Experts say B.C.’s snap election campaign has unfolded with limited preparation, candidate vetting issues and a chaotic overlap with municipal voting.
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B.C.’s snap election campaign has been marked by what political watchers describe as a lack of preparation, with interim Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson and the NDP both facing unusual campaign pressures ahead of the province’s Saturday final voting day.
The campaign included days when Doerkson went without media availabilities “on several days,” including Tuesday and Wednesday, as the race entered its home stretch.
The NDP has also shifted its messaging away from focusing on U.S. President Donald Trump toward affordability and the need for a stable majority, while campaigning has remained relatively muted, with relatively few large-scale rallies and both major parties scheduling events during the week.
Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said he had noticed the “lack of preparation,” calling it “especially surprising since the NDP called this election.” He said the NDP “should have been prepared” to catch the Conservatives off guard and that “this was an election of their making, and they are not entirely ready for it.”
Telford said the NDP initially anticipated B.C. Premier David Eby running against Kerry-Lynne Findlay, described as “a divisive and unpopular leader” of the Conservatives, but Findlay resigned and was replaced by Doerkson.
Telford said he would have advised the NDP to call the election off, adding that the decision may have come down to timing or momentum: “They should have called the election off, but evidently things were too late, or they had built up too much momentum and couldn’t stop themselves.”
Angelo Isidorou, chief strategist for the Conservatives, said snap elections can be “messy” compared with fixed-date polls, and pointed to the “very unique” circumstances that included the snap provincial election occurring at the same time as the Oct. 17 municipal polls across B.C. He said the key difference between snap and fixed-date elections is “predictability,” noting that parties have only about a week to recruit candidates and get them on the ballot when an election is called.
Isidorou said he was “surprised” by the NDP’s level of preparation and that, otherwise, the NDP would have fielded a full slate of 93 candidates in every riding. Elections BC said the NDP was one short of a full slate after failing to nominate a representative in Peace River North.
Both parties have also faced disruptions related to candidate vetting since the election was called. The Conservatives said two candidates have since been disavowed: Jordan McIntosh, described as an 18-year-old former Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Strathcona, was dumped last Thursday over online posts that included comments about Hitler killing “lots of Jews,” and Joachim Agou was ejected from the party earlier this month for online comments about the driver of a car that rammed a pro-Palestinian protest group in Switzerland.
Michael Prince, a political scientist and Lansdowne professor emeritus of social policy at the University of Victoria, said the election has “elements of some really unusual features,” including the way parties can end up recruiting inappropriate candidates. He said it was puzzling to see parties fail to thoroughly vet the history of social media posts, adding that candidates removed by leaders or who step down quickly has become a repeating pattern across elections.
Prince said that beyond the unusual overlap and fast pace, the election’s candidate disruptions fit into “unfortunately pretty typical” behaviour seen in recent elections, even as the campaign has taken an atypical form compared with previous provincial contests.
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