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RICHMOND, B.C. – New Democrat Leader David Eby says he’s focusing his provincial election campaign on commitments to B.C. residents after acknowledging he didn’t speak enough about his team’s work on the cost of living at Tuesday’s debate.

But in his first scheduled appearance after the sole televised debate of the closely fought election, Eby repeatedly turned back to his opponent, saying B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad was “vague” about his plans, and pointed out again that the B.C. Conservatives had not released their costed platform.

Eby devoted much of his time at the debate to attacking Rustad, and the NDP platform released last week mentioned Rustad by name 56 times, compared with 29 times for Eby.

“He needs to be clear about what his plans are, what he’s going to cut, what’s not going to be available for families, so people can make a good decision for themselves and for their communities about which direction we go,” Eby said Wednesday of Rustad.

Leaders from B.C.’s three main political parties met onstage Tuesday for their first and only televised debate, going toe-to-toe over issues including health care, housing and the toxic drug crisis.

Rustad was nowhere to be seen on the campaign trail after the debate on Wednesday, while B.C. Green leader Sonia Furstenau went to an Irish Pub in Vancouver to make a public safety message.

Eby was in Richmond, where he and Richmond-Steveston NDP candidate Kelly Greene met with six supporters from multi-generational families who, seated around a dining room table, described how the NDP’s plans would help them.

Eby reflected on the previous night, telling reporters he was “wired” and had trouble falling asleep after the debate, adding that he would see his performance as successful if those watching at home felt he was focused on their priorities.

“That was my goal. That continues to be my goal. What drives me is being focused on addressing the issues people face in their daily lives,” he said.

Eby repeatedly attacked Rustad on various social stances during the debate, calling him an “anti-vaxxer” who is “embarrassing” the province. Rustad said he was “not anti-vax, I’m anti-mandate.”

Eby said in Richmond it was “critical” people knew where Rustad stood.

“There is a pretty stark choice between the two parties that are running a full set of candidates, and that choice is going to make a difference for the future of our province,” he said.

Eby said his government was “finally making progress” and that the province “can’t turn back now,” pointing to what he said were decreasing rental costs and a goal for every resident to have a family doctor by 2025.

Furstenau told reporters on Wednesday that if her party won the election she would disband the RCMP’s Critical Response Unit, saying the level of “violence and harm” caused by the unit “has drawn criticism worldwide.”

The unit was tasked to police protests against resource extraction but is being investigated by the RCMP’s federal watchdog agency after it accepted complaints alleging the use of excessive force, illegal tactics and unprofessional behaviour.

Furstenau also promised to set up a task force for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited people to address “systemic inequalities.”

“The BC Greens are committed to ensuring that the justice system is truly about justice and that it reflects the systemic issues that we are yet to address in our society, including racism, poverty, and the toxic drug crisis,” said Furstenau.

If elected, Furstenau said her party will start working with family members of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton to address the sense of unfairness felt by the families of his victims.

“This was the worst example of failure on the part of the police, and so in order to restore that trust and that confidence, the work has to begin in the community with the people that were affected, with the families,” said Furstenau.

The B.C. Conservatives confirmed Wednesday that Rustad had no public events planned for the day, with the party’s only event on its website being a meet-and-greet with Salmon Arm-Shuswap candidate David Williams in Armstrong, B.C.

David Black, an associate professor at the school of communications and culture at Royal Roads University, said it was unusual for a party leader to not make a public appearance after a debate since it was an opportunity for parties to shape the message to voters delivered on stage.

“That’s when — the day after — people’s impressions are hardening into views and opinions,” Black said, adding that this applied especially to close election races and debates in which no clear winner emerged.

“People are beginning to decide, if you think in these terms, who won or lost or which leader do I like, or which one I don’t,” he said. “It’s that after-debate shaping of opinion that is as important as a debate performance itself.”

He said Rustad still has an opportunity to shape his debate messages to voters this week, since that crucial moment when opinions are still forming can last 48 hours or even a few days after a debate.

“I think if a leader is absent from that, if they make themselves unavailable, I do fear — and this would be true of any leader — that there is something that they are concerned might be asked of them post-debate that would be embarrassing, that they’re defensive about something,” Black said.

Furstenau gained some high-profile endorsement on Wednesday from actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo.

Ruffalo posted his praise on social media platform X, saying that while the Irish Green Party backtracked on LNG, Furstenau is committed to ending LNG expansion and fossil fuel subsidies, while prioritizing people’s health and well-being.

Furstenau said she was thrilled to hear of the endorsement by Ruffalo, who played the role of lawyer Robert Bilott in the movie “Dark Waters,” which dramatized a legal fight against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont.

“I’m very grateful to Mark Ruffalo for recognizing that there is a serious political party in British Columbia that takes the moment we’re in seriously.

“I just wish that the other leaders would stand up with me and also take it as seriously as I do,” said Furstenau.

— With files from Nono Shen in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

OTTAWA – A former chief of staff to a Liberal public safety minister has denied suggestions she worked to stall approval of a spy service warrant in early 2021 because it directly touched the operations of the Trudeau government.

Zita Astravas called the allegation “categorically false” during testimony late Wednesday at a federal inquiry into foreign interference.

The inquiry has heard that it took 54 days for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service warrant application to be approved by Bill Blair, public safety minister at the time.

The average turnaround time for such applications is four to 10 days.

Michelle Tessier, CSIS deputy director of operations during the period, has told the inquiry there was frustration with the delay.

A timeline tabled at the inquiry says Astravas attended a briefing on the warrant application 13 days after CSIS sent it to Public Safety.

Astravas told the commission in a closed-door session during the summer that the questions she asked at the briefing were typical of those she would pose concerning such an application.

A newly disclosed summary of that testimony says she recalled a separate conversation about the accompanying Vanweenen list — a list of individuals who may be in contact with the target of the warrant and therefore could be affected.

Federal officials have cited national security in refusing to publicly discuss who CSIS hoped to surveil through the warrant.

Gib van Ert, a lawyer for Conservative MP Michael Chong, suggested to Astravas on Wednesday that after she saw “how deeply involved this warrant would bring CSIS with the affairs of your party and your government, you didn’t want it to go ahead, and if it had to go ahead, you wanted to slow walk it.”

Astravas replied that she couldn’t mention specifics of the warrant, “but I can tell you that your assumptions are categorically false.”

Blair, now defence minister, is slated to testify at the commission of inquiry Friday.

He has already told the inquiry behind closed doors he first became aware of the warrant application on the date he recalls signing it.

“He did not know that it had been received by his office before that date,” says a summary of Blair’s evidence. “He was not aware of the date his office received it and no one showed him the earlier dates on the documents.”

The summary says on the date he signed the warrant, he became aware that there had been some discussion and questions raised by his office with the director of CSIS and the deputy minister of public safety. “However, he was not aware of how long it had been with his office.”

Astravas testifed Wednesday that CSIS director David Vigneault would flag matters of priority and “we would work with the director and his team” in order to put an item on the minister’s agenda.

During this period of time, there were a number of contacts involving the CSIS director, the minister and the deputy minister, she said.

“At no point was (the warrant) raised as a matter of urgency.”

The commission of inquiry’s latest hearings are looking at the ability of federal agencies to identify and counter foreign interference. A final report is due by the end of the year.

In other testimony Wednesday, national security adviser Nathalie Drouin rejected the notion there are traitors in the House of Commons, despite an eyebrow-raising report from a spy watchdog that flagged questions about politicians’ loyalties.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians said in June that some parliamentarians were “semi-witting or witting” participants in the efforts of foreign states to meddle in Canadian politics.

The blunt but vague assertion by NSICOP, an intelligence watchdog made up of MPs and senators who are sworn to secrecy, prompted a flurry of concern that people knowingly involved in interference might still be active in politics.

Drouin, who advises the prime minister on intelligence matters, told a federal inquiry into foreign interference Wednesday the watchdog’s conclusion that some MPs might have acted in a treasonous manner makes her very uncomfortable, because that’s not what she sees.

Drouin said she has learned of inappropriate behaviour and lack of judgment on the part of certain politicians.

However, after reviewing the relevant intelligence she found no MPs had engaged in espionage, sabotage or other activities that put the security of Canada at risk.

“I remain extremely confident with respect to the present MPs,” Drouin said in French.

Putting forward any other impression diminishes the trust of the Canadian public in the democratic system, she added.

Inquiry commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue and her staff have identified and reviewed the intelligence reports referred to in both the classified and public versions of the NSICOP report.

The inquiry has also questioned senior government officials and intelligence agencies behind closed doors about the sensitive findings.

However, Hogue has said she will not be publicly identifying parliamentarians suspected by NSICOP of meddling.

She has cautioned that the NSICOP report’s specific allegations are based on classified information, which means the inquiry can neither make them public nor even disclose them to the people in question.

As a result, the inquiry won’t be able to provide the individuals with a meaningful opportunity to defend themselves, Hogue said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

VANCOUVER – B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad has changed his story about seeing a man die of a drug overdose on his way to a televised election debate, after the BC Coroners Service said it had no record of such a death where he said it occurred.

Rustad had told Tuesday’s party leaders’ debate that he saw someone die “from an overdose” on the corner of Robson and Hornby streets in Vancouver, later telling a news conference he watched first responders “pumping his chest” as an ambulance arrived.

Rustad now says on social media that what he saw actually happened near the intersection of Burrard and Davie streets and he’s “overjoyed to hear a life was saved.”

The BC Coroners Service had said earlier it would be notified of a deadly overdose and it had no record of such an event in the last two and a half weeks at the location initially given by Rustad.

The service said if first responders were on scene and a person died, “a coroner would be called,” and it would also be notified if a person received resuscitation but later died in hospital.

BC Emergency Health Services also said it had “no records of any patient events” on Tuesday at the corner of Robson and Hornby streets, “or on the blocks immediately adjacent to that intersection.”

Rustad later posted a blurry photo of a group of people on the street that he said showed what he witnessed before the debate.

“I did not take this photo, it was sent to me. There was an ambulance at the scene when I saw it,” he wrote late Wednesday.

“My staff walked by as CPR was happening. One lady said ‘He’s overdosed.’ Another said ‘He’s gone.’ I’m overjoyed to hear a life was saved thanks to heroic efforts of first responders.”

His account on social media differed from what he described during and after the debate on Tuesday night, on multiple points including whether the person was dead, the location and whether Rustad personally witnessed resuscitation efforts.

Rustad had used the anecdote during his debate with NDP Leader David Eby and Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau as an illustration of what he called “the British Columbia that David Eby has created.”

“I was on my way over here, and on the corner of Robson and Hornby, there was an individual who died, and there was emergency people rushing (around). This person died from an overdose,” he said near the start of the debate.

He was asked to elaborate at the post-debate press conference.

“(What) I saw from the window as I was looking down at this individual on the ground with the emergency people pumping his chest trying to bring him back to life and an ambulance coming up … I mean, it just, it’s horrendous to think that that is becoming normal place on our streets here in Vancouver and across this province.”

Amber Schinkel, media relations manager for the BC Coroners Service, said in an emailed response to questions that she had “reviewed drug toxicity deaths in Vancouver since Sept. 25, 2024, and there is nothing near” the address Rustad originally gave.

Asked if there were circumstances in which the service would not record a death, she said if it involved drug toxicity the coroner would be notified.

“If first responders had attempted to resuscitate a person at a scene and the person died, a coroner would be called. If first responders transported the person to hospital, where they later died, the Coroners Service would still be notified,” she said.

She said an exception was if a person was in their home in the area and under a doctor’s care when they died, “a death through MAID for example,” then the service would not be notified.

Rustad did not respond to requests for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

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