David Eby’s misbegotten election is a generational opportunity for B.C. conservatives David Eby wanted British Columbians to vote against Donald Trump on Saturday. It turns out that they seem more interested in passing judgment on David Eby. The premier made the American president central to his justification for calling an election two years early. His campaign launched with a promise to protect British Columbians against Trump’s attacks. Eby’s essential argument was that an external threat required voters to renew his government’s mandate. It wasn’t a completely bogus political strategy. It has worked for Doug Ford in Ontario. And it transformed the 2025 federal election from a referendum on a tired and unpopular Liberal government into a contest over who could best protect Canada. An electorate that had, for roughly two years, said it was determined to change governments ultimately gave the Liberals another term. Yet the same argument appears to have encountered limits in British Columbia. An Angus Reid survey earlier this month found that U.S. tariffs, Trump, and the alcohol ban registered as a voting priority for just 10 percent of respondents. Cost of living stood at 57 percent, health care at 42 percent, and the economy and jobs at 26 percent. Housing affordability, the deficit, and public safety each registered at 24 percent. The spectre of an antagonistic U.S. president no longer trumped British Columbians’ basic concerns about their household economies, the macroeconomy, or the province’s deteriorating social conditions. There are several possible explanations for why B.C. seems poised to hold one of Canada’s first non-Trump elections in nearly two years. Provincial governments have more immediate responsibilities than managing the American relationship. Dissatisfaction with conditions in B.C. may have overwhelmed Eby’s attempt to direct voters’ attention elsewhere. And Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson’s own condemnation of Trump may have left voters unconvinced that opposing the president required re-electing the premier. Whatever the combination, there’s something encouraging about voters insisting that a provincial election ought to be focused on the state of their province. Trump cannot indefinitely excuse poor outcomes in British Columbia. There’s also a lesson here for conservatives. B.C. is an ideologically and politically diverse province. Its electorate contains competing impulses that resist easy placement on the Left-Right spectrum. Yet even though the BC Conservative Party hasn’t governed for nearly 100 years, conservatism itself is hardly foreign to the province. Federal Conservatives have won 56 percent of its seats across eight elections since 2004. Saturday’s election may prove that the potential constituency for particular conservative policies may be larger still. People needn’t possess a developed philosophy of limited government to believe that resource projects should proceed, that repeat offenders shouldn’t terrorize their neighbourhoods, or that property ownership should provide dependable security. As I’ve written before, these are some of the most basic foundations of a normie politics. Doerkson’s opportunity has been to give those instincts a straightforward political expression. Voters can support a conservative governing offer without necessarily adopting conservatism as an identity. Conservatives sometimes spend so much time explaining why key institutions in the country are hostile to their worldview that they overlook how many ordinary people share their practical concerns. Saturday’s election may therefore be a useful case study. British Columbians don’t have to become hard-core Conservative partisans to decide that conservative policies offer plausible answers to their problems. If Doerkson wins, his task will be to turn that practical appeal into practical improvements for British Columbians. thehub.ca/2026/10/23/david-e…