined is do we think that
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the enforcement will be enough. One of the criticisms of all of this is
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that there's not too much of an investment in the enforcement. So you can
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put something on paper, what will it actually happen to be determined? Yeah,
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that enforcement unit is something the government said it's going to create provincially.
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We don't know the budget or the size, but it would have to be
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significant to monitor the companies and also your levy finds and that type of thing.
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And you're right, that was a question that was asked Jillian. The
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NDP was saying about that kind of criticism that Ali raised, that this is
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about preserving homes for people, not investors, and that sort of line for
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the complaints from investors who say it's not fair. They follow the rules,
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they pay their taxes, their business licenses, they're filling a gap in some
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places where there's not enough hotels. How do you think that plays out politically.
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I don't think the government really minds the optics of that, and I
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would argue that it actually is an intended consequence. I think that that sort
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of the type of politics NDP is really comfortable with, where there's sort of
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like a clear kind of almost like a villain, you know, to the
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most people are concerned about the price of homes, not people who own multiple
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properties, you know, having to sell and put those houses back on the
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market, and we actually saw some stories about this potentially lead like anecdotal stories
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about this potentially leading to a decline in condo prices in some cases, which
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I think the government thinks that most of their supporters are are going to be
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happy to see. So I don't I think that that was they expected that
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there would be these kinds of story is and that they didn't mind, and
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that in fact they actually think that this is probably pretty good optics for them.
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You know, we're a year out from an election. The biggest thing
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we keep talking about is the n DP has all these plans. There are
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approval ratings in terms of who people want to vote for are still high,
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but the issue approval ratings, especially in housing affordability, are low. So
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they need to show action, and I think this is a way for them
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to show that they're tangibly putting you know, units back on the market,
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both for rental and for sale, and I think, you know, they
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don't mind the optics of it at all. Yeah, well, that's a
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great point. I agree with you, and I think there's some similarities to
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the optics of the speculation tax that they brought in several years ago that was
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similar kind of phrasing on the way that they sold it about preserving homes for
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people and not speculators, and this time it's investors. Jeff, let's bring
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you in. What do you think of how all this landed? Yeah?
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First of all, folks at home work with a company in the short term
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rental space, So keep that mind as I'm making my points here. Look,
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I think the government has a pretty clear policy goal here, as folks
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have mentioned, they want to be seen as showing leadership on housing, and
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their policy goal is limit short term rentals and hoping that that will maximize the
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long term rentals that are available for folks who are struggling to find affordable housing
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in the province, which remains a great, big problem. I think Jillian's
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right. I think government sees this as a politically useful fight, right,
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and that means it's a story that conveys to voters whose side the government is
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on, because that's how elections are won. It's not who has the best
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policy, are you meeting outcomes? It's about who voters feel share their priorities
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and values, and so getting into it with short term rental providers is a
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pretty clear simple way for government officials to say we're on the side of renters
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in a housing crisis and not business. And it kind of reminds me of
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Gordon Campbell and BC Liberals who came to office on a platform of government is
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too big, taxes are too high. We need to get on with reducing
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taxes and reducing size of government. So they picked fights with teacher unions,
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right, and there was that antagonistic relationship, But I think in the long
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run, the teacher unions were right. But in that moment, that group
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personified the problem as Campbell saw it, and what the problem he was elected
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to office to solve, and so that helps solidify the coalition behind him and
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set him up for success. Though history did prove the teacher unions right and
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Gordon Campbell wrong. And on this one years yeah, yeah, on this
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one, we'll see in the long run whether government is right and it's policies
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hit the mark, or if it's the opposite. Yeah, it's hard to
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be wrong when you win three majority governments and reduce the opposition down to two
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seats. But in some ways he was altered right there. But anyways,
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I get your point, Jeff, Let's stick with you though, because there's
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lots of kind of detail to this and exemption. So like that principal residence
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requirement doesn't apply to a tourism area like Whistler or to Fino. It doesn't
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apply to a regional district unless they choose to opt in. It doesn't apply
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to the Gulf Islands unless they choose to opt in. If you have a
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vacancy rate in your city of more than three percent, like Fort Saint John
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or Central Sanate or Prince George, you can opt out entirely. And I'm
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still trying to figure out if this is the appropriate sort of flexibility to accommodate
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communities that have varying needs in the province and the right way to go,
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or like a really confusing patchwork where you drive through an area and in fifteen
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minutes hit three different short term rental jurisdictions depending on the regional district or the
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town or the city. I can't quite figure it out. Do you have
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any What do you make of that kind of distinction? Well, I think
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the complex nature of it it speaks to the political dynamic mix that the government
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was facing as it looked at short term rentals. You have people in Victoria,
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local governments in Victoria and Vancouver for example, that we're leaning into you
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know, short term rentals as a problem, we need more tools. Meanwhile,
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you had places like a Whistler, for example, a resort municipality saying
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we've got a shortage of accommodation. We need all the accommodation we can have,
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and if you clamp down on this, it's going to be a great,
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big problem to our whole economy. I think the broader story around this
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legislation and the rollout, and if you look at it, the rollout,
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it extends over many years, and a lot of it is not clear in
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the legislation. It's going to be made clear in regulation, so rules that
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will come down the road. And you have this interesting enforcement mechanism where you
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have both provincial government and local governments having enforcement rules. And it will be
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in interesting to see how a Victoria based airbnb police is what some people are
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calling it. But just to be simple, how that will help say places
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like km Loops when they have issues with homes that they think are inappropriately being
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used for short term rentals and they want to have some enforcement done and the
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local government says no, go to Victoria when the local government is right there
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in the community and knows and can actually get out to the house and inspect.
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And it's just it's big and complicated, and it will be interesting to
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see if the rollout in the execution matches the headline that government has put out
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this week. Yeah, for sure, it'll take some time to May first,
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I think is the implementation and the enforcement unit isn't until later in twenty
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twenty four, so it'll take time to see that. Jillian. If you're
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in a rural part of this province, like many people are, you're in
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a regional district. Has the province sort of punted this back onto local politicians
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who don't necessarily have the staff or the resources to figure it out. You
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can choose to opt in if you want, but you're still going to have
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to wrestle with this same quagmire of do you want short term rentals in town
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for tourists, especially in the smaller town without a hotel, or are you
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protecting your long term rental stock for locals and workers. That there are powers
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here for the regional governments to bring in business licenses and fines, but has
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the government kind of left them trying to figure that issue out on their own,
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and is that good? I guess, I mean yes, But this
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is also what local governments asked for. They really wanted to have flexibility because
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of that acknowledgment that every community is a little bit different, So that's what
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they got. I think it's going to really vary depending on the community.
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You know, in some like where I live in Nelson, I think you
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mentioned Naimo on Twitter when this first came out. We've got people who are
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essentially neighbors where one is in the regional distruction ones in the municipality. I
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think you know that there could be some unintended consequences in places like that,
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where you see potentially property prices in regional districts go up because they're more appealing
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as investments. Things like that that start to create issues. But I think
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that the government is sort of thinks that it's best to let that play out
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in each individual community because there's just so many and they're all so different.
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They obviously consulted with the you know, couple handfuls of resort communities that are
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important to them, but there's just so many regional districts it's hard to kind
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of create a single policy for them all. Yeah, I did. I
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did mention Anaimo on Twitter where if you drive through the city, the city
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which is home to of course inn Anaimo, bars peh. But if you
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drive through Nanaimo and then you end up kind of going into Lanceville, which
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is right north of it, totally different. Then you keep driving, you
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end up in Parksville, back into it and into Qualicum, which is sort
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of grandfathered in because it's close, and you're sort of driving through all these
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areas where it's up and down and different. So I don't know, Yea.
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I tend to agree with both of you that that's kind of the flexibility
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that everyone wanted. But it's hard on paper to sort of put all that
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together. Ali, all these details and timelines and that type of thing.
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Are we able to determine whether this is going to work before the next election?
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Do you think before the next election? Probably not. I don't think
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that it's going to be enough time to really see the impact of this,
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because these things take years. But what we will closely monitor is the moving
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goalpost before the election. So if it turns out that we need to recalibrate
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for certain things, or if we do need more enforcement, less enforcement,
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all of that. That's what people are going to be watching is was this
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a sound policy put forward with all of the foresight and thinking about all of
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the potential gaps. That'll be what we monitor, not necessarily if it's actually
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effective in moving the dialog, we will be able to figure that out in
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year. Also, we talk about like data attracting all the time on this
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show, and nothing is leading me to believe that this is going to be
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any different in how we monitor the data on this one. Yeah, Okay,
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let's move on to another hotly anticipated piece of legislation, changes to the
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Police Act, aimed at solving the Surrey policing controversy we have been talking about
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four years now. The bill will ban municipalities who choose to change their police
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force from changing that transition back in midstream, say after an election where it's
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a big issue. If you want to leave the RCMP create your own force,
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you got to see it through. You can't flip flop back. And
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it also puts into law that Surrey has to move to a municipal force.
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That that is the hammer. Some have said that the province is dropping on
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this is it a hammer ali? And are we done with this issue?
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Now? Are we done? No? I will preface this as I always
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do that one of the best part of my day jobs is to work with
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the Surrey Police Union. So watch what I say for that because it's always
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very biased. Right we talk about talking through political speaking points and all of
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that, and so just know that I'm always going to be in favor of
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the Surrey Police and the municipal police, So watch out for what I say.
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But it's interesting because Kevin Falcon, the leader this week, said that
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it's not about the badge that you wear between the RCP and the Surrey Police,
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and the same can actually be said. Then if it's not about the
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badge, then it shouldn't be about the political party either. But we're not
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necessarily seeing that, So opposing the amendments to the Police Act for the sake
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of opposition is actually not leadership. We saw Bruce Vahnman, the MLA from
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Abbotsburg, call for a referendum. This is laughably too late. So when
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we talk about the timeline of things, is this going away anytime soon?
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Probably not? And are people interjecting about issues that they should have interjected about
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years ago, probably and then one of the points that the BC United made
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that I think is really important and probably should be their only speaking point about
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this is the fact that they didn't have the information in order to make a
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decision about this and to rubber stamp this issue or the amendment, and that
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should just be it. The Solicitor General's Office is really one of the only
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offices that actually knows why the decision was made to favor the municipal Police service,
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and do you remember going all the way back to the mayor's redactive reports.
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That's the issue, right, is that we don't have all of the
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information, and so the BC United are saying that they don't have the information
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to necessarily make that decision themselves. That should be it. It shouldn't be
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about characterizing the NDP or the Solicitor General's Office about lack of leadership or the
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instability with all of this, because it has been an absolute mess, mostly
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made by Mayor Locke. And you know, kudos to the NDP for this,
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Like for every punch that the mayor tries to throw, they just keep
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dodging it and or coming up with solutions to make it better. So I'll
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leave it at that for now, but because there's just so much more I
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could say about the chaos that is this file. Yeah, Kevin Falcon sort
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of caught out on trying to take both sides of this issue by the NDP
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in the last week, saying, you know, at one point he had
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been calling on the government to bring in legislation to end this once and for
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all, and now it's here and he's not going to support it because it's
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a hammer to make a decision, which I thought was a pretty fair point
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by the NDP, who you're right, didn't want to get dragged into this,
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tried to leave it to Surrey to sort it out until the last possible
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minute, possibly too long, and now are getting blamed by Surrey as if
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this was the NDP's you know, plan all along. Jeff, I'm is
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there one positive here that maybe this just ends it all and a few months
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from now we're not talking about it, even though there's a court challenge by
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SURI. Yeah, this should end it. Premier eb said as much this
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week, and I think the Premier and the Solicitor General Mike Farnworth looked very
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strong this week and bringing in the legislation and responding to the pushback from Surrey.
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Frankly, it's the biggest hammer time since Stanley Burrow's nineteen nineties police hammer
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don't hurt him. And you may know him as an MC hammer. I
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think that's okay, Yeah, now I get it. Yeah yah, then
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he became hammer, so hammer hammer time. But again here's it's a politically
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useful fight for the government too. You've got Mayor Locke. She was elected
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with a tiny plurality thirty percent, that's Kennedy Stewart numbers, and that for
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folks who maybe knew to listening to us in the podcast is a bad thing.
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You know, it's fighting a fight that's important for her and her political
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future, but it's one that voters in Surrey, where elections in BC can
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be won in law, they're tired of it. Like folks everywhere, they
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want to see action on public safety measures and affordability, not you know,
18:07
political pet projects like this one. So it's easy to see why the NDP
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is doing this, and it's surprising to me to see the response from the
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BC Conservatives who are calling for a referendum, which was a good idea four
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years ago, but now we're so far down the line in a spot where
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it's it's unseerious politics and BC United, who are all over the place and
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at some points are just opposing for the sake of opposing, when that puts
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them in a bad box, in a bad position when they face voters who
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weren't tired of this, who barely elected Mayor Locke, and will be remembering
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who was on the side of bringing this to a close and who was trying
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to drag it on even longer. Yeah, Gillian, what do you Yeah?
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I mean, I think those are all really good points. I think
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it's shifted from being a conversation about the RCMP versus the ORPD to just wanting
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it to end. And you know, the provincial government is the ones that
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are being seen as being decisive trying to bring this to a close, and
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the local government is the one that's dragging it on. And you know,
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at the end of the day, the provincial government is the one that's responsible
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for public safety and policing province wide. Their biggest objection was that going back
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to the RCMP was going to make the already depleted RCMP forces across the province
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even more dire. And I think you know, that's an issue that's important
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to a lot of people, and I think their right to be being decisive
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and taking strong action on this. We're running out of time on the show,
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which is a great reminder for people to subscribe to the audio podcast because
19:49
we'll talk more about the next topic on that. But Jillian, we're going
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to stay with you on this and just we might only get you on it.
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But the residents of Lytton took to the dirt that used to be their
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streets this week to protest the lack of progress on rebuilding their town. Eight
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hundred and forty days, two and a half years later, forty million dollars
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from the provincial government, not a single home rebuilt, as red tape wraps
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up around what are indigenous cultural artifacts found in the soil during the cleanup,
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and the government trying to kind of balance protecting those in its comments this week
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and also sort of expressing sympathy for people who have nowhere to go after two
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and a half years and no end in sight on rebuilding that town after it
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was destroyed by wildfire. So what do you make of how this played out
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in the last week and where the government is sitting on it. Julian,
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I think that it seems to me like the government has sort of been letting
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this issue fester and now it's suddenly at a breaking point. I went back
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and looked at the statements that Premier Horgan made when the tragedy first occurred in
20:56
Latin and he made very big promises saying that they were going to rebuild the
21:00
community of the future, that the provincial government was going to be there to
21:03
help them do that, that it was going to be a you know,
21:06
a climate proof community. And I think, you know, Premier Horgan was
21:11
very prone to wearing his heart on his sleeve and made these big promises towards
21:14
the end of his term that and then you know, left his predecessor or
21:18
his successor to deal with the implementation. And it seems like that's sort of
21:22
fallen by the wayside to other priorities with the government. And you know,
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I think it's you know, is it forty million that's been spent but not
21:30
a single home built. And this week, you know, the government trying
21:33
to shut down an audit that was initiated by the opposition. We later found
21:37
out the Auditor General is going to be looking into it. Anyway. So
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I think that this, you know, has sort of been percolating for a
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while and seems like it is not going to stop being an issue because it
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seems like the government has really dropped the ball here, especially when you compare
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it to those promises that were made initially. Yeah, I think John Horgan's
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quote was we're going to be there to help rebuild or something like that,
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and I don't know by any measure you cannot two and a half years later
22:06
look at Lytton and say that it has been rebuilt. But the only response
22:10
really from government this week coming from Forest Minister Bruce Ralston, who contains the
22:15
Archaeology branch, with just a awful reply about something something We got to do
22:21
all the things and everything and we're working on it, which is cold comfort
22:26
if you're in Litton, all right, Jeff. There were stories that came
22:30
out this week. There was a woman who pointed out that she is going
22:33
to have to pay an archaeological firm owned by the local First Nations twenty one
22:37
thousand dollars to have two consultants stand around watching her construction crew dig a six
22:44
by twenty foot trench to bring in her waterline. To her property twenty one
22:48
thousand dollars. So just for that not covered by insurance. The province isn't
22:52
going to fund it, the town doesn't have the money. There wasn't really
22:56
a response from government to those kind of stories. There was just a discussion
23:00
of the importance of preserving indigenous cultural artifacts, which is obviously important, but
23:04
that tension seems to be a big part of what led to the protests and
23:11
the coverage this week. Yeah, my sense on this one is this that
23:15
the lit and rebuild really needs the Royal BC Museum treatment, you know,
23:19
reset, restart, get back on track. There's multiple governments involved, there's
23:26
people all with good intentions, but we need to move faster on this.
23:32
You know, everyone's working hard, but the rebuild is in this process quagmire
23:37
that you've just it's the second time we've used quagmire on the show, so
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hooray for the word quagmire. But we're in a process quagmire on this one.
23:44
So you've got rules and protocols and bureaucracy all over the place, well
23:48
intentioned, designed to balance interests, but it's just taking too long. You
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know, government needs to acknowledge that, but it's taken you too long and
23:57
describe how very specific terms, they're going to get people who lost everything back
24:03
into some rebuilt homes in a rebuilt community, because that's what they promised to
24:07
do, and that's not going to be easy. Pivoting is a hard thing
24:12
for government to do. There's a bunch of raw emotion there politically, and
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you've got good people involved in the government side and doing working good faith and
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people are going to feel, you know, scapegoated and that's tough. But
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this isn't about individual players dropping the ball. It's about the need for folks
24:33
who lost everything they need to get back into their homes and there needs to
24:36
be some political leadership and political signal scent that we've got to stop with the
24:44
you know, the process and the bureaucracy and we've got to get back focused
24:47
on the outcome, and that is these folks out of the dirt into homes,
24:52
and in my view, that can happen soon enough. There's at least
24:56
four new Democrat quasi cabinet ministers who are supposed to be handling this. You
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have Jennifer Rice, who are Parliamentary Secretary, has been involved in this,
25:06
she said. She expressed sympathy this week. You've got Rollie Russell, who
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attended these virtual meetings where people are just simmering with anger. There was a
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virtual meeting I watched last month where two bureaucrats from the province's archaeological branch delivered
25:21
what was like the pure distillation of red tape come to life over the course
25:25
of an hour meeting with these virtual discussions about the permitting and the things you
25:29
need to do and acronyms out the wazoo. He was on that meeting.
25:33
You've got Bruce Ralston, who oversees the archaeology branch and is so completely missing
25:37
in action in this one, like I don't even think he knows what's going
25:38
on. And then you've got Bowen ma who was the Emergency Management minister who
25:42
was dealing with the wildfires and was busy during the last few months and is
25:48
like, and none of them have taken the lead, And you're right,
25:52
Jeff, it feels like, I don't want to say more. I'm more
25:56
engaged. Single minister with a clearer sense of how to lead would have come
26:03
in here and set a different path rather than allowing this to devolve into the
26:08
situation that it's in Alie. What do you think? The MLA Jackie Teagert,
26:15
she was out again this week. She has been a champion of this.
26:18
Even the NDP admitted she's been a champion of this in her community to
26:22
try and get attention all the way to the premiere multiple times and it's just
26:26
like piles of dirt and nothing happening. When Jeff said political leadership, immediately
26:33
what came to mind was was Jackie Taker. I mean, she's just been
26:37
relentlessly an advocate for her community. And you know, and I've seen this,
26:45
so i know Jackie Taker very well. And I've been with her on
26:51
the days that she drives from Ashcroft to Lillowitte and you know, it's an
26:55
hour plus and a car working and always talking to people within the community because
27:00
she has pockets of small communities with small populations and used to see her just
27:04
go from one end of this province to the other because that's how big her
27:08
area is. But I always wonder, like if the population of Latin was
27:12
bigger and this was a bigger impact, would we have action. And it's
27:18
because Latin is one of those like precious small communities that sometimes they feel frustrated
27:22
and forgotten. And I think that's the core of what the sentiment is here,
27:29
is that they feel forgotten by Victoria and they feel forgotten by this government
27:36
eight hundred plus days. Could you imagine living in a hotel for eight hundred
27:41
plus days. It's absolutely awful. But you know, Jackie Tagot's been there
27:45
day and day out, bringing this to the legislature and bringing this to media.
27:52
She is the spokesperson for these small communities and specifically with Lytin and with
27:57
Lytin, and then you know, it's an interesting conversation and admitting that you
28:03
made a mistake and resetting. To Jeff's point, all the signs are obviously
28:11
pointing to something that needs to get done and there needs to be that reset.
28:17
But it's the sometimes the egos of political parties that make it very difficult
28:22
to hit that reset and reset button and admit that they made a mistake.
28:27
But it's not a mistake like we didn't know that this was going to be
28:30
this big, and we didn't know that there was going to be so much
28:33
red tape in all of this. So yeah, it's lots about mist like
28:38
admissions of guilt and mistakes, but it's just it's just a frank statement that
28:45
we're not where we need to be. You know, we made decisions we
28:48
thought it would get us where we need to be, but it hasn't.
28:52
And if you want to, if you want to have proof of that,
28:55
talk to people from letting. They're letting, they're letting us know. And
29:00
it's just a sense of like, look, we've got to read the room.
29:02
We got to read, we got to understand the people who this matters
29:04
to the most. And you know, like it's very obvious that we need
29:08
to do something differently. And the more you push back and defend, the
29:15
harder that gets, and the more difficult it gets for you to pivot when
29:22
that's what's really needed. One of the concerns is that, you know,
29:26
West Colowna and Shoeshwap other areas were damaged by wildfires in this past year.
29:30
They're going to have to rebuild and they're I think the concern from some is
29:33
looking at this and going is this our rebuilding process is that you go to
29:37
clean out the soil of your community, you discover that there are Indigenous cultural
29:42
artifacts that need to be preserved, and you end up kind of in this
29:48
process in which the homeowner is left for years in limbo uh and without kind
29:56
of enough financial support to cover the costs and eventually up getting hit with their
30:00
own bills on this when they're just trying to rebuild from a natural disaster that
30:03
they didn't have any effect on. And that tension, the government's allowed it
30:07
to fester to the point in Litton where it's just become quite toxic, I
30:11
think from talking to Pat there. And I want to be careful just on
30:15
that one point, because when you listen to the voice from the community,
30:18
you also hear indigenous voices saying, yeah, fifty percent of the population is
30:22
Indigenous. Yeah, right, So it's not it's it's it's not a dynamic
30:27
of Indigenous wanting something and non Indigenous wanting something. Now, that's everyone wanting
30:33
to move faster in a smarter way. And so and I know that that
30:37
was that. I know that that's what everyone here things. I'm up,
30:42
yeah, you're right, but it's kind of in the community. For example
30:45
of that that meeting, the archaeology branch told people that they are not allowed
30:49
to tell them what artifacts were found and how many were found on their properties
30:53
or even in the town. That's all confidential. And then boh and Ma
30:56
popped up in the legislature at one point in the week and said, seven
31:00
thousand artifacts have been discovered for the sole purpose of politically backstopping the NDP's lack
31:06
of action in that file. And then the community was like, wait,
31:08
that's the first time we've ever heard that. We didn't even know how many
31:11
artifacts were. And that disconnect of the you know, the political backstopping in
31:17
Victoria versus the community is a fascinating one too, because it just get the
31:21
impression of the government spending more time with the spinsters trying to you know,
31:26
prevent the criticism in Victoria than they are keeping an eye on the actual happenings
31:30
in Lytton. But anyways, they spend a lot of time with with with
31:36
people who didn't get married in the early twentieth century and are now old and
31:40
without husbands. Spins, Oh, spinsters, I got shares that spin doctors.
31:48
Sorry, right, all right, that's my sins serious, All right,
31:52
fair enough, Okay, moving on to our last topic here. It
31:57
is hard to believe, but this time next year we will be discussing the
32:01
day after the provincial election, what happened who's in power, What are the
32:07
dynamics, you know, the surprise victory of the Marijuana Sex Party that came
32:12
from nowhere and is now forming government. Whatever happened, And I think,
32:16
I mean to me, that's the time has moved so quickly. Partly I
32:21
guess because David eb you know, becoming premier a year ago sort of reset
32:25
in some ways a little bit of that clock. Anyways, there's a new
32:28
Angus Reid poll showing what we have talked about on the show before the rise
32:30
of the BC Conservatives to an almost tie position with the BC United Opposition,
32:36
the NDP in that forty mid forty ish percentage approval range, which with a
32:42
split right is a super majority, and the Greens and around I think thirteen
32:46
ish percent or so depending on twelve depending on where you are so pulling one
32:52
year or two an election, Jillian, what do we think of this landscape
32:55
and what are the party leaders probably thinking about as they plot out the next
33:00
year before this the big vote. Yeah, I think this is like the
33:04
fourth poll, the Angus Repool that just came out that kind of confirmed what
33:09
we kind of were speculating about since the Langford WANDAFUCA election, that the Conservatives
33:15
are majorly ascendant and have split the sort of center right vote to the point
33:22
that you know, they're both at about half of what the NDP is at,
33:25
giving them a huge lead. But we have this continued and even worsening
33:32
dynamic that we've seen for a couple of years where the issue approval ratings,
33:37
especially on those key issues which are healthcare, affordability, housing, crime,
33:42
and public safety, are very low. I think we had like seventy percent
33:45
disapproval ratings for most of those issues in this poll, which is just wild
33:51
for a government that you know is looking at gaining like a dozen seats probably
33:55
with this if this polling holds, and polls have been pretty accurate like in
34:00
the last couple cycles. So you know, I think the NDP is happy
34:05
in one sense that they've got that vote intention that there seems to be continued
34:10
trust and sort of strength of their brand as the most sort of trusted and
34:15
competent party to lead the province. But also that's got to make them nervous
34:20
because things can shift pretty quickly in an election if another leader is able to
34:24
sort of capture the public's imagination, you know, through their persona and through
34:30
their policies. So it's a really interesting dynamic. I think, you know,
34:36
the the NDP is in a really good spot obviously, but there they
34:39
need to be careful to not have hubris. I think, you know,
34:43
we talked a lot about I think the airbnb legislation sort of shows that they're
34:45
aware of that and that they know that they need to show tangible action.
34:51
But again, most of these issues are ones that it's really hard to get
34:55
tangible gains on. So you know, it's it's good for the NDP,
35:00
tough for the others, but a lot can change in a year or even
35:05
in the course of a rip period. Yeah, a full year and some
35:08
soft numbers like you say, Jillian, and things can change. I talked
35:12
to all of the party leaders in the past week. Davy dB I sat
35:16
down with him. He said, I know I can't solve these issues,
35:20
but I need to show people. I can't solve them in the year to
35:23
the election, but I need to show people where we're going, and I'm
35:27
going to be asking them for more time. Kevin Falcon said, essentially,
35:30
the BC Conservatives are going to appoint some really crazy, weird candidates and voters
35:37
are going to look for the adults in the room as the opposition to form
35:40
the next government, and that's going to be us. The Greens said that
35:44
their evidence principle based decision making will win the day, and the Conservatives said,
35:49
you know what, we're just going to keep playing the values because we're
35:52
the only ones talking about that. So that's the landscape alley of what the
35:55
party leaders are saying at this point a year out. I guess that kind
36:00
of matches up with what we sort of think that they're all their focuses are
36:05
for the next year. Yeah, this is interesting. A lot of the
36:09
conversations about the year out from the election are based in polling. You know,
36:15
we've we've mentioned it just now. Jeff will make his walking pole joke
36:19
when we get to him, and but polls are only unfavorable if you don't
36:28
do anything about it. I mean, that's why organizations spend a lot of
36:32
money on internal polling. It's to be able to recalibrate and say, Okay,
36:38
if this isn't working, we need to fix it. And a year
36:42
is enough time to demonstrate that they're taking that information, that data and readjusting.
36:52
But the dynamics between let's say, the opposition the BC United, the
36:59
BBC Canservatives. This is very interesting to me, particularly this week. Two
37:07
months ago, I was saying that what's the difference between BC United and the
37:10
NDP, Like, I was finding that the messaging was very much targeted toward
37:15
that middle of the road voter in the political spectrum between left and right,
37:19
that centrist voter. They were all kind of going after that same audience.
37:22
Therefore, I was finding it challenging to figure out what the difference was sometimes.
37:28
But now I'm trying to figure out the difference between the BC United and
37:31
the BC Conservatives, so much so that they're even starting to use the same
37:37
language. On the BC Conservative website, it says, let's bring that common
37:45
sense back to BC. And then in a fundraising letter from the BC United
37:49
this week, at the very end, let's bring common sense back to BC.
37:52
And so it's like who wore it better? Who did it first?
37:55
It was actually the Basic Conservatives who did it first. So why why is
38:00
BC United following that? Do you think, like, why mirror that language?
38:06
I would never begin to put words in their mouth, but I'm really
38:09
good at assuming things, and so I think one it's the popularity of that
38:15
messaging that the bring it home Pierre pauliev Conservative messaging, and the BC Conservatives
38:21
were very quick to pick it up and that's why they put it on their
38:23
website. It's that branding distinction between the federal parties and the provincial parties.
38:29
But I think what they're trying to do is really just try to figure out
38:34
what the branding is, what the slogan is that will reach the most voters
38:38
and then but they're not going to be able to do that if I can't
38:43
tell the difference between these two these two parties. M that's fascinating in some
38:49
ways. You know, the NDP had been very effective in framing Pierre poly
38:53
Evra in his kind of in the in the federal sphere as kind of scary,
38:59
and be United has been hesitant to lean into his messaging the same way.
39:02
And the Conservatives have eaten their lunch here provincially, and you're right in
39:07
doing it first, and now United is trying to catch up in some of
39:12
that phrasing because it is very very effective, and that confusion between the federal
39:16
and provincial Conservative brands is doing the provincial party quite well in the polling Jeff,
39:22
what do you make of all of this? I see I'm not going
39:29
to do a walking poll joke now because you suck the air's the whole opportunities.
39:36
Let's go back, Let's go back in the political capital time machine to
39:39
the nineteen ninety one BC election and that it feels like we're on the precipice
39:50
on a variation on what happened there. So back then Social Credit Bill Vandersam
39:58
had resigned and Rita Johnson was brought in and it represented like a shift of
40:06
that party from urban economic conservatives to social conservatives. And what happened there is
40:14
that Social Credit lost forty seats. The BC Liberals under Gordon Wilson took up
40:22
the mantle of free enterprise coalition voter successful voter block and held onto that rather
40:30
successfully for many years to come. And it feels to me an awful lot
40:35
like the we're seeing the the reverse happen now, where there's a you know,
40:42
a global tide of you know that populist social conservative politics becoming popular and
40:52
it's it's you know, Kem Falcon is putting sandbags up against a tide that
40:58
is a of global thought that that is gaining energy to the BC Conservatives.
41:05
I think it's bigger than just Pierre Paully. Ever, I think it's got
41:07
as much to do as with Joe Rogan and American right wing politics as it
41:15
does with things that are happening here domestically. So you know, and they
41:22
they have the same messages because they're fighting for the same voters. There's that
41:27
that right wing primary that we've talked about happening right now where they're focused on
41:34
each other right now, right they're they're not focused on You don't see that.
41:37
You don't see BC United or BC Conservatives campaigning an NDP seeds. You
41:42
see Ken Falcon this week is up in John Rustdad's writing into Chaco barnstorming with
41:47
the new candidate there to try and establish themselves as the the as the party
41:53
that's going to beat the the NDP. But they've got a lot, they're
41:58
in a tough position. And I'm not on Kem Falcon's Christmas card list,
42:04
so I won't call on him to resign on this episode. Keep working hard,
42:08
Kevin, but it's it's it's it's quite a thing he's up against.
42:17
Year is not a long time in politics. It's not a long time to
42:21
turn around a twenty to twenty situation where the other side is really energized due
42:25
to big factors completely beyond your own control. But part of the reason that
42:30
Falcon is having to sandwall or sand off, sandbag the social conservative side is
42:37
due to the PC NDP's effective ability to wedge it, whether it's Lori Throness,
42:42
whether it's John Rustad's comments on climate change, where like the NDP are
42:46
waiting for examples of that kind of social conservative or right wingism in the BC
42:52
Liberal BC United Party and then jump on them and then you know, paint
42:57
the leader that way. And so Falcon is gone center where he believes that
43:01
that's more appealing in the urban parts of the province, and he's sort of
43:06
he's damned if he does, and he's damned if he doesn't in a way
43:08
right because he can try and keep them together and get hammered by the NDP,
43:13
or he can try and go centrist and lose the entire right part and
43:16
lose to the NDP. Anyway, So just really, really quick, I
43:20
just talked for a long time, but just really quick. I was at
43:22
a Board of Trade speech this week by the Premiere and the question part was
43:28
asked, well, what surprised you about this session, and he said,
43:31
and he gave a backhanded compliment, I thought to BC United, because he
43:35
said, the thing that surprised me is BC Conservatives and how negative a force
43:39
they are in the legislature, and we can't ever lose the dynamic where adults
43:44
can get in a room and disagree on issues but be respectful about it.
43:46
And I think that was his way of saying to folks that as much as
43:53
he thinks BCNDP is a better option than BC United, it's BC Conservatives are
44:01
something completely different. In a part from from BC United. Yeah, I
44:08
guess so, Jillian, not to pig you in the Green position or anything,
44:13
but we haven't talked about the Greens at all, and at twelve percent
44:16
ish the pressures that they are under over the next year. Even this session
44:22
has showed the difficulty sometimes in them finding a space in the public discussion.
44:27
When the Conservatives say wild things, everyone runs over to do that, and
44:31
then the premiere denounces them and gets coverage of that, and sort of the
44:37
Green is trying to find their way through that. What do they need to
44:39
look at or what would they be looking at and the position they are right
44:44
now and where they need to go, do you think yeah, I think
44:46
that definitely. Having you know, two other opposition parties in the House and
44:51
one that's very sensationalist and willing to sort of reach to the bottom of the
44:58
barrel to get attention makes it harder. And the Greens kind of brand of
45:02
politics. They like to talk about their own issues. They like to talk
45:06
about solutions. It's not always like headline grabbing, although you see that sometimes,
45:10
like they can be adept at that where they had come out with issues
45:13
like the four day work week and things like that that do really capture the
45:17
public's imagination and help them sort of tell the story about what they're offering.
45:22
That's different. I think like given the limited oxygen available and just one year
45:29
left, they need to get really specific about both their issues and what they're
45:34
pushing and just you know, talk about those over and over again, get
45:37
snappier and louder. And I also think, you know, having a really
45:43
clear plan of they've got really clear places in the province where they have the
45:47
potential to pick up support and there's really specific issues in those communities. I
45:52
think we saw that almost as the beginning of the Conservatives momentum in Langford where
45:59
the candidate like so almost ingeniously started talking about transit and made me think,
46:02
oh my god, Like why didn't the Green campaign talk about that? Right?
46:06
Like, I think sometimes you're in the legislature for so long you start
46:09
like thinking about all these big like provincial intersecting issues that you forget to sort
46:15
of get really specific and focused on what's really tangible for communities and what's really
46:21
going to hit in the places that you're looking. So I think those two
46:24
things. I think one thing that was encouraging for them from the poll is
46:28
that Sonya Firstono's got pretty high favorables compared to the other leaders. It's a
46:34
much hot, steeper hill for Falcon to climb. He's got not very good
46:37
favorables, but people like her. She did well in the twenty twenty election
46:42
when she was in front of people, So you know, I think there's
46:45
reasons for some optimism. But they've got to work hard and get really focused,
46:49
like there's no time to waste in the next year for them, for
46:52
sure, for sure, Allie, just one more question to you here.
46:55
And Jillian has mentioned this a couple of times. But the polling that shows
46:59
the immense public dissatisfaction on certain issues, the big issues of the day,
47:05
healthcare, housing, affordability, that kind of thing, versus the NDPS,
47:10
those many of those same people saying they're still willing to vote for the NDP.
47:15
I think at one point in time we used to attribute that to David
47:17
Ebe's sorry, John Horgan's popularity as premier. Now you've got David eb not
47:23
probably quite as popular. But what is it that you think that is causing
47:28
this phenomenon in polls to have immense, you know, anger on the issues,
47:36
but still a willingness to vote for the party. Where is that coming
47:38
from. I think it's just a magnitude of the complexities of these issues.
47:45
But as Jillian was talking, I think Jillian, the Greens might be in
47:50
a really interesting position because they continue to be focused on the good ideas,
47:58
and as voters, we want good ideas. That's where we sometimes tend to
48:01
vote. Voter apathy, I think is going to be a big one in
48:05
the next election. This coming from a space of when the issues are just
48:10
so big and everything seems to be on fire, you just feel like,
48:15
what's the point and so I think a lot of people tend to sit this
48:21
one out. But then if the Greens just kind of stay on that path
48:23
as they consistently have the good ideas and putting out good candidates and stay out
48:30
of the drama that it is between the relationship between the other three parties,
48:37
they might be able to actually pull out a significant vote that isn't being shown
48:44
within the polling. Polling questions can be very difficult, but it doesn't really
48:49
talk about the intentions of actually getting out to vote. What's going to motivate
48:53
people to get out there, And so I think this one's going to be
48:58
like a silent thing to watch. Voter apathy is something that happens every cycle,
49:02
but I think it might be more prevalent this time around. Yeah,
49:06
I think they also another thing I've been thinking about I forgot to mention,
49:08
is they're going to be facing a different dynamic where you know, a lot
49:13
of voters, a lot of their potential voters kind of our strategic strategically vote
49:17
for the NDP. With poles showing like the NDP projected to have this massive
49:22
lead in the others not being as much of a threat, maybe it could
49:25
potentially work to the Green's favor if they can spin it in the right you
49:30
know, get that information in front of the right voters in the right communities.
49:32
So yeah, there's some there's definitely like lots of things that can happen
49:37
between and then I think, I think there's a I think there's an imperative
49:43
here and an opportunity for each of the parties. I think what's missing I
49:47
think from each of the parties is well, there's a lot of talk about
49:52
individual policy or individual and the government's part initiatives that it's taken, and the
50:01
aspirational story, the mission statement behind it is not there. I'm not hearing
50:07
it from from anyone. So in that context, I think the electorates like
50:13
I like eb he's a smart guy. The government shares my values. I
50:17
don't like how well they're doing on housing and affordability and healthcare, but they
50:23
seem like the right people. I think there's, you know, just this
50:27
real opportunity. We're in this space where folks are looking for, either from
50:31
the government or from the other parties, someone to say, in these unprecedented
50:37
times, this is how I'm going to uh set British Columbia on a trajectory
50:45
for future growth and shared prosperity. And you know, this is my plan
50:52
to get us there, and not in terms of like here are the specific
50:54
things I'm going to do, but just the big you know. The best
50:58
person who did this, uh, and I'm going to be struck down by
51:00
lightning for saying this was Christy Clark in twenty thirteen. Whence she just said,
51:05
like, look at we're going to have debt free BC because we got
51:07
LNG. I'm not saying that's the message here, but it's that kind of
51:12
you know, this is how we're going to solve all of these issues.
51:15
This is the story how we're going to get there, and the building blocks
51:20
are there for each of the parties. It's just for each one of them
51:22
to figure it out and make it happen. I have one more thing to
51:28
say about your question, rub and apologies that didn't come to me sooner.
51:32
But if we're having issue with the support, then I wonder then if EBE
51:39
would even survive the next election, then so they might win government, but
51:45
we might have issue as the voter base with his leadership that he might then
51:52
there might be a confidence vote. I mean, that's another way of going
51:59
about this is that that if the if the issues are too too much.
52:02
And I don't know where I'm going with this, but my point is in
52:08
the long term, yeah, and the long term like could EB survive this
52:14
even despite the popularity of his party? M Well, all the walking poles
52:19
that I'm seeing tell me that he's going to be in good shape. So
52:22
there you go. You got to do okay, get the walking poles in.
52:24
See. Then that's it. That brings it home, that brings the
52:29
episode to a close. Thank you to the pod squad for being here.
52:32
Thank you for listening. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast for all the
52:36
latest. We'll be back next week to bring you everything that's going on in
52:40
BC politics. Here on Political Capital