The first few days of the B.C. election campaign and if you’re a voter trying to navigate what is true and what isn’t — well, good luck.
An avalanche of early mischaracterizations have sprung forth from the NDP and Conservative campaigns, as they target what strategists call “low-information voters,” or, put another way, ordinary people who pay little attention to politics and don’t have the time, energy or context required to pull apart the tangled web of mistruths.
Here’s just a few examples: John Rustad wants to cut $4 billion from the health-care system. David Eby is opening new “drug dens.” Rustad wants to bring back Medical Services Plan premiums and bridge tolls. Eby is proposing to “legalize all drugs.”
No, no, no, and no.
It’s too bad the campaigns are starting this way but, well, that’s politics during an election. So it’s worth taking a second to just break this all down.
Health cuts
“The first time John Rustad was elected he actually closed hospitals deliberately,” Eby said Saturday at one of his launch events.
“It's not going to solve any problems. A $4-billion cut. That's not a small number. That means fewer doctors and nurses for you and your family.”
There is no $4-billion health-care cut in the Conservative platform and Rustad has never said this.
The NDP’s source is a Conservative policy background that states: “Deloitte’s assessment of the future of health-care projects that Canadian health spending as a percent of GDP will rise from 12.4% to 13.9% by 2040 if we continue on our current path. They estimate that reforms and modernization can bring about savings and reduce this to under 11% of GDP.”
From that third-party, nationwide, 16-year, health-care modernization spending adjustment, the NDP have extrapolated a Conservative promise for a $4-billion health-care cut.
“The NDP have trotted out the oldest trick in their tired book: lying about health-care funding,” Rustad said Tuesday.
The Conservatives tried to clarify on Tuesday a promise to “increase the funding currently outlined in the Ministry of Health Service Plan” with specific figures.
However, the party mistakenly linked to health budget figures from the 2023/24 service plan (which, to be fair, is listed erroneously as the “current” service plan), and not this year’s 2024/25 plan — causing the NDP to, again, accuse the Conservatives of secretly proposing cuts by having out-of-date numbers.
However, bottom line, the Conservatives are not promising to cut health-care funding.
Drugs dens
“Unlike David Eby, I’m not interested in building drug dens in neighbourhoods where we continue to just distribute this drug problem in communities,” Rustad said at his campaign launch in Vancouver’s Crab Park on Sunday, a site of prolific homeless encampments.
Eby has not built “drug dens.”
However, BC Centre for Substance use did open a safe inhalation site this month to allow for supervised smoking of drugs — the predominant method of overdose in the current crisis. Of 48 supervised consumption sites opened by health authorities, roughly half allow inhalation. These are health authority decisions, though neighbours near sites often do complain about street disorder and criminal consequences.
The Conservatives also cite public controversy after Richmond council initially approached the health authority to look for a new potential safe consumption location, but backed away after immense backlash.
Eby has said the province did not mandate or order the city to consider a new consumption site, and politicians are not building “drug dens.”
Bridge tolls and MSP
NDP advertising, shared by MLAs and party officials on social media, have accused Rustad of secretly proposing a return of Metro Vancouver bridge tolls and Medical Services Plan premiums.
There is no mention of either in the Conservative platform or policy documents, and Rustad has not actually promised to do this.
On bridge tolls, the NDP relied Rustad gave in 2017, after bridge tolls were removed, calling it a “slap in the face” to rural British Columbia.
Rustad was arguing the move violated a longstanding provincial policy exempting Metro Vancouver taxpayers from paying a share of new hospitals, so their tax room could be used to fund transit. In rural B.C., communities have to fundraise to pay part of the cost of new hospitals.
On MSP, the NDP relied on a 2018 Facebook post where Rustad called the Employer Health Tax (which the NDP put in place after eliminating MSP to recover some of the revenue) the “largest assault on job creators in B.C.’s history.”
From that, the party has conjectured that Rustad may cut the EHT in the future, and may try to make up the revenue by restoring MSP premiums.
Neither is accurate. Rustad has called both lies.
Legalize drugs
“The BC NDP have a plan to put hard drugs on retail store shelves,” reads the Conservative social media ad, accompanied by photos of boxes labelled “meth” and “cocaine.”
Eby has not proposed to do this in any campaign material. In fact, he’s explicitly rejected the idea when asked.
The source is provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, as well as former chief coroner Lisa Lapointe, who have proposed regulating (ie: legalizing) and distributing hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth and fentanyl in government retail stores, like cannabis.
Because they are, or were, government officials, the Conservatives have said the NDP government must actually be supportive of this idea. However, both are independent of political control and issue independent recommendations.
Eby has repeatedly refused to consider the idea.
“We are not headed in that direction, we are not going to do that. I’ve been very clear about that,” Eby said in June.
Lapointe came out Tuesday to endorse the BC Greens, which have taken up her proposal to regulate and distribute hard drugs. The NDP have not adopted that policy.
All in all, the mischaracterizations and mistruths have made for a jarring start to the campaign.
“What we have seen, quite frankly, from David Eby, is nothing but lies,” said Rustad.
“You say we're going to cut health-care spending, that is a lie. He says we're going to bring out MSP, that is a lie. He said they were going to put bridge tolls, that is a lie. Says we're going to be attacking productive reproductive rights, that is a lie.”
Eby too has called Rustad untrustworthy, refusing to separate himself from the controversial views of some candidates, for example.
“John Rustad is avoiding telling people about his stance on proven science — we can't trust him with our health-care system,” the party posted on social media Tuesday.
The hope from both parties appears to be that voters won’t do much checking on their early political attacks, or the two leaders calling each other liars.
Hopefully though, for the sake of the election, the voters prove them wrong.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Vancouver Coastal Health opened a safe inhalation site this month.
