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Microsoft Excel borks the BC budget | Political Capital Daily · Political Capital with Rob Shaw

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  Speaker 1: the show. It's Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026, and this is
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  Speaker 1: Political Capital Daily.
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  Speaker 2: Well, good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to September 2nd, the second day of the new
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  Speaker 1: month in BC politics. It's going to be just like
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  Speaker 1: the other months, uncontrolled chaos, I imagine, but not necessarily
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  Speaker 1: in today's show. We don't have any massive resignations. There's
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  Speaker 1: not anything exploding around us, but there's still lots of
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  Speaker 1: things to get into. So we're going to bring in
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Ferrier from Political Capital Prime, longtime New Democrat strategist,
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  Speaker 1: founding member of FramePoint Public Affairs. Jeff, thanks for joining us.
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  Speaker 3: It is great to be here. Thanks for having me, Rob.
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  Speaker 1: Question of the week I'm going to ask everyone, have
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  Speaker 3: Me?
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  Speaker 1: September the 2nd. Are you on it?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know I'm going to be a clown for Halloween. Right.
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  Speaker 1: So, yeah. The obvious joke there, people can fill in.
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  Speaker 3: Wait, what?
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  Speaker 1: On their own. Yeah, exactly. I thought you'd dig out
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  Speaker 1: the old Hydrozilla suit, but... Apparently not.
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  Speaker 3: That's long gone.
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  Speaker 1: It's in the Royal Ontario Museum, probably.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not in the Royal BC Museum. I don't
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  Speaker 3: think they have any exhibits anymore.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, no, they don't. They just have big empty
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  Speaker 1: We're going to run through some items. There's not a
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  Speaker 1: lot on the agenda today, so we're actually going to
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  Speaker 1: blow through this, hit a break, and then we've got
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  Speaker 1: lots to catch up on afterwards. So I just want
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  Speaker 1: to fire through here today. If you're looking at your agenda,
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  Speaker 1: the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade is hosting a Surviving
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the Trade War, a practical guide to tariffs and business
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  Speaker 1: support event in Vancouver. You have Federal Housing Minister Gregor
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  Speaker 1: Robertson up at 8.30 a.m. B.C. has Parliamentary Secretary for
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  Speaker 1: Trade Paul Choi will be there for that event. There's
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  Speaker 1: no public event scheduled for Premier David Eby today. There
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  Speaker 1: is an event in Nanaimo involving local MLA and Minister
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  Speaker 1: of Social Development Sheila Malcolmson, MLA George Anderson, I believe
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  Speaker 1: the mayor on a supportive housing announcement made with government
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  Speaker 1: on a complete system of care that connects housing, health
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  Speaker 1: and recovery. I know Nanaimo is a big outspoken uh,
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  Speaker 1: advocate and critic of some of the ways that the
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  Speaker 1: government has done, uh, unhoused care, addictions care, the lack
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  Speaker 1: of wraparound care. So we'll be watching to see what
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  Speaker 1: that is, Jeff. And then last time we're here on
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  Speaker 1: my agenda, uh, this morning, uh, the bank of Canada
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  Speaker 1: out with its latest interest rate decision, perhaps by the
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  Speaker 1: time you've already heard this due to the Eastern time change,
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  Speaker 1: you have any guests on everyone's wondering if with the
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  Speaker 1: trade war, the bank lowers or holds the benchmark rate
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  Speaker 1: at 2.25%.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: It says Guessing game for us, us muggles who don't
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  Speaker 1: understand the magical ways. But what's your guess?
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  Speaker 3: I don't understand how rate hikes or rates are set.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm going to say stays the same.
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  Speaker 1: Stays the same. It's been the same for almost a year.
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  Speaker 1: So that's a safe bet. But there is a lot
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  Speaker 1: of discussion about the Bank of Canada using monetary policy
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  Speaker 1: to wrestle with the fallout from the U.S. trade war.
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  Speaker 1: So that'll be a discussion soon.
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  Speaker 3: In the days ahead.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, next time.
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  Speaker 3: Next time.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, we got time.
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  Speaker 3: I think you forgot the, no, you forgot the agenda
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  Speaker 3: part about another three MLAs from the BC Conservatives stepping
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  Speaker 3: down to sit as independents.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you never know. I got the sound effects already. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: it hasn't happened as of this morning, but the day
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  Speaker 1: is young. Yeah, we'll update that on tomorrow's show. Let's
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  Speaker 1: do a quick break here, and then we're going to
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  Speaker 1: get into the stories from yesterday, the context of the
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  Speaker 1: things you need to know. Coming up, right after this.
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  Speaker 1: All right, each and every day, Political Capital Daily, free
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  Speaker 1: for its support of today's show. And now back to
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  Speaker 1: the show. All right, Jeff, we got a ton of
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  Speaker 1: stuff to go through here. I'm just going to kind
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  Speaker 1: of do the first one, I think, that was percolating
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  Speaker 1: on the agenda yesterday. Premier David Eby had a press
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  Speaker 1: conference where he took a matter of questions. And one
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  Speaker 1: of the big ones was this story that Business in
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  Speaker 1: Vancouver's Stephan Labe had broke last week, possibly even the
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  Speaker 1: week before, about the government overestimating natural gas revenue in
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  Speaker 1: the most recent budget and consequently when that error was found,
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  Speaker 1: discovering that it was $ 1. 5 billion too much in the budget,
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  Speaker 1: money that didn't exist in the forecast, and it had
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  Speaker 1: to admit the implications of this. The Premier out today
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  Speaker 1: talking about it. Here's what he said off the top here.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not pleased by this situation. The Ministry of
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  Speaker 2: Energy has advised me that there was a human error
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  Speaker 2: in the... spreadsheet calculations around natural gas royalties, I have
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  Speaker 2: instructed them to do two things. One is to provide
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  Speaker 2: a technical briefing to interested members of the media to
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  Speaker 2: ensure that there's clarity and transparency about what the error was,
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  Speaker 2: which was different, but still material, different from what the
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  Speaker 2: First Nations had identified, but material in terms of the
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  Speaker 2: impact on the budget. And the second is to invite
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  Speaker 2: the Auditor General in to do a review both of
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  Speaker 2: the error and the steps that they're taking to make
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  Speaker 2: sure it doesn't happen again. we need to ensure that
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  Speaker 2: the information that goes into the budget is accurate, complete,
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  Speaker 2: and that people can have confidence in it. And that
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  Speaker 2: was not the case for these royalty numbers. And we'll
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  Speaker 2: ask the Auditor General for assistance to ensure that we
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  Speaker 2: have the processes in place to make sure this never
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  Speaker 2: happens again.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff, kind of a wild story when you dig down
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  Speaker 1: to the bottom of it and discover that this whole
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  Speaker 1: thing centers around someone dragging the wrong Microsoft Excel formula
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  Speaker 1: across the wrong cells in a spreadsheet. and screwing up
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  Speaker 1: some sort of conversion thingamajigger, and suddenly 300 and some
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  Speaker 1: odd million dollars in the current fiscal year of revenue
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  Speaker 1: is overstated. I've never heard any story like that. What
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  Speaker 1: did you think of this?
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  Speaker 3: The first thing I thought is it's a big, significant
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  Speaker 3: mistake that government has made here. $ 1. 46 billion over five years,
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  Speaker 3: $ 292 million on average per year. it's a forecast. So
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  Speaker 3: it's not like the money has disappeared to somewhere, but
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  Speaker 3: it is revenue that was banked upon that is no
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  Speaker 3: longer there. So that, uh, for British Columbians means $ 300
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  Speaker 3: million less than the government has at its disposal to
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  Speaker 3: invest in health education and, uh, infrastructure. Um, I'm glad
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  Speaker 3: to see that the premier seems to have owned this,
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  Speaker 3: that in a later scrum, uh, minister Adrian Dix, uh,
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  Speaker 3: own this because this is significant as an impact on
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  Speaker 3: British Columbians. And we need to make sure that this
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  Speaker 3: sort of thing doesn't happen again. And one other thing,
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  Speaker 3: just real quickly, is government shouldn't be using Excel to
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  Speaker 3: make budgets. It's an old, antiquated software system. There are better,
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  Speaker 3: newer uh, software systems out there specifically for this kind
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  Speaker 3: of thing that governments should be putting into action for them.
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  Speaker 3: And that kind of, this is the kind of thing
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  Speaker 3: that you hope the Auditor General will look at and
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  Speaker 3: point to, you know, systems and oversight. And, um, this
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  Speaker 3: has gotta be one of the, one of the things that, uh,
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  Speaker 3: that Auditor General's looking at, they need to, to fix.
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  Speaker 3: Excel is great if you're doing, uh, you know, a
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  Speaker 3: list for your moving tasks, but you shouldn't be doing
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  Speaker 3: an $ 85 billion budget on it.
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  Speaker 1: I was just surprised that whoever dragged the formula over
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  Speaker 1: didn't have that little clippy, you know, little Microsoft paper
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  Speaker 1: clip that pops up and is like, are you sure
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  Speaker 1: you really want to downgrade natural gas revenue forecasts? And
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  Speaker 1: it's like, yes or no. But nope, didn't happen. That
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  Speaker 1: error in that spreadsheet got through the Ministry of Energy,
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  Speaker 1: the Ministry of Finance, Treasury Board, Cabinet, the Comptroller General's Office,
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  Speaker 1: the Premier's Office, the tabling of the provincial budget in February,
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  Speaker 1: which should have been $ 13. 6 billion deficit instead of $ 13. 3,
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  Speaker 1: and then it sat there for four months publicly before
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  Speaker 1: anyone even noticed it, and initially the government denied that
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  Speaker 1: there was anything wrong when this reporter first asked, and
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  Speaker 1: then eventually this whole thing came crashing down because it
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  Speaker 1: hurt inside. And that was the end of that. So
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  Speaker 1: a wild story. The opposition conservatives and their finance critic,
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  Speaker 1: Gavin Dew, out with a quote. He was talking to
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  Speaker 1: me earlier. His quote was, what kind of dog and
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  Speaker 1: pony show, half-baked podunk just fell off the turnip truck
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  Speaker 1: government is David Eby running, where heirs this basic are
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  Speaker 1: able to make it into the fundamental budgetary documents of
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  Speaker 1: the government. And pointed out in the private sector, someone
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  Speaker 1: would probably be fired over that. Yeah, probably, but that's
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  Speaker 1: not how it works in the government.
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  Speaker 3: Sounds like Gavin Dew knows how to use chat GPT
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  Speaker 3: really well. I mean, opposition is right to be raising
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  Speaker 3: concerns about this. It's a big mistake. Government needs to
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  Speaker 3: own it. They need to do better.
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  Speaker 1: Another topic that was interesting, Jeff, the new numbers from
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  Speaker 1: Elections BC out on the BC Conservative leadership contestants basically
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  Speaker 1: kind of spending. And we won't, you know, you're welcome
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  Speaker 1: to go online. It's on my social media if you
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  Speaker 1: want to see it all. But, you know, Carolyn Finley,
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  Speaker 1: who won the B.C. conservative leadership race, she spent around $ 541, 000.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Ian Black appears to have spent the most at $ 602, 000.
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  Speaker 1: Carolyn Elliott didn't file in time. And Uri Fulmer also
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: had an extension, so his numbers aren't there. The worst
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: numbers I saw were Daryl Jones's. who spent $ 431, 000, only
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: raised $ 60, 000, took out $ 108, 000 personal loan and quit two
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: months before the end of the race. And he's got
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to pay that loan off. So, oof, those leadership numbers.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I know you were digging a little bit into donations
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  Speaker 1: and different things, but did anything stand out for you
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  Speaker 1: on that?
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  Speaker 3: So one of the things I looked at, just out
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  Speaker 3: of interest's sake, was folks who endorsed candidates Did they
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  Speaker 3: just endorse them and give them their name, or did
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  Speaker 3: they give some money? Carrie Lynn Finley was very good
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: at getting her supporters to donate, but Peter Melibar, the
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  Speaker 3: head of this new center-right party that's nascent in British Columbia,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Ian Payton, God bless him, donated a fair chunk of
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: money to him, but Brennan Day, Gavin Dew, Kyle Giddens,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Lauren Dirksen, all supporters gave Peter Balevar big fat, no money.
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  Speaker 1: For them.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe that, but you know that, and they didn't even
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  Speaker 3: carry their writings. Yeah. So, I mean, that's kind of,
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  Speaker 3: that's kind of sad. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's just not everyone who stands behind an MLA and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: endorses them ends up kind of delivering either the money
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: or the votes. But you don't, you don't know that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: until the end. So lots of lessons.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: You need money. You need money to win a campaign.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: And Daryl Jones had, I think you and I were
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: talking earlier today and you had a novel way that
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: he might consider paying off his debt.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Well, you can cash in approximately, probably 17 trillion save
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: on points, uh, would maybe get him, uh, we get
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that money down, but, uh, I don't think anyone's, I
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: don't think anyone's got that many save on points, even
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Daryl Jones.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: So good luck to him. You get like a million
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: more rewards points and you get a free stick of butter.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of barbecue chicken you're going to buy to, to, uh,
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  Speaker 1: to generate that many points. Going back to Premier David
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Eby's press conference, Jeff, I was struck. I just want
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to play this clip here. We don't have to talk
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a lot about it. But the Premier was asked about
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Metro Vancouver and the dysfunction at the board governance there.
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  Speaker 1: And for a year, more than a year, his answer
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  Speaker 1: has been, you know, we'll get involved if we have
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: to get involved. But 46 days before the provincial election,
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  Speaker 1: The Premier says this.
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  Speaker 2: Listen, the gong show that continues at Metro Vancouver needs
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: to come to an end. I've instructed the Minister of
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Municipal Affairs and Housing to prepare options for the province
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: to step in. I've had a conversation with the chair
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: of the board, Mike Hurley, who indicated to me that
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: he would be open to entering into conversations with the province.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I really had hoped that Metro Vancouver would be able
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: to sort this out. there's a lot of strong leaders.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I have confidence in the chair. I have confidence in
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: many of the leaders around the table. And it just
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be headed in the right direction. I
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: still hope that in the interim, we'll see some positive
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: movement out of Metro Vancouver. They're continuing their internal work.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: But at this stage, I have to say enough is enough.
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  Speaker 1: I don't get it. And I asked the premier's office, like,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: is he coming back with solutions to the Metro Vancouver
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: board thing during the municipal election? Is he going to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: drop these grenades? Like there are entire people, there are
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: people whose entire campaign is built on like slamming the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Metro Vancouver board and the province is going to step
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in right before the vote and say, here's our proposal.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Perhaps maybe at UBCM next week, or is it just
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: easy just talking here? And then, you know, like a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: year from now we get some, I don't get it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why he's doing this now, Jeff. I
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: don't know if anything tweaks for you on that or what,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: but I stopped in my tracks and went, huh? But
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I often do that, to be honest with you.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: It sure is one of those November surprises where in
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: an election campaign there's something kind of big out of
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the blue that comes into the campaign. I was listening
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: to the Premier's comments and that he had– Confidence in
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: some of the leaders around the table. If I were
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: a reporter there, I would have followed up and asked,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: so which ones don't you have confidence in? It's an
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: interesting situation there, to say the least, and it's about
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: time the province intervened because the cost of the infrastructure
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: that they're building there is just going up and up
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: and up and up and no end in sight.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: For sure. We'll see what he comes back with. Speaking
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of elections, here is the Premier's response when he was asked,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: yes or no, will you call an early election this fall?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: We're preparing for the fall session, Rob. You know, I
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: understand that the Conservatives are in significant chaos. Our focus
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: remains on delivering for British Columbians, and that's what we're
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: going to continue our focus on.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Not a yes, not a no. although last week I
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: believe he said no interest in an early election. Everyone's
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: speculating because with the Conservatives in, as I put it,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, the dumpster fire inside the nuclear reactor on
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the spaceship to the words that sent her the sun,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: which is imploding into a supernova, that now would be
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a great time for the NDP to take advantage of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that and go to an early election. Not a yes
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: or no. I don't know, Jeff. We're reading tea leaves
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: in Parson language here. Did you think that was just
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a standard answer or did any of that twig for you.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I think he was trying to give the standard answer of,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: you know, the conservatives are focused on their own internal politics.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I'm focused on getting things done for British Columbians and
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: that's what I'm going to do. But I, the word I,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: we did not hear in that is no, which would
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: have been a good answer. He did say it last week.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's got to say it every time he's asked,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Well, that was before, that was before seven conservative MLAs
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: decided to exit state right.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's true. And you know, if I was, I
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: think it's possible perhaps the NDP is waiting to see
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: how the Abbotsford by-election goes in September the 26th. If
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Carolyn Finley doesn't win and the AP win Abbotsford mission, which, uh,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you know, that, that would be a sign perhaps of
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: their electoral fortunes. Uh, because the last time they won
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that was in the 2020 provincial election under John Horgan,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: where the NDP had a super majority. So, uh, perhaps,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: but we're all just trying to read the premier's mind
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: here because, uh, No one knows for sure if he's
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: thinking about that. No one also knows for sure what
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the RCMP is doing, Jeff, but we did get a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: story yesterday that at least one MLA, possibly three, are
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: preparing to meet with the RCMP to be interviewed about
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: whether they were offered a job and money to give
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: up their seats so Conservative leader Carolyn Finlay could run
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: in their ridings. Ian Payton in Delta South made that
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: accusation out loud last week when he stepped in. He
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: said he is set to meet the police. Uh, that
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: seems consequential to me to have potentially some type of
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: police probe or whatever you want to call it going
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: on involving a person during the by-election in Abbotsford mission. But, uh,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: what did you think?
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Uh, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: for the BC conservatives, you know, they have their, um,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: board at odds with the executive director and the executive
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: director gets shown the door you have another guy who's
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: apollo chung unceremoniously fired over not sure what but we
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: all heard the recording about him making bank off of
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: his position you have seven mlas who have uh who
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: left and you're like how could things get worse well
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: when the police get involved that's worse and i don't
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: know what they're going to find i don't know if
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: there's anything that's going to be substantiated here but they're
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: going to look into it and it's ongoing they would
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: have to bring it to crown council the evidence and
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: then they'd have to decide if there's something to prosecute
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: here but it's going to hang over that by-election campaign
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: um And it's something you'll see on leaflets, I have
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: no doubt, and talking points for folks who are doing
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: door-to-door canvassing. So, not good.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: No, it's another wrinkle in what is a very complicated
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: by-election with a lot of moving parts in a riding
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that should be a slam dunk on paper for the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Conservatives or a centre-right party traditionally, but has not been
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: in the last couple of elections the same way, and certainly...
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Has a lot going on at, uh, on this time.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: One more topic here. Uh, we forgot to talk about
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: this when it actually happened on Monday night, uh, on,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: on yesterday's podcast. I got drowned out by other things,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: but there were three federal by-elections, Jeff. And of course
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the federal liberals walked away with all three of them,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: including one in North Vancouver, Capilano, um, where former deputy
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: chief of staff at Braden Cayley won the seat for
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the federal liberals with 58 votes. of the vote, the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Conservatives 29%, the Greens 8.7%, and the NDP 3.1%. What
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: did you make of these numbers and the kind of takeaway,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: if there is any, for British Columbia politics?
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I think the high-level takeaway for me, and I'm mindful
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: that this is North Vancouver, which is not representative of
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: the whole province, but it is a bellwether for an
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: awful lot of important ridings on the island, and in
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: the lower mainland is, uh, boy, the conservatives got thumped.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: They got thumped there and they got thumped in the
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: other by-elections as well. And so that gets me to thinking, uh,
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: you know, those are the kind of writings that the
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: conservatives need, uh, to flip to win the next election.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: And they've just been repudiated in a big way by voters, uh,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: with the Liberals campaigning on what David Eby's campaigning on,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: which is Canada building major projects, trade diversification, standing up
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: to Trump. So this is another thing for the Conservatives,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: in my mind, to be concerned about.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: You could see the BC NDP leaning into that message
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: maybe in the by-election as well, a consequential moment, fight
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Trump based on the overwhelming success of the prime minister here,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: he was out, uh, yesterday saying a clear message of
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: support for his stance against Trump and, and trade aggression.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So maybe, but also I guess we know why NDP
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: leader Avi Lewis didn't run in this riding despite it
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: being very close to where he lives because holy Yakimo, um,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: the NDP just got, uh, thumped into the round federally there,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: which isn't really an indication of the provincial NDP, which is,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: although they're, they're very interconnected, um, two completely different approaches,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the BCNDP and the federal NDP these days on a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: lot of issues.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's no surprise to me that Lewis, who runs
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: to the left of the BCNDP, his party just couldn't
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: gain traction in North Vancouver, where the BCNDP, which is
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: a combination of federal liberals and New Democrats and some
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: federal Greens, as well does really well because they're more
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: in the vein of Mark Carney. And it sounds to
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: me like fight Trump beats save ostriches in the minds
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: of voters.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now another round of death watch for federal
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: conservative leader Pierre Polyev. He's survived quite a few of them,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: but there will be folks calling for his ouster federally.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: As well. Okay, that was a lot. We managed to
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: get through quite a few topics. Always a busy time. Jeff,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here. For folks who are
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: wondering about Political Capital Prime, that is returning not this Friday,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: but the next Friday. So, Jeff will be there. I'll
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: be there. Everyone will be there. But we'll also be
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: on The Daily Show tomorrow. Tune in until then. We'll
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: see you tomorrow.