{"id":45017,"date":"2024-09-20T02:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T09:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=45017"},"modified":"2024-09-18T11:16:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T18:16:01","slug":"eby-talks-about-record-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2024\/09\/20\/eby-talks-about-record-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Eby talks about record, plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

BC Premier David Eby says election is \u201cabout the values of who we are as a province and how we move forward on the big issues of our time.\u201d (photo from news.gov.bc.ca<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

David Eby, the incumbent BC premier and leader of the New Democratic party, assured Jewish voters that, if reelected Oct. 19, his government would have their backs.<\/p>\n

Speaking with the Jewish Independent<\/i>, Eby said the loss of Selina Robinson as a cabinet minister and then as a New\u00a0<\/span>Democrat caucus member earlier this year was a blow, but that his government is committed to the issues that are important to Jewish British Columbians.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really tough for our caucus and for our government to lose Selina,\u201d Eby said. \u201cShe was a major contributor to our team. It\u2019s hard to really quantify that kind of emotional feeling that a lot of people on our team have around the loss, of not having her being part of our team going forward. But it hasn\u2019t slowed down our work and our commitment to the overall Jewish community and our efforts to fill the role that she did as a critical bridge between our caucus and the broader Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eby and his party have been working with community agencies to fight antisemitism and to increase security for Jewish institutions, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working closely with a number of Jewish organizations to identify ways that we can provide support in this incredibly challenging time where we see this rise in antisemitism and some really disturbing behaviour targeting Jews, everything from the horrific arson attack [against Schara Tzedeck Synagogue] to slurs that people are enduring in the street,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom increasing support for security for synagogues and Jewish community centres, mandatory Holocaust education deployment, making sure that that is a reality in our schools in the province, we\u2019re working on that together.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also cited British Columbia as \u201chaving the strictest standards around hate crimes\u201d and promised that prosecutors will ensure that hate crime cases make it to court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to do that work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking just days before the official start of the campaign period, Eby predicted that affordability, particularly around housing, will emerge as a top concern for voters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe availability of housing in the province, regardless of where, is a huge issue for so many people,\u201d said Eby. \u201cIt\u2019s a drag on our economy that we\u2019re not providing adequate housing for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people who cannot afford to own a home are questioning whether they have a future in the province, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think that housing will be, if not the <\/i>issue, certainly one of the main issues, because there\u2019s a fairly bright line between ourselves and the BC Conservatives on this issue,\u201d Eby said. \u201cThey [the Conservative party] appear to think that people are best left to the market when it comes to housing, that government does not have a role to play in initiatives like using public lands to build more attainable housing or restricting the excesses of platforms like Airbnb or people buying vacant homes as an investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eby pointed to a recent report that said rental costs have increased across Canada by 5% while in British Columbia they have fallen by 5%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are finally starting to see rents come down across the province,\u201d he said. \u201cThe most recent report shows that we\u2019re on the right track and we can\u2019t stop now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eby cited climate change as a topic where his party and the Conservatives have diametrical opinions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, Eby announced that his party is now committed to eliminating the consumer carbon tax, a sudden reversal of an environmental policy that was first implemented by the BC Liberal government in 2008. While the NDP have altered course, putting them on the same side as the Conservatives on the future of the tax, Eby positions the shift as an affordability issue in a time of economic pressures for consumers and went on the offensive against what he characterizes as the BC Conservative leader John Rustad\u2019s climate change denial.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Rustad has taken the very bizarre position that climate change is not real,\u201d Eby said. \u201cIt is bizarre, but it\u2019s also dangerous for British Columbians. Will a premier who doesn\u2019t believe that climate change is real protect your community from floods or forest fires, make the necessary investments around infrastructure for protecting communities right across the province?\u201d<\/p>\n

Other issues likely to take centre stage in the campaign are the related topics of mental health, addiction and homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people want to see the folks that they see suffering on the sidewalks in our communities get the care they need,\u201d Eby said. \u201cAnd they are also feeling anxious when people with mental health, brain injury, chronic addiction are banging on the hood of their car, or engaging in petty theft or, in some cases, quite dramatic and awful violent incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The upheaval among the opposition parties \u2013 with the folding of the BC United campaign and the unification of right and centre-right candidates under the Conservative banner \u2013 in some ways did not come as a surprise to Eby, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were expecting a unified right-wing vote,\u201d he said. \u201cThe surprise for me was really that the unification came around the far-right side of the political spectrum and not the centre-right side that the BCU [BC United party] represented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eby said he has been reaching out to former BC United supporters who he said \u201cfeel quite abandoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know these are people who don\u2019t see themselves in a party where the leader is a climate change denier and who supported anti-vaccine convoys as they were rolling up their sleeves to get vaccinated,\u201d he said. \u201cI know those aren\u2019t the values of British Columbians.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said former BC United supporters are sending emails, letters and donations, telling Eby, \u201cI never thought I\u2019d vote NDP but this time I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eby is asking those who do not feel comfortable in the BC Conservatives \u201cto lend us their votes this election.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept of \u201clending\u201d a vote was employed by the late federal NDP leader Jack Layton in the 2011 Canadian election when that party made unprecedented breakthroughs, winning more than 100 seats and forming the official opposition for the first and only time. Asked if that was a deliberate echo of his former federal leader, Eby suggested this moment in BC politics is unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not asking for a commitment of lifelong fealty from these voters,\u201d Eby said. \u201cI want to prove myself as committed to British Columbians and their priorities and doing our best to address the big challenges. This election, in my opinion, has become less and less about partisan politics and more about the values of who we are as a province and how we move forward on the big issues of our time, whether we do it together and united as a province that welcomes everybody and ensures that we\u2019re stronger together or whether we start to divide ourselves along culture war lines and use internet conspiracy theories as a compass for deciding how we address certain issues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BC Premier David Eby says election is \u201cabout the values of who we are as a province and how we move forward on the big issues of our time.\u201d (photo from news.gov.bc.ca) David Eby, the incumbent BC premier and leader of the New Democratic party, assured Jewish voters that, if reelected Oct. 19, his government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[801,23432,6888,3203,20500,4304,2477,3597,5731],"class_list":["post-45017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-antisemitism","tag-bc-election","tag-bc-ndp","tag-climate-change","tag-david-eby","tag-democracy","tag-housing","tag-politics","tag-safety"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}