Vaughn Palmer: NDP knives were out for David Eby before the last vote was cast

VICTORIA — NDP Leader David Eby was asked again and again during the campaign: “Why are we having this election?”

It was the No. 1 question of Election 2026, as Eby himself admitted. And he never had a good answer.

He started with the need for a stronger mandate to deal with Donald Trump. He made 20 references to the hated U.S. president in the kickoff speech to the campaign.

But it went nowhere. By the time of the televised leaders’ debate on Oct. 14, he mentioned Trump by name only once.

He brought out his platform. More promises, more programs, more spending.

Voters, meanwhile, were still asking the whereabouts of the $1,000 grocery rebate he promised last time.

Eby had already turned a $6 billion surplus into a $14 billion deficit. Could more borrowing and debt really make all that much difference?

He stood outside a Save-On-Foods, vowed to cap grocery prices, and said not to worry about owner Jim Pattison — he and his family would continue to prosper.

When reporters asked why he was targeting the province’s leading philanthropist, Eby replied, “I’ve got nothing bad to say about Jimmy Pattison.”

Other than accusing the billionaire of gouging moms and dads on the price of milk for the kids.

As the campaign went on, he touted a new reason for the election call — his supposed one-seat majority in the legislature.

The Conservatives could force an election at any moment. The government could fall in an instant. He couldn’t get anything done.

None of it was true.

On the day he called the election, he held a three-seat majority, with the option of turning it into four by calling a byelection in the safest NDP seat in the province.

Besides, the government controlled the legislature. It decided when to call votes and designate them as matters of confidence.

Late in the campaign, New Democrat Roly Russell, seeking a comeback in Boundary-Similkameen, shed light on the premier’s real concern about the balance of power in the chamber.

“With an NDP caucus with only a one-seat majority, everybody around the table had a veto,” Russell told the Castanet news service.

A veto?

Or did it just mean that the premier had to explain things to the caucus, persuade MLAs, not just order them to go along with whatever idea had lately sprung fully formed from his superior intellect.

“John Horgan delegated, David Eby dictated,” as one insider who served both leaders described it.

Eventually, as the campaign went on, all Eby did was attack, attack, attack.

But Lorne Doerkson proved to be an elusive target. If you posted something stupid on the internet 20 years ago, the NDP research department will exhume it and turn it into an attack ad.

But they never laid a glove on Doerkson.

Eventually, Eby descended to calling the Conservative leader a Trojan Horse. Nice guy, sure, but fronting for a band of bigots, health-care privatizers and MAGA acolytes, who would come bursting out and push Doerkson aside the day after the election was over.

Eby also went after the other likable candidate in the race, Green leader Emily Lowan, saying a vote for her was a vote for the Conservatives.

Lowan, no slouch at a comeback, said it was a bit much for Eby to have called an unnecessary election and then try to frighten voters against supporting the Greens.

Eby then said, “With all due respect to Emily Lowan, she’s not going to be premier next week.”

One Green replied, with foresight: “Neither will he be premier next week.”

Very late in the campaign, the New Democrats noticed that federal Conservative MP Aaron Gunn and provincial MLA hopeful, and former leadership candidate, Caroline Elliott were campaigning for the party’s candidates around B.C.

B.C. Conservative HQ had asked them to do it. Eby and crew tried to turn it into a gotcha moment.

They claimed Gunn and Elliott were already campaigning for the leadership race to replace the hapless Doerkson, even before the election was over.

Ironically, there was a leadership race in the works as the election wound to a close.

Not within the Conservatives, where Doerkson’s big win Saturday should secure his hold on the premier’s office.

But in the last days of the campaign, the New Democrats were already talking among themselves about the next leadership race, now that Eby’s ill-advised election call had handed the province over to the Conservatives.

“Turns out he’s not the smartest guy in the room, only the tallest,” as one disgruntled ex-supporter put it.

Indeed, some New Democrats were suspected of working to hustle Eby out the door for his bad call on the election.

That damaging story about Eby’s children being placed in $10-a-day child care?

The source was a New Democrat. ”A John Horgan New Democrat,” I was told.

Eby made it easier on the plotters Saturday night by announcing he will resign the party leadership.

But some of them will be recalling how the last time the New Democrats lost power this decisively, they were out for 16 years.