Moore Butts: What You Must Have Before You Call An Election
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Why did David Eby call an early election in British Columbia?
Are you ready for another Moore Butts conversation? You better be, 'cause there's one comin' right up.
And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with uh Gerald Butts, James Moore, another one of our uh Conversations that we have every second Tuesday. Looking forward to this one. Um James, you're in BC, obviously. And I've been trying to sort out. You know what exactly happened last week? I mean I think we kinda know what happened, but we're into an election now and the Conservatives who didn't have a leader in the moments the election was being called have one now and if you believe the polls, he's already leading in the polls. Tell me what all this means and whether it was a stupid move by the uh incumbent government. Or whatever.
Um, yeah, I mean, the the the non-NDP coalition or cohort of voters in British Columbia has always been um loosely assembled, fractiously assembled, and they seem to galvanize together either because they need two things have to be aligned historically. One is there has to be a real sense of momentum to get rid of the incumbent NDP. There has to be a real problem and and a real dislike for the incumbent government. That wasn't there in the past under Mike Harcourt. Court, for example, when he was premier, people disagreed with the NDP because they didn't, they're not New Democrats. But he wasn't a super unlikable premier. He wasn't a particularly successful premier, but that doesn't make that doesn't galvanize people to come together.
Um, by the end of the fast failure fiasco and Glen Clark and a lot of things that happened with New Democrats, that was there. But the second ingredient that has to be there is you have to have A real momentum for change, and then a leader who gets the context of the broad coalition that is the non-NDP universe. And through the sweep of British Columbia's history and confederation. The non-NDP vote has come in the form of the conservatives, the Socreds, the BC liberals. It's come under different banners over the years. And there's not a lot of loyalty to brand in British Columbia, right? Federally, people have voted: progressive, conservative, conservative, reform, NDP. People are not super stuck into loyalties.
I think it's fair to say that in a lot of provinces, particularly Ontario, elsewhere, that and Elections Canada did a study on this once where they said that if a young person in their first three elections votes the same way. Three elections being federal or provincial. If they vote liberal, liberal, liberal or conservative, conservative, conservative, the odds are over 80% that they're going to vote that way for their entire life. Like you just kind of lock into being a Habs fan or a Canucks fan, and you get my point. And so, but in British Columbia, that didn't exist because but in British Columbia that doesn't exist because the vehicles haven't existed. So people are kind of free agents. The NDP vote has a hard floor of the mid-30s, but also a hard ceiling of the low 40s.
uh mid 40s ish. So they're in that window. So if the other side can coalesce and come around that, then they can do that. So so the free enterprise vote, because of the rise and fall of sort of the conservative popularity in 2024, uh Gordon Campbell goes away, Christy Clark goes away, galvanizing leaders that brought people together have gone away. They've experimented with people that didn't quite work. And now the energy t for change is at the At the necessary quotient that you need on that side. And then the leadership question with Carolyn Finley out of the way, uh, that Lauren Dirksen, this guy who is completely inoffensive, completely seems could seem to be in the early days, completely normal to the average voter and um substantive enough and credible enough to be worthy of being premier that people seem to be coming together around him.
And it might be good enough in order to beat the NDP. And also people like an underdog and people like to go after a bully. And David E. B. looks and sounds like an is acting like a bully by calling a campaign less than two years into his majority.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did David Eby call an early election in British Columbia?
0:00–5:15
2
Why are early elections risky without a clear reason?
5:15–9:43
3
How does a snap election complicate candidate recruitment and vetting?
9:43–14:54
4
Can David Eby make Donald Trump a central issue in the BC election?
14:54–22:00
5
How should political leaders handle conflict with journalists?
22:00–25:25
6
Why is Mark Carney speaking to international media outlets?
25:25–34:50
7
Why should Canadians follow international coverage of Canada's global role?
34:50–37:09
8
Can Canadian journalism maintain public trust in the age of AI and social media?
37:09–43:51
Speakers
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