David Eby set to take over from John Horgan as British Columbia’s next Premier

David Eby, forty-six, will be sworn in as British Columbia’s thir­ty-sev­enth pre­mier at Gov­ern­ment House in Vic­to­ria on Novem­ber 18th, cul­mi­nat­ing the trick­i­est polit­i­cal surgery in a par­lia­men­tary sys­tem of gov­ern­ment – the head transplant.

Hav­ing held a trio of demand­ing Cab­i­net port­fo­lios in the B.C. gov­ern­ment, Eby will suc­ceed Pre­mier John Hor­gan. Hor­gan sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion to Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Janet Austin ear­li­er this week, and rec­om­mend­ed Eby as his successor.

British Columbians do not direct­ly elect their pre­mier. They elect a gov­ern­ing body, the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly, with the win­ning par­ty form­ing gov­ern­ment and its leader becom­ing pre­mier. The left-of-cen­ter New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty holds a com­fort­able fifty-sev­en seat major­i­ty in the Legislature.

It is pos­si­ble to make a mess of tran­si­tion, pick­ing an unpop­u­lar leader or spilling par­ty blood, as Britain’s Con­ser­v­a­tives have demonstrated.

The Tories are on their third prime min­is­ter of the past three months.

The New Democ­rats expect­ed to anoint Eby after fel­low leg­is­la­tors with­drew from a pos­si­ble chal­lenge. But a cli­mate activist, Anjai Appadu­rai, entered the elec­tion by par­ty mem­bers of Horgan’s suc­ces­sor. Her cam­paign brazen­ly vio­lat­ed rules by which new mem­bers are signed up in antic­i­pa­tion of a lead­er­ship vote.

Mem­bers of the oppo­si­tion Green Par­ty were recruit­ed to take out mem­ber­ships in the NDP, and out­side groups became involved in push­ing her candidacy.

Appadu­rai was dis­qual­i­fied by the party’s chief elec­toral officer.

Media pep­pered Hor­gan with crit­i­cal ques­tions when the out­go­ing pre­mier tried to take a vic­to­ry lap after five most­ly suc­cess­ful years in office. Hor­gan, six­ty-two, is bow­ing out after a bout of throat can­cer which sapped his energy.

The New Democ­rats have two years left in their elec­tion man­date, but Eby is act­ing like a per­son who needs to act imme­di­ate­ly. He is promis­ing one hun­dred days of action, on press­ing prob­lems rang­ing from cli­mate to housing.

The first gov­ern­ment deci­sion came Thurs­day, weeks before the new premier’s swear­ing in. After Van­cou­ver host­ed the 2010 Win­ter Olympics, the province has decid­ed not to sup­port a bid to host the 2030 win­ter games. The gov­ern­ment weighed “its costs, its risks, its poten­tial ben­e­fits against gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­ties like health care, like pub­lic safe­ty, invest­ing in the cost of liv­ing,” Tourism Min­is­ter Lisa Beare told the Leg­is­la­ture. The cabinet’s choice, “putting peo­ple first.”

As in “the States,” crime has become a big issue in the Great White North. The oppo­si­tion (not-very-lib­er­al) Lib­er­al Par­ty has used Ques­tion Peri­od to bom­bard the Leg­is­la­ture with sto­ries of vio­lent assault, notably crimes com­mit­ted by offend­ers on parole.

Eby is a for­mer direc­tor of the B.C. Civ­il Lib­er­ties Asso­ci­a­tion and the Cana­di­an HIV/AIDS Legal Net­work. The new pre­mier, an Ontario native, began his legal career work­ing in Vancouver’s addic­tion-plagued Down­town East Side.

He has promised to press Canada’s fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for action.

“One of the chal­lenges that we face is we can’t direct Crown Coun­sel (pros­e­cu­tors) to vio­late fed­er­al crim­i­nal law,” Eby said last week. “My posi­tion is that vio­lent offend­ers should be kept in jail. As leader of the BC NDP you will see me advo­cat­ing with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to make sure that the crim­i­nal code, and the fed­er­al laws, cor­re­spond with what British Columbians want.”

Vet­er­an British Colum­bia jour­nal­ist Rob Shaw wrote recent­ly: “Eby bet­ter have a plan, room in the bud­get and some seri­ous polit­i­cal cap­i­tal to spend solv­ing the crime issue. Because every day he waits, the polit­i­cal dam­age to his gov­ern­ment gets worse.”

It has become very expen­sive to live in British Colum­bia, often dubbed Canada’s “lotus land” for its mel­low cli­mate (com­pared to the rest of the coun­try) and Vancouver’s sta­tus as an inter­na­tion­al city and gate­way to the Pacific.

Van­cou­ver reg­u­lar­ly ranks on top-five lists of the world’s best cities in which to live – if you can afford it.

Eby has vowed to deliv­er. talk­ing of a tax on homes pur­chased by spec­u­la­tors and then quick­ly put back on the mar­ket. For those find­ing it tough to rent and impos­si­ble to buy hous­ing, “we will deliv­er that hous­ing for you,” he promised last week in a speech. “For the peo­ple liv­ing in the streets, absolutely.”

“These are not small mat­ters that can be resolved overnight,” he said in a recent let­ter to the province’s 400,000-member civ­il ser­vice. With­out help of pub­lic sec­tor employ­ees, “we won’t be suc­cess­ful in this effort.”

Eby rep­re­sents the rid­ing (elec­toral dis­trict) of Van­cou­ver-Point Grey in the Leg­is­la­ture. He won his seat by beat­ing the Lib­er­als’ then-Pre­mier Christy Clark in the 2013 election.

The Lib­er­als won, but Clark had to find anoth­er rid­ing in which to run.

With his base in Van­cou­ver, Eby must mas­ter a vari­ety of polit­i­cal micro­cli­mates in a province larg­er than Texas.

The Inte­ri­or favors resource devel­op­ment and votes con­ser­v­a­tive. Van­cou­ver Island leans left, where the Green Par­ty has con­test­ed New Democ­rats for envi­ron­men­tal mind­ed voters.

In a late 2020 elec­tion, the NDP scored major break­throughs in the Low­er Fras­er Val­ley, the Van­cou­ver sub­urb of Rich­mond, and North Van­cou­ver. The par­ty with deep left-labor roots won an impres­sive vic­to­ry in the suburbs.

Eby has already unveiled a team of advis­ers that is large­ly new and young. He is expect­ed to revamp the cab­i­net before being sworn in and will face the Leg­is­la­ture on Novem­ber 21st. No time to waste.