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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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OTTAWA – A $2.14-billion federal loan for an Ottawa-based satellite operator has Canadian politicians arguing about whether American billionaire Elon Musk poses a national security risk.

The fight involves internet connectivity in remote regions as Canada tries to live up to its promise to connect every Canadian household to high-speed internet by 2030.

Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said “there appear to be some misunderstandings” about the nature of his company’s deal with the government.

A week ago, the Liberal government announced the loan to Telesat, which is launching a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will be able to connect the most remote areas of the country to broadband internet.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett objected to the price tag, asking Musk in a social media post how much it would cost to provide his Starlink to every Canadian household that does not have high-speed access.

“Less than half that amount,” Musk responded, prompting Barrett to conclude: “That sounds like a common-sense solution for Canada to me.”

In an interview, Goldberg rejected the comparison because his company received a loan, not a grant.

Telesat will pay the government nine per cent interest. The Quebec government is also loaning $400 million. In exchange, Telesat will give up around a 12 per cent equity stake in the company to the two governments.

“No one asked Elon, ‘Do you want a $2-billion loan from the government of Canada at a nine per cent interest rate and give up 10 per cent of Starlink?'” he said. “I think there would have been a very different response.”

He noted that a portion of the loan will actually end up going to Musk’s SpaceX because Telesat uses the company to launch satellites.

A spokesperson for Innovation Canada said the new loan replaces a previous $1.44-billion loan announced in 2021, which did not go ahead. The government is maintaining its commitment to spend $600 million to buy internet capacity once the system is operational.

The Liberal government has a years-long initiative to ensure all Canadian households are connected to high-speed internet, with the goal of getting to 98 per cent in 2026 and 100 per cent by 2030.

The last communities are the most challenging because they rely on satellite service. Traditional satellite internet, which uses a geostationary satellite higher up in orbit, has limitations.

Newer-generation low Earth orbit satellite systems, like the one being launched by Telesat and those used by Musk’s Starlink, use many satellites that circulate closer to Earth and can offer high-speed internet without the same issues.

Telesat’s launch plans have already been delayed by years. Goldberg said those delays, some of which were related to challenges around COVID-19, are “in the rear view” and the company plans to be fully in service with global coverage by the end of 2027.

Starlink’s coverage map shows service as available in Canada, though its parent company didn’t answer questions about service availability in the country’s most remote areas.

After Barrett’s exchange with Musk, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne accused the Conservatives of wanting to “sell out our national security.”

“When you are in the farther north, you need a reliable network, and you need sovereignty and resiliency in the network. So to suggest otherwise to me is a bit crazy.”

He said Telesat would design and manufacture the system in Canada.

“That’s the kind of sovereignty and resiliency that we want to see, especially when you’re talking about critical military infrastructure that we need also for the defence of the North.”

In a statement, the Conservatives stuck to their argument that Musk would be a better bet. Industry critic Rick Perkins said “there’s an established, available platform that can provide high-speed internet today, and it wouldn’t require billions of taxpayer dollars going into the pockets of Liberal-connected insiders.”

The Conservatives also tried to connect the contract to former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who was appointed as an economic adviser to the Liberals on Sept. 9, four days before the Telesat loan was announced.

Deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman said in the House this week that Carney’s “close friend, the CEO of Telesat, got more than two billion of Canadians’ tax dollars to build a broadband network that other firms could have built for half that price.”

Goldberg confirmed Carney is a friend but said “he had absolutely nothing” to do with the loans.

In announcing the loan, the Prime Minister’s Office said Telesat would provide capacity to the defence industry and support NATO and Norad modernization.

Goldberg said the agreement doesn’t include specifics about using the system for defence. He said Telesat’s constellation can be a “key enabler” for Norad modernization.

In 2022, the Liberal government outlined a $38.6-billion plan to modernize the joint aerospace warning system for Canada and the U.S.

Musk has become an increasingly controversial and political figure in recent years, particularly since he bought the social media platform Twitter, which he renamed X. He has used his large reach to share false information.

In the last week alone, Musk shared a false report that explosives were found near a Donald Trump rally; warned that “unless Trump is elected, America will fall to tyranny”; and questioned why nobody was trying to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice-President Kamala Harris, after a failed assassination attempt on Trump.

Goldberg suggested there are good reasons to keep such a contract with a Canadian company.

“Space is a highly strategic sector, it’s very capital-intensive. If you look around the world, governments are routinely partnering with their domestic operators,” Goldberg said.

Erik Bohlin, the chair in telecommunication economics, policy and regulation at the Ivey School of Business, noted there have always been some restrictions around foreign ownership in telecoms, including in Canada, but the satellite space is “a new field where so many things are happening.”

Adam Lajeunesse, an associate professor at St. Francis Xavier University focusing on Arctic and maritime security, said the government has some legitimate arguments when it comes to Arctic defence and national security.

He said there’s no reason to doubt that Starlink could meet the Canadian Armed Forces’ needs today, but it’s important to look at what may happen with the company in a decade or two.

“Strategic communications is simply vital for all safety, security, defence activities across the North, not to mention civilian activities,” he said. “Having one supplier, particularly when that one supplier is outside of the government’s control, is a dangerous situation to have.”

James Fergusson, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, said Musk is “a Trump guy” who has “said things which conflict with American foreign policy as it now exists.”

But he pointed out the U.S. Defence Department uses SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company.

“To the Americans, he’s not a security problem.”

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

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.