B.C. NDP Leader David Eby talks Trump, Conservatives and LNG ahead of Oct. 24 election

B.C. NDP Leader David Eby talks Trump, Conservatives and LNG ahead of Oct. 24 election

Eby remains certain provincial snap election call was the right move, as campaign enters 3rd week

It’s been nearly two weeks since NDP Leader David Eby called a snap election in British Columbia, amid some amount of uncertainty among the opposition and competing municipal elections.

And, despite a poll showing two-thirds of British Columbians did not want a provincial election this fall and the B.C. Conservatives actually leading in that poll, the NDP leader has no regrets.

"I want to do more for British Columbians. I can't do it in an environment of a chaotic opposition trying to topple the government," he said in an interview with CBC’s Daybreak North.

"I need to be able to move faster. I need that team, and British Columbians need representatives, that understand these connections and that are going to go to Victoria and prioritize these things and deliver."

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Eby spoke with CBC Daybreak North host Carolina de Ryk last week.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Any second thoughts about the decision to call this election two years ahead of schedule?

I don't know how closely you've been following what's been happening in the legislature. We have a one-vote majority. We've been tied up debating culture war topics like, 'Should residential schools survivors be believed?' and 'Should we repeal the human rights code?'

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And also chaos from the Conservative bench. Two Conservatives got arrested in the last session. Having a government dangling by a string, over the most extreme chaotic Conservatives we've ever seen, at a time when British Columbians need us to be focused on their priorities, the cost of living driven so much higher by this trade war, their concern about their jobs as a result of bans of products to the United States. It doesn't work.

We need people in the legislature that are focused on communities, building up our province strong, protecting British Columbia.

A recent Angus Reid poll listed Trump and tariffs as the eighth-most important issue for B.C., way down from health care, public safety, housing. You had a mandate to govern as a majority until 2028, when Trump would be already on his way out of the office. Why do you need this mandate to deal with him when you already had one?

We had a one-vote majority. That means every vote that is a tie has to be broken by the speaker.

Seventeen times, at least, the Conservatives tried to take down our government. We had members calling in from cancer treatment, from hospital beds, to vote to keep the government going. Long endless debates on culture war topics instead of what British Columbians need us to deal with.

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And don't be fooled for a second, the cost of living impacts of British Columbians are being supercharged by Trump's actions. When he puts tariffs on our products and we put retaliatory tariffs on his, that increases the cost for building new housing. It increases the cost of fuel, it increases the cost of groceries for British Columbians.

Diversions and closures of emergency rooms is a common thing in rural parts of B.C. The NDP government has also cancelled or held several promised projects, including a long-term care home expansion in Fort St. John, a helipad on the new tower at the hospital in Prince George. How do you convince people that you'll follow through with your promises?

The issue of health care availability in rural B.C. keeps me up at night. It is our biggest challenge in health care.

We have an aging population, there's a shortage of health-care workers, it's more expensive to deliver care to people who are sicker. Those are all big challenges. But number one is making sure that people in rural B.C. and northern B.C. and the Interior have access to the health care they need.

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We've upgraded the emergency room in Prince Rupert, we've got the new tower in Prince George that we're doing. We built the new hospital in Terrace that's helping attract and retain the medical professionals that we need. But we've got to do more.

We've opened a new medical school. We got 45 students going through. But one of the pieces that I'm proudest of is that we're advertising in the U.S. and we're recruiting U.S. health-care workers and it's actually working. We've got almost 1,000 U.S. health-care workers that have come up to work here in British Columbia and we've got a couple thousand more that are interested that are applying or in the process and we're doubling down on that work.

Your government made mistakes when looking at the expected natural gas royalties that resulted in a nearly $1.5-billion error in the 2026 budget. How was something like this able to happen?

It's a really, really awful mistake and I'm sure not impressed. During the [B.C. General Employees' Union workers'] strike, someone who had responsibility for the spreadsheets to prepare our budgets converted what were already Canadian dollars as if they were American back into Canadian, which added a significant additional amount to the revenues anticipated from royalties, that was then inserted into the budget.

I've invited the Auditor General in to identify how this mistake could have happened, to ensure that the measures put in place to make sure that it never happens again are adequate.

We are going to see a significant increase in royalties for British Columbians because of the new royalty regime we put in place effective a few weeks ago. And that royalty regime asked those oil and gas companies to pay a little bit more and especially when the price goes up. And that means there'll be increased revenue for British Columbians for services that they need.

What does B.C.'s Kitimat community expect from LNG Canada Phase 2 expansion?

I know not everybody is a big fan of LNG. Here's what I want to tell those folks: We have the highest standards in the world for methane emission reduction. We have the lowest carbon LNG in the world. That's why Germany says they want more Canadian LNG. That's why they're coming to us, because they have similar commitments around climate.

If we don't do it, Trump will run a line through Alaska just above us ... do the exact same thing with much lower standards and no revenue to British Columbians.

LNG Canada Phase 2 means $28 billion over the lifetime of the project to provincial revenues to pay for health care, it's money we don't have to come to people for taxes for.

So while I know not everyone's excited about it, this project is a really big deal for the province financially, economically, helps us diversify our markets and deepen our trading relationships with Asian partners, which is what we have to do in this moment. LNG revenues are going to pay for a significant amount of what people need in our province instead of us having to come to them for taxes.

With files from Daybreak North and Courtney Dickson