File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: We know who to vote against — now who do we vote for?

Oct 18, 2024 | 12:30 PM

WHAT A STRANGE AND UNINSPIRING provincial election campaign we just endured.

It started off with a complete reshaping of the political landscape in B.C.

A list of factors led to the collapse of the once-mighty B.C. United, leaving candidates and supporters scattering in all directions.

Their choices?

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On one side of the ledger is the NDP, who have been in power for seven years already.

It’s a government that has spent the provincial books into a deficit so deep, the outgoing finance minister said there is no realistic plan to get out of it.

For all that spending, life is more expensive than ever, there is an abject housing shortage, the healthcare system is struggling, and people are feeling unsafe in their own communities.

On the other side are the BC Conservatives, who don’t appear to be that conservative, fiscally.

Their platform contains billions of dollars in spending promises and only pledges to get B.C. out of deficit if you elect them to two terms, not one.

The Conservatives only released that platform days before the general vote, at a time when thousands of British Columbians had already cast ballots.

Meantime, the party’s candidate roster is filled with a hodge podge of OG true believers, ex-BC Liberals and folks who seem to use social media to indulge their darkest and craziest impulses.

One of those two will be our government for the next four years.

The campaign itself has been a cacophony of attacks, with the Conservatives telling us the NDP are presiding over an abject disaster of a province and the NDP responding with predictions of doom at the hands of the backwards-looking Conservatives.

And that is our conundrum, as voters.

The main parties have done a marvelous job of telling us who to vote against, but have been very poor at communicating which leaders, which ideas, which vision to vote for.

They campaigned against each other, not for British Columbia.

The one who wins will quietly proclaim negative campaigning works. The rest of us will lose just a little more faith in B.C.’s electoral system.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.