Eby says Conservatives acting like they’ve won, Doerkson fundraising as election nears end

NDP Leader David Eby says the B.C. Conservatives are “conducting themselves as if they’ve won” the provincial election by focusing on fundraising instead of taking questions from the media in the last days of the campaign.

Final voting day is on Saturday, but interim Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson did not take questions from reporters on Tuesday and has no media availability scheduled Wednesday.

Instead, he has two fundraising events on his agenda, after five others in the past week, as the Conservatives push for donations to counter what they call NDP attack ads.

Eby says at a campaign stop in the election battleground of Surrey that Doerkson has “gone into hiding.”

The Conservatives say Doerkson will return to public campaigning on Thursday with an announcement and media availability in Metro Vancouver, followed by a rally in Surrey.

Advance voting closes at 8 p.m. Wednesday, and Elections BC says about 711,000 people have voted in the first five days of early polling, down by about 9 per cent compared with the first five days of advance voting in 2024.