British Columbia’s early Oct. 24 election puts familiar premiers and party veterans side by side with interim and newly formed leadership teams.
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British Columbians will vote on Oct. 24 after Premier David Eby called an early election about two years ahead of schedule, shifting attention to who will be leading the main parties and major political groupings on the ballot.
Eby is the leader of the B.C. NDP and was born in 1976 in Kitchener, Ont. Before entering politics, he worked as a human rights lawyer, including running the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and he has also played guitar and sung in a band called World of Science.
The NDP leader entered provincial politics as a “political giant-killer,” beating then-premier Christie Clark in Vancouver-Point Grey in 2013. After that win, Eby held multiple portfolios in the NDP government that followed, including attorney general and minister of housing under Premier John Horgan.
Eby became the NDP’s acclaimed leader and premier in 2022, taking over after environmentalist Anjali Appadurai was disqualified from the leadership race. He is married to Dr. Cailey Lynch, a family physician, and they have three children.
In the 2024 election, the NDP retained its majority by one seat, a margin that was confirmed after a recount in Surrey-Guildford following Garry Begg’s 22-vote win. Since then, the distance between the NDP caucus and the B.C. Conservatives has widened from 47-44 to 47-29 as legislators have left the official Opposition ranks.
The B.C. Conservatives’ interim leader is Lorne Doerksen, who was chosen by the party’s board after Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned following what was described as a tumultuous period in the first months of her tenure. John Rustad, Doerksen’s predecessor, publicly acknowledged on Monday that many people in B.C. may not yet be familiar with the Cariboo-Chilcotin legislator.
Doerksen moved quickly after his appointment to bring MLAs back into the caucus, including Rustad, after the previous leadership period involved infighting and multiple resignations or expulsions from caucus. While he leads the official Opposition caucus of 29 members, the interim nature of his role matters: the party constitution prevents an interim leader from seeking permanent leadership during the election period.
Doerksen was first elected in Cariboo—Chilcotin in 2020 as a member of the B.C. Liberal Party, which later rebranded as B.C. United, before he crossed the floor to join the Conservatives. He was re-elected in 2024, winning 70 per cent of the vote, and his public background includes work in small business, publishing, auto sales and financial services, along with community involvement such as leadership roles connected to the Rotary Club, the Williams Lake Stampede and the Chamber of Commerce.
Centre-right options outside the Conservatives include Peter Milobar, interim leader of CentreBC and leader of a group that consists of eight former Conservative MLAs, most of them defecting during the Findlay leadership period. Milobar took over from Mike Bernier as leader after the eight members joined CentreBC last Friday, even though they are still listed in the legislature as Independents.
Milobar represents Kamloops ridings in provincial politics and has served as mayor of Kamloops for three terms before that. He began representing his provincial constituency in 2017 and previously ran to replace John Rustad in a leadership race but was eliminated in the first round; he has also described CentreBC as a stable, serious alternative to the NDP.
On the Green side, Emily Lowan became leader of the Green Party in the past year after winning a race to replace Sonia Furstenau, who lost her re-election bid the year before. Lowan does not have a seat in the legislature but leads two MLAs: Rob Botterell in Saanich North and the Islands, and Jeremy Valeriote in West Vancouver–Sea to Sky.
Lowan’s party leadership followed a promise to build a political movement strong enough to take on “billionaires,” major corporations and “big oil,” and the Green Party said it would not renew an accord with the NDP that had been aimed at stabilizing the government’s one-seat majority.
Another provincially represented grouping heading toward the Oct. 24 campaign is OneBC, with Dallas Brodie as interim leader. Brodie, who serves as the South Surrey MLA, announced she was leaving the B.C. Conservatives on Monday just before the election call; she was ejected from the Conservative caucus in March 2025 over comments tied to residential school survivors made by then-leader John Rustad.
Brodie lives in Vancouver with her family and previously proposed a bill in the B.C. legislature last fall that would have prevented publicly funded employees from making Indigenous land acknowledgements, describing them as the “anthem of a suicidal nation.” Her legislative profile also lists prior work as a lawyer, a radio and television broadcaster, and as an arbitrator at the Residential Tenancy Branch of B.C. before entering public office.
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