While the outcome of the provincial election remains to be decided, with one or more recounts still outstanding, this much is certain: The NDP’s David Eby and Conservative Leader John Rustad both face enormous challenges.
Of the two, perhaps, Eby’s is the more exacting. The 27-seat majority he was handed by his predecessor John Horgan has slipped away.
Worse still, on his watch the Conservatives, who last held office nearly 100 years ago, came from nowhere to equal standing.
Will his party forgive him for such mishandling?
What does seem apparent is that if Eby stays on, his style of governing must change.
From pursuing a politically correct agenda that left many working-class families unmoved and disengaged, he has to face some harsh realities.
Airy promises that the health-care system is on the brink of recovery, or appearing on stage with a group of police officers to intimate a tough on crime stance, won’t do.
Results are needed, and quickly.
Moreover the near sweep of northern seats and much of the Interior by the Conservatives point to the need for a strategy that appeals to rural regions, a strategy that so far Eby’s party has neglected.
It’s also notable that the Conservatives did remarkably well in predominantly working-class areas of the Lower Mainland like Surrey and Abbotsford. Here again the need to pay far more attention to blue-collar concerns is evident.
Rustad’s challenges are entirely different. He seized on all the hot-button issues, and ran a populist campaign that succeeded far beyond expectations.
His politically incorrect notions, like opposing COVID vaccination or dismissing the threat of global warming, appeared not to hurt him.
Of course some of that was no doubt due to Eby’s general unpopularity, and the feeling that after seven years of NDP government, the time for change had come.
Yet Rustad showed himself a generally shrewd politician. He felt the voters’ pain, or at least spoke as if he did.
His problem lies rather in his caucus. A good part of these 40-some MLAs have never held office before, and have not had the experience of every remark they make being cross-examined by a critical audience.
When Stephen Harper was first elected leader of the federal Conservatives, he faced the same challenge. Time and again backwoods MPs, often from Alberta, would make damaging statements to local audiences that did not play well in the national media.
Harper’s solution was to demand that none of his MPs or cabinet ministers make a speech without first having his office review it.
He was called authoritarian and even dictatorial by his critics, but the policy generally succeeded.
Rustad had better do the same. But more than that he has to show that he has no time for racist or sexist sentiments.
In particular, there is no room for Brent Chapman, who won Surrey South, in any position of authority. It was Chapman who called Palestinians “inbred, walking, talking time bombs.”
What we have to fear, unfortunately, is that the new legislature will be an unruly, raucous place.
Never have two parties so far apart in their philosophies confronted one another across the floor of the house in roughly equal numbers.
And here too is a challenge both Eby and Rustad must rise to.
It serves no useful purpose to turn the legislature into a strident, screeching Tower of Babel.
Some genuine difficulties confront our province. It is up to our political leaders to see to it that practical solutions are sought and implemented.
That is the real challenge that lies ahead.
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