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VICTORIA – There has been a major upheaval in British Columbia politics since the last provincial vote in 2020. Here’s a look at the political timeline, resulting in two party leaders who are both running for the first time as premier in the Oct. 19 general election.

Feb. 5, 2022: Kevin Falcon wins leadership of the Opposition BC Liberals. Falcon would take his seat in the provincial legislature after winning a byelection in Vancouver-Quilchena, vacated by former Leader Andrew Wilkinson.

June 28, 2022: B.C. premier and NDP Leader John Horgan announces his intention to resign due to health reasons, kicking off a leadership race where a number of perspective candidates ultimately decline to run.

Aug. 18, 2022: Falcon removes Nechako Lakes MLA and former cabinet minister John Rustad from the BC Liberal caucus over tweets about climate change. Rustad sits as an Independent in the legislature.

Sept. 10, 2022: Elenore Sturko, a former RCMP sergeant considered by some to be a star candidate under Falcon’s BC Liberals, wins the Surrey South byelection with 52 per cent of the votes cast.

Oct. 19, 2022: Climate activist Anjali Appadurai is disqualified from the B.C. New Democratic Party leadership race, leaving attorney general and Vancouver-Point Grey MLA David Eby as the lone candidate. Eby was acclaimed as leader days later.

Nov. 18, 2022: Eby is sworn in as B.C.’s premier.

March 31, 2023: Rustad is acclaimed as leader of the B.C. Conservatives, shortly after joining the party and becoming its only representative in the provincial legislature.

April 12, 2023: The BC Liberals under Falcon rebrand to BC United.

June 24, 2023: The NDP wins both the Langford-Juan de Fuca and Vancouver-Mount Pleasant byelections by more than half of the votes cast. The B.C. Conservative candidate in Langford-Juan de Fuca came in second, drawing more than twice the amount of votes as his BC United rival.

Sept. 13, 2023: Abbotsford South MLA Bruce Banman defects from the BC United caucus, joining Rustad and the Conservatives. The move gives the B.C. Conservatives two seats and official party status.

May 31, 2024: BC United caucus chair and Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson crosses the floor and joins Rustad’s Conservatives.

June 3, 2024: Sturko also defects from BC United to join the B.C. Conservatives, saying “we can only ignore the polls for so long.”

July 30, 2024: Former cabinet minister and Richmond North Centre MLA Teresa Wat also leaves BC United for the Conservatives, becoming the fourth sitting United MLA to defect ahead of the fall election.

Aug. 28, 2024: Falcon suspends the BC United election campaign, throwing his support behind the B.C. Conservatives led by Rustad. Falcon says the best thing for the future of the province is to defeat the NDP, but that can’t be done when the centre-right vote is split.

Sept. 3, 2023: Rustad welcomes three BC United members of the legislature to the Conservative fold, Ian Paton, Peter Milobar and Trevor Halford. Other candidates, including Shirley Bond and Todd Stone end their campaigns.

Sept. 16, 2023: Karin Kirkpatrick, a BC United candidate who had already said she wouldn’t run again in the next election, reversed her decision, saying she’ll run as an Independent. She’s joined by four other BC United MLAs to run as Independents, including Mike Bernier, Dan Davies, Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

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David Eby thumbs through a stack of vinyl records at Zulu Records located in his Vancouver-Point Grey riding and says he’s reminded of his younger days working at a Sam The Record Man store over the Christmas holidays.

“Christmas Eve, we sold a lot of Jann Arden CDs,” he said, adding the last-minute shoppers were “all dudes.”

The leader of British Columbia’s New Democratic Party, wearing a short-sleeve collared shirt, black jeans and sneakers, sits casually at a table area near the back of the record shop.

Music is playing in the background, customers are browsing.

It’s a comfortable spot to talk politics, the provincial election, family, stand-up comedy and B-movies, and not generally in that order, Eby, 48, said.

A good place to start is BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s move to suspend his party’s election campaign to support John Rustad’s B.C. Conservative Party in an effort to unite the right, which Eby said was expected by the NDP but still surprised him.

“We were always anticipating it because it’s happened so many times in this province’s history that the right would unite under a single banner,” he said. “The thing that was astonishing to me is they didn’t unite under the centre-right banner as they have for generations.”

The move “far right” to the B.C. Conservatives is asking voters to support a party whose leader does not believe climate change is real, a party official who has flashed a hand symbol associated with the alt-right movement and lifted the voice of Jordan Peterson, “one of the most sexist commentators on the internet,” said Eby.

“To unite under this banner sends a message to British Columbians that this is the direction they think we should go,” he said. “I’ve had many disagreements with the B.C. Liberals over the years, but they weren’t around issues about whether gay people had rights or whether climate change is real or about whether women should be treated with dignity and respect, and reproductive freedom.”

Eby surprised many this month when he announced his government would dump its long-standing carbon tax on consumers if the federal “legal backstop” requiring the province to keep the tax in place is dropped.

He said he’s been both anxious and committed to tackling B.C.’s big ticket items of housing, affordability, health care and the overdose crisis.

“I feel a huge urgency around these problems,” Eby said. “I’m impatient for us to resolve the health-care issues. I’m impatient for us to get the things built that people need, whether it’s transit or roads or anything else and I’m impatient for us to get on the other end of the drug crisis and to get affordable housing built.”

“So, I’m pushing government hard,” he said. “I’m pushing people hard to do as much as we can on these things.”

George Heyman, who has known Eby since 2013 when both Vancouver politicians were first elected to the B.C. legislature, said his colleague is a quick study who absorbs information and is willing to make difficult decisions.

“David Eby is not afraid to break the paradigm in how we’ve been dealing with very significant issues, whether it’s housing, whether it is the opioid overdoses,” Heyman said. “He is looking for solutions that will make a difference and he is looking for ways to implement them as quickly as possible and as soundly as possible.”

Eby’s process on decision-making involves hearing a diversity of opinions from within the NDP caucus and outside government, letting the ideas germinate for a period of time and then return for more discussion, which leads to a decision, Heyman said.

“He listens to people and he is compassionate and focused on finding the right mix of good policy for the future and meeting people where they are today,” he said.

Eby’s style is “go big or go home,” said Prof. David Black, a political communications expert at Greater Victoria’s Royal Roads University.

He demonstrated his approach when, as attorney general, he introduced reforms to restructure the Crown-owned and debt-plagued Insurance Corporation of B.C., said Black.

He said Eby has a “let’s-break-the-china-and-get-some-big-things-done style.”

He noted that in Eby’s 100-days speech after taking over as premier he was good at reading the public mood and their top-of-mind concerns: housing, affordability, health, public safety, the drug crisis and the environment.

Eby, who hasn’t won an election as premier, took over the job in 2022 after former premier John Horgan’s retirement due to health concerns.

He and his wife, Cailey Lynch, who’s a family doctor, recently welcomed a third child, a daughter Gwen.

While they spend much of their time at home, Eby said he and his wife are huge stand-up comedy fans and attend shows whenever they can.

“I enjoy it,” he said. “I think it’s maybe the difference between a lot of the heaviness and seriousness of this stuff that comes and shows up on your desk as premier, and the fact that comedians are able to turn some of the most serious and devastating stuff into something that can put a smile on your face.”

Eby, who invited comedian Charles Demers to speak at this November 2022 swearing-in ceremony, often starts his own news conference with an attempt at a joke.

“I find jokes are a good way to connect with people and connect with an audience,” he said.

While stand-up comedy is Eby’s first choice for entertainment, B-movies are a close second.

He said his most recent favourite is the 2010 sci-fi film “Stonehenge Apocalypse.”

“It’s magic,” said Eby. “It’s got all the great elements you want.”

But the enormity of the challenge of the election, which Eby has called “the starkest choice of a generation,” is never far from his thoughts, he said.

“For me, I feel the extra weight of the significance of the election in terms of can we preserve what’s made us successful over the years working together as a province,” Eby said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

VICTORIA – British Columbia Conservative Party Leader John Rustad was at a low point in his life two years ago, both personally and politically.

He was searching for a political home after being booted from the former B.C. Liberal Party caucus.

Rustad, 61, was also grieving back-to-back-to-back family losses and his own health had taken a downturn.

“Twenty-twenty-two was a very difficult year for my family,” said Rustad. “My father passed away in January. My father-in-law passed in February. I had shingles in April and then my mother passed in July.”

Then came August 2022 when Rustad was banished from the B.C. Liberal caucus, now BC United, for his social media support of an outspoken climate change critic.

Times have changed since then.

Rustad said he’s healthy, has had more time to get over the loss of loved ones, and today he’s leading the once marginal B.C. Conservative Party into an election campaign as a serious challenger to the two-term New Democrats led by David Eby.

In the 2020 election, the B.C. Conservatives received less than two per cent of the popular vote and didn’t win a seat, but are now considered contenders against the NDP.

Rustad said he underwent a period of deep introspection while sitting in the B.C. legislature as an Independent, before he was acclaimed as Leader of the B.C. Conservative Party in March 2023.

“I explored a number of options in the fall of 2022 after being kicked out, and what it came down to was the Conservatives were the vehicle that made the most sense,” he said. “I explored everything from retiring to switching to different levels of politics. I even had conversations with the old Social Credit Party, with the people who were in control of that party.”

Despite being in the political wilderness for decades, the opportunity to undertake a revival for the B.C. Conservative Party and give voters a new voice on the centre-right proved to make the most sense, Rustad said.

“I had no confidence that Kevin Falcon and the B.C. Liberals, now of course BC United Party, could win the next election,” he said.

“That got me thinking if the B.C. Liberals can’t do it and the vote is divided, then this problem could go all the way to 2028 and if we can’t win then it would be 2032 before we could get rid of the socialist hordes out of Victoria,” he said, referencing a slogan used by Social Credit leader WAC Bennett, who was provincial premier from 1952 to 1972.

Rustad, whose family has deep roots in B.C.’s forest industry that go back generations, comes across more as a bookworm than a lumberjack.

Born and raised in Prince George, B.C., Rustad said he’s been involved in the forest industry for much of his life.

“I’ve done everything in forestry from working in a mill to tree planting to timber supply analysis to forest development plans and everything in between,” he said. “I ran my own company from 1995 and I shut it down in 2002 when I started heading toward politics.”

Elected in 2005, Rustad’s Nechako Lakes riding in central B.C. includes the forest-industry dependent communities of Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, Houston and Fort St. James.

“Politics was never actually an ambition of mine,” Rustad said. “It was never a goal. But things were going so badly in the 1990s that by the year 2000, I actually talked about moving to Calgary with my wife because of the disastrous environment we had in B.C.”

He said he decided to stay, but “that left me with two choices, either live with it or get involved and try to change it. I discovered I actually enjoy politics, which was quite surprising to me.”

Rustad and his wife, Kim, live at Cluculz Lake, a small community 40 kilometres west of Prince George.

The couple has no children, with Rustad publicly acknowledging his wife’s earlier diagnosis of cervical cancer.

Rustad was a keynote speaker at a Reclaiming Canada conference in Victoria in May 2023, held “in recognition of the 2022 Freedom Convoy,” which conducted a series of protests and blockades against Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions.

In video of his speech posted online, he told the group he walked through a trucker protest and freedom rally in Vancouver.

“The party that I was part of at the time, which was the B.C. Liberal Party, said, ‘Don’t go anywhere near it. We can’t talk about it, we can’t support it. All it will do is cost us votes in the Lower Mainland.’ I looked at them and I thought that’s nuts.”

He said the event reminded him of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

“People were waving flags, they were proud of the country that they belong to, they were singing O Canada at the top of their lungs,” he said as his voice wavered with emotion.

“Good God, that to me is Canada, that is the real power of what we want to see in this province and this country,” he said to applause.

Prof. David Black, a political communications specialist at Greater Victoria’s Royal Roads University, said Rustad has played the lead role in the biggest political story of the year in B.C., the rise of the Conservatives and the demise of BC United.

Falcon surprisingly folded BC United’s election campaign last month, urging voters to support Rustad’s Conservatives to prevent a centre-right vote split and a likely NDP re-election.

“It’s not often that we can say that climate skepticism was the making of a politician’s rise, as it’s usually career destroying,” said Black.

But the opposite occurred, and Rustad, a Conservative from B.C.’s north with experience in the resource economy and Indigenous relations faces Eby, a socially concerned left-wing lawyer from Vancouver, said Black.

“In this sense, both Eby and Rustad are out of central casting as we think about B.C. politicians,” he said. “They personify and give voice to the political culture of the regions and political subcultures out of which they come.”

Andrew Weaver, a world-renowned climate scientist and former B.C. Green Party leader, said he spoke with Rustad in the lead-up to the campaign and discovered they have more in common that he previously thought.

“John Rustad’s views on climate are clearly not the same as mine,” said Weaver. “But the gaps there are not as great as some people may think.”

Rustad is a person who listens to views and gathers information before making decisions, said Weaver.

“Climate change is real,” Rustad said. “Man is having an impact on the climate. I just look at it and think taxing people into poverty can’t change the weather.”

He said he will continue to have talks with Weaver on issues of climate and resources.

Rustad said he expects to face NDP attacks during the campaign on his party’s plans to remove ideology from the classroom, scrap the carbon tax, support pipeline construction, oppose vaccine mandates and reallocate post-secondary education funding to promote training in medicine, engineering and skilled trades.

Eby recently said reproductive freedom issues will likely be raised during B.C.’s election campaign, suggesting Rustad’s Conservatives may not support current women’s access policies and programs.

“It’s fairly safe to say that he is at best ambivalent about reproductive freedom and at worst hostile to it — that women’s access to abortion, women’s access to free birth control, is on the ballot this election, just like it is in the United States,” said Eby.

Rustad said previously his party will not reopen the abortion debate, noting the federal government regulates the issue.

“I have no problem just standing for what I believe is right,” he said. “I have no problem just saying it like it is. You sleep well at night when you know you are standing for what you believe in.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.