THE WEEK: NDP trails BC Conservatives in polls, undecideds will determine outcome

As an overwhelming majority of Albertans gave a huge sign of relief this week after thoroughly rejecting Conservative Premier Danielle Smith’s ginned up referendum to have a referendum, British Columbians appear poised to elect our own BC Conservative Party.

NDP premier David Eby thought he could take advantage of the BC Conservative Party’s in-fighting between moderates and the hard-right wing, the Freedom Convoy loving extremists. He was wrong.

According to the latest Ledger poll, Conservatives will go into Election Day – tomorrow – with more support than they had at the onset of the campaign. The polling firm predicts Conservatives will win 44 percent of the vote, compared to 39 percent for the NDP and 13 percent for the Green Party.

And 338Canada, which does not do polling but aggregates all the polls, is projecting a huge Conservative majority of 57 Legislative seats to the NDP’s 33 and three for the Greens. They say this with more than 80 percent certainty.

The Conservative surge through the campaign probably explains why the party’s leader and many of its candidates have been laying low in the election’s final days. This is no time for them to fumble, so they’re running out the clock.

The latest Angus Reid poll said that 75 percent of Conservative voters were certain of how they would cast their ballots on Saturday. But supporters of the other parties weren’t as committed, only 54 percent of NDP voters had decided and 41 percent of Greens.

That could swing the vote either way in ridings like Courtenay-Comox, which has a history of shifting between conservatives and progressives. In the last provincial election, two years ago, Conservative candidate Brennan Day won by a slim 93 votes, after a 1,320-vote surge in Green Party votes.

And it’s the undecided voters who are most likely to vote strategically. When the race is as close as the Courtenay-Comox riding, casting a ballot for the party you want may contribute to the election of the party you most do not want.

In other words, this election will most likely be decided in Courtenay-Comox, as it was in 2024, by how many of those who support Green Party policies decide to vote for the NDP because the thought of electing this particular version of the BC Conservative Party would be so much worse.

WHAT ABOUT ALBERTA?

What should British Columbians make of the Alberta secession movement? A very small number of Albertans who infiltrated the province’s United Conservative Party favored separation, but managed to create a year’s worth of political chaos.

Analysis of the voting shows that almost 25 percent of Albertans appeared to vote in for secession, but that two-thirds of those did not really want to separate from Canada. They were “sending Ottawa a message,” as Premier Smith implored them to do.

In other words, about 8 percent of voters really held the insane idea of forming their own country.

But was it insane? It wasn’t that long ago when British Columbians used to jokingly talk about forming a new country with Washington state, Oregon and California. It was all in fun, a dream about creating a progressive nation unburdened by Washington D.C. or Ottawa. Nobody took it seriously.

And yet, that’s how movements get started. In Alberta, it was the Freedom Convoy anti-vaccine crowd that got things rolling toward this week’s separation vote. It thrived in an environment of Trump’s tariffs and 51st state chatter, Premier Smith’s visits to Mar-a-lago and the long-standing complaint that Alberta sends more money to Ottawa than it receives back in equalization payments.

It’s ironic, because, according to U.S. data, 19 states send more tax money to Washington D.C. than they get back in any way. Progressive California leads the way, but Trump-loving states like Tennessee and Arkansas also run an Alberta-like deficit.

You don’t hear talk of those states wanting to split up America.

But could these same seeds be sown in British Columbia? The BC Conservative Party ousted leader John Rustad and elected Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who self-destructed in just 113 days of racist comments, misused public funds, hiring private investigators to spy on its own members, Draconian management and firings and more.

The party split into a CentreBC for moderates and OneBC for the extremists. The remaining BC Conservatives represent the middle ground, with tendencies toward both. It’s a dangerous mix that could evolve into who knows what for BC.

VIRTUAL MEDICAL CARE

Do you or someone you know suffer from Long Covid, Fibromyalgia or some other chronic disease? For those who do and live in non-metro communities like the Comox Valley, access to virtual group medicine has been a blessing.

The BC Centre for Long COVID, ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia provides these services, but is facing a provincial government cutback in funding. Starting Nov. 1, group sizes for specialist virtual medical visits will go from 50 patients per hour down to a payable maximum of 30, a 40 percent cut.

A Comox Valley patient of the BC-CLMF clinic, who contacted Decafnation, said they “want to cry thinking about possibly being bed-bound for seven weeks again (or worse).”

They said there are no other BC specialists who treat their condition on an on-going basis.

“The virtual care model lets me access healthcare from home. My health’s improving due to the BC-CLMC expertise, and gives me hope I might get into remission someday,” they said.

In a press release from LifelineBC, a patient-led advocacy group, co-founder Amanda Kanuka asked the government to at least delay funding cuts to Jan. 1 to allow clinics time to restructure their programming.

“At best, they (the government) will listen to clinicians about how these changes will directly impact patient care and … support the continued delivery of world-class cost-effective virtual medicine province-wide,” Kanuka said.