June 21, 2024 - BC NDP election launch, BC United/Conservatives pitch business community

Intro Rob: Political Capital is brought to you by Uber Canada. Learn more at uber.com/flexibilityworks. CHEK Podcasts. Hey everyone and welcome to Political Capital, your source for all the latest in BC politics. I'm your host Rob Shaw coming to you as always from the CHEK News World Headquarters here in the capital city of Victoria. 119 days to the BC election, not that we're counting or anything, but it does show all sorts of activity this week. A soft launch to the BC NDP campaign, jockeying for business support from the other parties, candidate changes, all sorts of things going on. And to break it all down, we're going to go right into the pod squad. Allie Blades and Jillian Oliver are here as always, and joining us this week Mike McKinnon, a senior consultant at Enterprise Canada, who formerly worked as a communications advisor in Premier John Horgan's office, which is where I met you, Mike. Thanks for being on the show. Mike: Pleasure, Rob. Thank you. I, really tried to cram on the seventies TV references to, to fill Jeff's shoes. I'm going to let you down, but I'm going to, I'm going to try and bring one for you later. Rob: All right. Okay. That's good. Jeff does, he does a lot of research in that area every week before the show. So no... no expectations. But, let's start with the week that was for the B.C. BC NDP soft launch United, they're in full on sort of campaign mode in two different ways. The first, using all the advantages governments have when they run for re-election, which is making announcements in key battleground ridings, hospital upgrades in Surrey, ICBC headquarters in Vancouver and then the actual party event of the election season.... starting this soft launch, with a 'What's at Stake' campaign event, and the framing of that with the Premier and a bunch of candidates. So we're going to start there, Mike. What should people be looking for in terms of what they're seeing from the NDP in the last week, strategy and themes and messaging, in these events? What, do you think they're trying to convey, and did they hit the mark? Mike: This event on Thursday, was a really, the first time that you've seen, the Premier with that group around him that are candidates and not just elected MLAs, elected cabinet ministers. And, the first time that they're really profiling the team around him. And something that you don't have a lot of opportunity to do as government. On the flip side, you have all of the incumbency advantages, and that's where things like the Surrey Hospital announcement, the, ICBC headquarters turning into housing, those are opportunities to use your incumbency when you're campaigning... . not to mention actually governing, but, it's probably one of the first signs that we're going to see more of these things. And it also is an opportunity to show the Premier in his element that he's not just the guy behind the podium. He's not just the guy in the suit and tie, and, and the guy who is, making government announcements. He's also, someone that showcasing himself as a, as a leader and the different ways, of which he can talk to British Columbians and, frame the choice, about what's on the menu, in the upcoming campaign. Rob: Allie, what stood out for you at the way the NDP kind of soft launched their campaign this week? Allie: Yeah, those are very interesting points, Mike. As you were talking, I was thinking about why David Eby is doing this. And I go back to previous campaigns where it's something so simple, like where, the leader's name is on the campaign signs because there's promotion of, whether the, leader has more popularity and, or they're trying to gain more popularity. In this case, I think it's that they're trying to gain more popularity with David Eby because it's easy to blame the Premier for all of the things that are happening in the province. Therefore, I think him allowing all of the candidates and MLAs to be alongside him at these events, and these announcements that we've seen this week shows that it's a little bit of a shield. Where if the local candidate is more popular, then David Eby's there as an accessory, but so I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is totally a campaign tactic. David Eby's popularity... not great. But the local candidates might have a little bit more favourability towards voters, and therefore, there's this team effort that we're seeing. I'll also point out that I think with this week, and what we're going to see the entire summer, is, they're out of Victoria, they're in the communities, and so we're going to see a ton more announcements, hopefully, in areas where it is needed to gain some votes. In this case, this week, we saw the ICBC announcement on the North Shore, and, the Surrey Hospital announcement with the new, Kidney Centre, very strategically in areas where David Eby and the NDP, need to gain more favourability. Rob: Yeah, he's still... Eby's still pretty popular in a, in the polls seem to show compared to his rivals. It's that old line, you don't have to be a 10, in politics if your opponents are a 5, you only need to be a 6. He's still ahead of everybody else when it comes to, mostly the popularity. But you're right, it'll be interesting to see in the election campaign, do we have a picture of David Eby, on the side of the bus? Is it leaning into the Eby brand or is it leaning into the NDP, BC NDP brand that sort of, allows people to think back to John Horgan and the earlier times of the government too. Jillian, what did you think of the NDP this week? Jillian: Yeah, I think first on that popularity issue, the other aspect of that is that the percentage of voters who don't have any opinion of Eby is relatively fixed. is relatively small. So opinions of him are quite fixed. So I think it shows NDP is playing to their strengths. Their strength is that they've got a really deep bench. They have strong candidates. People really want to run for them because they're poised to form another big majority and, they're the incumbents. And it also is their branding. They really like this, frame of, BC United and the Conservatives. They're the party for wealthy corporations and the wealthy and well connected and we're the party for the people. So they're showing, people in their branding and that kind of makes sense for them. I think the other thing that stood out to me is just how slow to launch the NDP has been compared to the other parties. And I think that shows how confident they're feeling. They've got a big lead in the polls. They've been slower to nominate candidates, slower to get the campaign off the ground. Really just, doing their first big campaign event this week and still it was relatively quiet. So I think that sort of shows how they're feeling, confident that they're happy to just keep, rolling into the summer and that we're going to see, a much stronger buildup from them probably in a couple of, months after people get through most of their summer holidays. Rob: Yeah, and also Eby's having a baby, his third child as he pointed out at this rally too, so he's taking a little bit of time off and this is the sort of pre... here's what the campaign is going to look like theme, introduce some candidates before he, he takes a couple months and that type of thing. BC UnitedConservatives pitch business community Just to build beyond that Jillian, and you brought up this kind of positioning of the opponents, as the sort of wealthy, business elite connected, folks. And it was a week in which both of those parties were courting the business community. Conservative leader, John Rustad, speaking to business leaders in Victoria and at the Board of Trade in Vancouver, you had Kevin Falcon and United bringing out their economic framework about balancing the budget in the first year and holding government spending to the rate of inflation. Both of them trying to, either in a United's case, keep business support and in the conservatives case, lure those business leaders away. But at the same time, getting attacked by the NDP for, spending cuts and the things that they're proposing there. Mike, back to you. The messaging from both of those parties, I know you were at one of the events. What did you think of Rustad's speech to the business community? Did he hit the markers he needed to make? And, United coming out with their plan. does that do anything, in this competition for business support? Mike: So I actually made a point of trying to go to both Falcon and, Rustad, cause I wanted to see that, that, back to back, reception from business community. Now granted business community in Victoria, not necessarily representative of, business province wide and, have some differing views on things than, Greater Vancouver, Board of Trade, for example, but. Interestingly, the point that Kevin Falcon tried to leave with that audience, was, I know you want change, but be careful the change you wish for. And then... and, his, proof points on that were, were some of the, extremism from, whether current or, now former Conservative candidates, that, that BC United was attacking. And John Rustad followed it up and talked a lot about some of the issues that, that audience wants to hear about. Crime issues in downtowns, drugs, and, felt a pretty warm room for him in response. And then it seemed like he couldn't help himself in transitioning to talk about things like vaccine mandates... and, book burning, essentially, getting, certain books out of schools. Something that I don't think that audience really is interested in if we're talking about what the free enterprise coalition, and, business minded British Columbians are interested in. I don't think that's really hitting the mark for them. So I'm not sure if, that audience is necessarily sold on either leader yet after... after this series on where to park their boat and who is the vehicle for free enterprise. Rob: Yeah, he lacked a little discipline in his speech. I thought, like I would have, I thought I, I expected him to go in with more of a series of points he wanted to make to the business community, but he tended to, as you point out, meander off into talking about firing Dr. Bonnie Henry and math books that contain environmental examples that are polluting children's minds... things like that, which I'm not sure. Allie, the choice obviously here was he could have brought out economic policies, chose not to, I guess he's holding those off for the campaign, and instead he was just giving this sort of wide ranging introduction of himself to the business community. Did you pick up any reaction to it? And what did you make of both him and United this week? Allie: I'm such a, on a roller coaster in my opinion of the, BC Conservative. Sometimes I think they make some really good choices. And then other days I'm just like, Oh, this was a missed opportunity. In this case, this was very much a missed opportunity. Now, why I say this is very much when, you're invited to a Chamber of Commerce, where these are, nine times out of 10, they're voters, they are, influential within their community. And then there's a lot of media attention as well for these sorts of things. So typically what we see for politicians is an opportunity to really showcase, a new policy platform, a rebrand. We saw this with Pierre Poilievre where he, for the very first time in like over a year of being the leader of the official opposition, where he presented to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. And he came with a very clear message. We saw a lot of media from it. And in this case, I was really disappointed in the BC Conservatives that we didn't really have that. So what it tells me is that there wasn't a whole lot of preparation to take advantage of this opportunity. And it very much is an opportunity because, I think if we were chatting about it last year... it, the Conservatives wouldn't have been invited to, to take part in this sort of platform. They weren't, taken seriously. And now they're part of that mainstream conversation and they didn't really take advantage of this opportunity. And I wanted more, is really my disappointment, from this. John Rustad Rob: I guess, Jillian, another way to, to look at it might be that, a lot of these business leaders in Victoria and Vancouver have never met John Rustad. And they're just doing, for lack of a better phrasing, just the crazy test on him. They just want to sit down and listen to him for a little bit and be like, Is this guy nuts or is there something here, which I think is totally legitimate. It's like that first time meeting. And I don't, I think he came across as folksy and a little bit scattered, but direct in, in his own way and, I don't know if you think that is part of what he's doing right now and, and how you think that landed or where the Conservatives need to go to court that community? Jillian: I think there's probably a mix of like strategy and instinct when it comes to John Rustad right now. What I think that, I forget which one of you guys said it, but I think there's a lack of discipline and a lack of seriousness where the negatives that really came through to me that I think could really hurt him. Because I think like the business community that you describe, Rob, everybody is looking at Rustad voters too, right? He's, his rise as a leader, and into mainstream popularity has become, has been really, quick often.... and usually it takes leaders much longer to get into the position that he's in. They have a leadership campaign. They have more leadership experience. They have more time to get a feel for what lands and what doesn't. Whereas Rustad hasn't had that as much. And, I think you're right. Sometimes in his own community or when he's speaking in smaller rooms, there's things, that might be a little bit more extreme that hit. And then when he's speaking to a more mainstream community, especially in a place like Southern Vancouver Island, where it just seems really, way out of left field, like he did things like compare our healthcare system to North Korea, like Mike said, he talked about banning books in schools. I think these kinds of things are going to serve as a huge distraction if he doesn't manage to get a barometer for what lands, with the medium voter, compared to what has, landed with the conservative base that has buoyed his initial support. And it just doesn't seem like he has a feel for that yet. I'm sure that there are, a lot of strategists that are trying to work with him behind the scenes to get that under control and get those instincts under control. But it's a really hard thing to learn in a short amount of time. I think we've all worked with, politicians and there's a wide range in terms of that skill set of like, when you put them in front of a camera, are they going to, go off script and say something that you're going to have to clean up later? Are they going to, stay on message? And I think that Rustad is the latter, is the former right now so it's going to be really interesting to see once the camera's on him more. Mike: As, Allie and Jillian, we're, making their points there. Like one, one thing I think that we would find uniting for political strategists, regardless of the parties, that we work with, is that... when you paint... we've all been there where we've, painted opponents as extreme or as having ideas that are wildly out of step with, with the population and with voters. And then occasionally when that same politician steps up to the podium and talks to an audience and they show up with their pants on and seem very reasonable and very much like they can connect with that audience, then, if you've been... if you've been fighting that, you lose your argument. You lose your argument when they show up and seem normal is not the right word, because I don't think it's the appropriate word here, but when they show up and do a good job, it goes out the door. I've been through campaigns certainly like that, where we've tried to paint leaders as extreme, and they just didn't appear that way to the general population. I think John Rustad had the opportunity to do that this week. If I'm BC United, I am really excited that the door is still open for us and for Kevin Falcon to appear as the guy that is ultimately the vehicle because, because John didn't do that this week. Rob: Yeah, it's a good point. It does, it does leave that argument still on the table also for the NDP as well, who use the same word. I just want to go around on United briefly here. Jillian, back to you. Kevin Falcon's idea here of balancing the budget and curtailing government spending to the rate of inflation, is going to feed right into the NDP attacks and that are already leveled against him that he wants to cut services, health care and education that anything, any curtailment of spending on the biggest, deficit we've ever seen in the province right now is a cut to the services you rely on. And, David Eby continued to make that point this week. What do you make of that dynamic? The idea of United, wanting to reduce the budget down to balance and I'll point out John Rustad when he got asked that question said... he thinks that's too extreme. You can't go from this large of a deficit to balance within one term one year. But I don't know what do you think of the dynamic there that might be playing out on the issue of the economics? Jillian: What stood out to me was just how kind of old school it sounded. I think that Falcon is almost retreating to his comfort zone when he was a minister and when he was in the Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark, era. And I think that he is, not seeing just sort of people's memories of those years are not positive. I think that people, understand that a lot of the problems that we're seeing right now, whether it's, affordability and housing or in cost of living, whether it's, problems in the healthcare system, are long term, underfunding issues that happened under, his government. And I think that is a really, weak place for him to be going, if he wants to have broad appeal. But again, if he's really just decided to regain back some of that conservative vote. Then, I think that's, a safe spot for him. That sort of makes sense. So that's where he went this week with Rustad speaking to the business community. Rob: It is that, that choice, Allie, I think that the Economic issues NDP are going to try and present that by neglecting... by being so focused on a balanced budget in the past under Falcon and Christy Clark and that, that, allowed problems to, become so enormous now that they cost a lot of money, like not fixing the drip in your roof because you want to pay off your credit card, but then your whole ceiling caving in later on and causing, much more money. Like that argument I see just going through the whole election when it comes to economic issues. But what do you think. Allie: It's a familiar argument, right? Like we've seen these attacks from the NDP and the BC Liberals at the time. And Jillian, you're totally right. Kevin Falcon is comfortable in this space. He knows how to talk about this, specifically on economic issues. And the topic of economic issues and creating a policy, in which the BC United did this week, and it was three pronged, and they had their points, and, the point of it is that, of course, the economic issues are relevant to voters. We just had the interest rate announcement. And there's another one coming up this summer, and so it's top of mind, but the way that the BC United are going about this just seems very dry, essentially, because it's the same old, same old. And we've had conversations on the show and on the panel about balanced budgets, and do voters really care about that, specifically at a time where there are a lot of challenges. Now, do I think that the NDP have created a ton of new taxes and we need to, rein that in a little bit? Absolutely. But you can't... but the message alone cannot be we're going to balance the budget because one, to John Rustad's point, it's not going to be possible. So let's not lie to people. That's not nice. And then the other point being that, we need to rein it back and be a little bit more realistic. And ao, kudos to the BC United for bringing this up. The economy is very important. Like we've had slow growth in BC. We have people leaving, so that's not a great thing, but, the way that they did it is just, it's the playbook, and this is the same for, policy platform, ideas, the way that they're rolling candidates out, like all of the above. It just seems to be a campaign from 2013 and not necessarily a campaign that they need to change, dramatically this time around. Rob: Yeah, you do hear that quite a bit when people are talking about Falcon's Final thoughts performance right now and some of the strategies. It's from a different era, it feels like. And you, Jillian and Allie, both brought out that point. Mike, I don't know if that resonates with you and based on what you're seeing, and we haven't had you on when we talked about whether voters care about deficits anymore, the largest in provincial history. You'd think that would be a line that opponents could utilize to some extent, but, I'm not sure how that's playing right now. What do you think? Mike: What, what struck me about this pledge from BC United this week was actually thinking about who they're going after here, and I actually don't think, I don't think this is a play for, swing voter, I think this is a play for, that more traditional fiscal conservative who has left the tent, who, you know for a long time they were BC Liberal voters, but they, they came to this from the Conservative side. These are people who vote, Conservative federally every year or every election. And this time around, they've been lost, so far, at least, to, to the BC Conservative Party now. This is about reeling those people back in, as opposed to going after, that person who traditionally has gone back and forth between voting NDP and B.C. Liberal, maybe Green once or twice in their life. In some of the, suburban ridings or out in the Fraser Valley and, and I think we have to look at it through that frame to determine whether it's a success, for United rather than, rather than is, are they just going after swing voters in an attempt to win the election? Rob: Alright, we will leave it there. Thank you to the panel for being here. Thank you, Mike, for filling in. Lots more discussion on our audio podcast this week, so make sure you check that out. And we will be back with all the latest in B.C. politics here on Political Capital. Political Capital is brought to you by Uber Canada. Learn more at uber.com/flexibilityworks.