David Eby’s big gamble: Why calling an early B.C. election could backfire

British Columbia Premier David Eby’s decision to call a provincial election a full two years before the next scheduled vote is a strategic gamble.

In short, Eby has bet the future of his NDP government, gambling that it will be easier to win re-election in the current climate than it would be in 2028.

Looking at the history of B.C.’s party system, it’s easy to see how Eby came to this conclusion.

Whether the gamble will pay off on Oct.

24 is still an open question.

The recurrent theme in B.C. politics is polarization between the left and the right.

Since the 1930s, the left has been primarily represented first by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, known as the CCF, and then by the New Democratic Party.

The right has gone through several iterations over the decades, from a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives in the 1940s to Social Credit until the 1990s and the Liberals in the 2000s, with the Conservatives becoming the right’s standard-bearer in the 2020s.

By my own calculations, British Columbians have been governed by the various parties of the right for about six decades in the post-Second World War war period, while the NDP has been in power for just about 22 years.

The CCF/NDP have won the most votes in the province on only five occasions since the Second World War ( 1952, 1972, 1991, 2020 and 2024 ).

Taking the historic weakness of the NDP into account, Eby’s snap election seems like an unnecessary risk.

But the recent tumult on the right explains why a snap election now might be worth his gamble.

Benefitting from divisions in the right The NDP’s best chance of winning power involves a schism in the forces of the right.

As Canadian political scientist Dennis Pilon writes: “The B.C.