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VANCOUVER – The leaders of British Columbia’s three major political parties have presented starkly different visions of the province and its future in the only televised debate of their closely fought election campaign.

The discussion involving NDP Leader David Eby, B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad and Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau, hosted by Angus Reid president Shachi Kurl, made for sometimes grim listening.

Rustad told of seeing a man dead on the streets of Vancouver — of an overdose, he said — on his way to the debate venue at the CBC’s studio on Tuesday.

“I was on my way over here, and on the corner of Robson and Hornby, there was an individual who died … This is the British Columbia that David Eby has created,” Rustad said.

He later related an anecdote about a woman “covered in blood” after miscarrying in a hospital washroom as he attacked the state of health care in B.C.

He also described young people leaving the province and what he depicted as a lack of opportunity in B.C., prompting exasperation from Furstenau — who also delivered an early zinger against both her rivals by describing them as “more of the same or back to the past.”

“I feel like I live in a different place from John Rustad — his vision of B.C. is one that is dark and gloomy,” Furstenau said. “We need a vision of hope. If we want young people to stay here, we have to give them a reason to stay.”

All three leaders had spent the day preparing for what could prove a pivotal moment for the campaign, with the B.C. Conservatives and the NDP locked in what polls suggest will be a narrow race, with less than two weeks to go before election day on Oct. 19.

For his part, Eby remained squarely focused on Rustad and his stances on various social issues, describing him as an “anti-vaxxer” who was “embarrassing” the province.

“When we were all rolling up our sleeves to get vaccines, to protect vulnerable seniors from COVID-19 … John Rustad and his candidates were providing donations to people who are protesting outside of hospitals, anti-vax convoy members. He’s still an anti-vaxxer.”

Rustad has previously said he regretted getting vaccinated against COVID-19, but told the debate that he was “not anti-vax, I’m anti-mandate.”

Eby and Furstenau both trained attacks on Rustad, and Eby pointedly avoided attacking Furstenau, who said that the “least polarized” time in B.C. had been when the Greens supported the NDP from 2017 to 2020 in the minority government of former premier John Horgan.

When Eby pointed to Rustad’s “uncosted” economic platform, which he said was written in “pixie dust,” he compared it unfavourably to Furstenau’s costed policies. In closing remarks, Eby said “Sonia’s right” to think of B.C.’s biggest assets being British Columbians.

The Green Leader did not offer Eby the same consideration, criticizing Eby and Rustad for being aligned on health care and subsidizing the fossil fuel industry.

The debate had started with all three leaders on the defensive — not against each other but the moderator.

The 90-minute debate featured no opening statements, instead beginning with individual questions from Kurl.

She pointed to the province’s shift from surplus to deficit under Eby’s government, asking him when things would improve.

Eby responded by saying families were under pressure and “people need support now.”

Asked how he could convince people he wasn’t “too extreme,” Rustad said a “lot of things” had been said about him but he was “laser focused” on the needs of people in the province.

Furstenau meanwhile responded to a question about why people would vote for a party with only two people in the legislature, by delivering her “more of the same or back to the past” line about both Eby and Rustad

The debate was broadcast on all major TV networks.

Supporters outside the studio had cheered on the leaders as they made their way inside.

Eby arrived on the party’s election bus with wife Cailey Lynch and about two dozen supporters, Rustad was greeted by a largely youthful crowd waving blue party placards and Furstenau arrived with a handful of supporters.

At times, the NDP and B.C. Conservative supporters appeared to be in a friendly contest to out-cheer each other.

Rustad earlier Tuesday released his party’s proposals for dealing with the toxic drug crisis in the province, which include cutting wait times for voluntary treatment and creating a virtual program to connect people with addiction specialists.

He also said his party wanted to redevelop and repurpose the Riverview Hospital in the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam, a provincially-owned psychiatric institution that closed in 2012.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024

OTTAWA – A former deputy minister of public safety says nothing struck him as “particularly exceptional” in early 2021 about a weeks-long delay in ministerial approval of a spy service warrant.

Rob Stewart told a public inquiry Tuesday that in retrospect, general tracking of Canadian Security Intelligence Service warrant applications could have been better.

But Stewart, the department’s deputy minister from late 2019 to October 2022, said things often took time to get done, notably during the disruptive period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I would have treated it as, by and large … a function of the circumstances, which were challenging.”

The inquiry into foreign interference has heard that it took as long as 54 days for the CSIS 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 at the time, has told the inquiry there was frustration with the delay, though no concern about interference of any sort or pushback from the minister’s office.

Blair has said that he signed off on the warrant soon after it was brought to his attention.

Commission counsel asked Stewart on Tuesday about the time delay in getting the warrant signed, wondering whether he had brought it to the attention of Blair’s chief of staff.

Stewart said it would have been “on the upper part of a list of action items that we were seeking from the minister,” given the importance of warrants.

“I don’t have a specific memory of flagging this warrant. I would have just flagged every warrant.”

Stewart says he did not raise the matter with Blair himself, in part because they would typically speak during the pandemic on a non-secure telephone line.

A newly released summary of Stewart’s earlier, closed-door inquiry testimony indicates he said “it would have taken CSIS some time to get the minister and his staff comfortable with this particular warrant.”

“Mr. Stewart surmised that questions would probably have been asked about certain processes related to the execution of the warrant,” the summary says.

Gib van Ert, a lawyer for Conservative MP Michael Chong, pressed Stewart during cross-examination Tuesday about the warrant delay.

Stewart said he could not explain the time taken, nor was he able to discuss the substance of the warrant.

Zita Astravas, Blair’s chief of staff in 2021, is set to appear Wednesday at the inquiry.

Blair, now defence minister, is slated to testify on Friday.

Shawn Tupper, who became deputy minister of public safety in late 2022, said that as a result of a new process, “we track this stuff a little bit more aggressively now than perhaps we used to.”

“So we certainly have a tracking system that ensures a document is processed. If it’s sitting, we will know that, and we will be able to find out why it is sitting,” Tupper said.

CSIS might still have its own discussion with the minister, he added.

“But certainly, I think, between CSIS and ourselves, we have a co-ordinated process now that ensures that we have a higher degree of awareness of the status of a given warrant.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.

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