B.C. Journal: David Eby says challenging Christy Clark is like running against “a ghost”

British Columbi­a’s New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) may be lead­ing in the polls ahead of this Tues­day’s provin­cial elec­tion, but in order to actu­al­ly assume pow­er and become the major­i­ty par­ty in the B.C. Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly, the NDP has to cap­ture at least half a dozen rid­ings cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Lib­er­als or inde­pen­dents, plus hold onto the thir­ty-six it’s already got.

One of the par­ty’s best prospects, civ­il rights activist David Eby, is run­ning in Van­cou­ver — Point Grey, a rid­ing that encom­pass­es the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia and is rep­re­sent­ed by Christy Clark… the pre­mier of the province.

Pri­or to 2011, Van­cou­ver — Point Grey was rep­re­sent­ed by Gor­don Camp­bell, the province’s for­mer pre­mier, who now holds the plum post of High Com­mis­sion­er to the Unit­ed Kingdom.

(The High Com­mis­sion­er heads Canada’s diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to Britain).

Camp­bell won the rid­ing in four con­sec­u­tive elec­tions, but except for in 2001, his mar­gin of vic­to­ry was nev­er that great. In 2011, the NDP real­ized that the rid­ing was ripe for the tak­ing when Eby came up short against Camp­bel­l’s suc­ces­sor (and now Pre­mier) Christy Clark by only five hun­dred and six­ty-four votes.

Eby decid­ed in Decem­ber 2012 to seek a rematch, and is now run­ning against Clark for a sec­ond time, hav­ing been enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly nom­i­nat­ed by the NDP. He’s wide­ly con­sid­ered one of their ris­ing stars. The Tyee con­sid­ers him the favorite to win on Tues­day, giv­en his ener­gy-infused can­di­da­cy and Clark’s grow­ing unpopularity.

Tyee call: Like­ly BC New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Pre­mier Christy Clark is run­ning against promi­nent Van­cou­ver civ­il rights advo­cate and lawyer David Eby. It’s going to be a tight race, but with Clark’s approval rat­ings tank­ing, it’s look­ing like Eby will eke out a win.

As Elec­tion Day approach­es, he and his team are work­ing hard to get out the vote and turn the rid­ing orange. The Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer’s Joel Con­nel­ly and I stopped by his bustling office on West Broad­way in the Kit­si­lano neigh­bor­hood (known to locals as “Kits”) to get a sense of how his cam­paign is going.

Eby, the for­mer direc­tor of the B.C. Civ­il Lib­er­ties Asso­ci­a­tion, is an impres­sive and charis­mat­ic can­di­date with a calm and cheery demeanor. He cur­rent­ly serves as an adjunct pro­fes­sor in the Fac­ul­ty of Law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia and has been rec­og­nized by human rights groups for his con­tri­bu­tions to the cause. He is also the Pres­i­dent of the Cana­di­an HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Eby believes in peo­ple-pow­ered pol­i­tics; he has spent a lot of time knock­ing on doors and call­ing vot­ers (which is what a good can­di­date does).

His sup­port­ers are tak­ing advan­tage of decent weath­er this after­noon to go out can­vass­ing through­out the rid­ing in team, car­ry­ing clip­boards and stacks of Vote NDP/Eby fly­ers. Among them are Uni­ver­si­ty of Saska­toon stu­dents Mitch & Mitch, who’ve come all the way from Saskatchewan to help the Eby campaign.

Eby’s 2013 cam­paign has been draw­ing atten­tion. He’s been pro­filed by the Globe & Mail, Canada’s news­pa­per of record, and MetroNews.

Envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion is one of the val­ues at the heart of Eby’s cam­paign. In an inter­view, he explained why he’s not afraid of hav­ing a strong, prin­ci­pled posi­tion oppos­ing an increase in fos­sil fuel exports — unlike his oppo­nent, Christy Clark.

“It gives me a cou­ple of advan­tages,” he said. “One is, it makes it very easy to talk about the issue with peo­ple. They under­stand where we stand.”

“And the sec­ond is, it makes it eas­i­er for peo­ple who hear that posi­tion to make a deci­sion on how to vote. If they think that Van­cou­ver should be a major oil export port and there should be four hun­dred tankers every year pass­ing their front door, then they should vote Lib­er­al. And if they don’t think that, they should vote NDP.”

He also assert­ed that the next gov­ern­ment should­n’t be ori­ent­ed towards devel­op­ing a twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry ener­gy sector.

“If you look at the Lib­er­al cam­paign plat­form, you’d think that the only way that we could grow our econ­o­my is through nat­ur­al gas… that every­thing else is des­tined to not work out.” Cit­ing the film and tourism indus­tries, he added, “I think we’re more than just a province that mines or moves resources around.”

He described the rematch against Clark “real­ly weird”, explain­ing that Clark has­n’t shown up to all-can­di­dates meet­ings or com­mu­ni­ty events and has­n’t been vis­i­ble until very recent­ly. “It’s like cam­paign­ing against a ghost,” he said.

“For the first half of the cam­paign, dur­ing the writ peri­od, they did­n’t even drop a fly­er in the rid­ing… More recent­ly they’ve dropped a cou­ple now. But it was so strange. There were hard­ly any signs for the longest time.”

Clark has sup­port­ers run­ning phone banks, but there is scant evi­dence that she’s mak­ing an effort to per­son­al­ly con­nect with her own con­stituents, Eby added.

“I think that peo­ple rec­og­nize that she does­n’t live here, in the rid­ing, that she has­n’t come to the meet­ings, that she has­n’t been in the community.”

“I would say she’s aban­doned the rid­ing, but she would have had to have been here in the first place to have aban­doned it,” he concluded.

Six oth­er can­di­dates are also chal­leng­ing Clark in the 2013 elec­tion: Inde­pen­dent William Gibbens, Hol­lis Lin­schoten of the “Work Less Par­ty”, Con­ser­v­a­tive Duane Nick­ull, Lib­er­tar­i­an Marisa Palmer, Green Fran­coise Raunet and Bernard Yank­son of the “Plat­inum Par­ty”. Each is sure to draw votes, but the race is prin­ci­pal­ly between Eby and Clark, with Eby stand­ing a good chance of defeat­ing Clark.