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Hey everyone, and welcome to Political Capital, your source for all the latest and BC politics.

I'm your host, Rob Shaw.

Thank you for tuning in last week to our live UBCM show.

This week, we are moving on back to provincial politics because there is so much to talk about and the session is just around the corner.

Beginning next week, the fall legislative agenda unfolds.

We're going to talk a little bit about that, probably in a podcast audio extras, so make sure you subscribe to our audio podcast as well.

We're going to bring in the panel here to talk about the weekend politics.

Ali Blades, Jillian Oliver back after taking a month off.

Jillian is so good to see you, thank you for being back.

And birthday boy Jeff Ferry turning, turning.

Let me just check my notes here twenty years old, Jeff, thanks for doing the show on your birthday.

My pleasure.

I can't think of something I'd rather be doing.

Well, that's good, that's good you delivered that.

I I mean, that's gonna be fun.

Well.

The first issue is pipeline politics, and Alberta's premier put this back on the agenda this week, announcing that her government intends to push forward and develop some type of proposal for a million dollar sorry, a million barrel a day oil pipeline to BC's coast.

Get it on the desk of the Prime Minister by May, is what Daniel Smith said, and then hopefully, in her words, get it onto the major project's list of the Prime Minister and find a private proponent.

BC's premier reacted quite angrily, which I think we'll talk a little bit about saying not on my watch essentially, Ali.

Actually, you know what, sorry, Gillian in the right after being a way to go first, tell us what you think about this.

I think Smith is just, you know, basically trying to put pressure on the Prime Minister to clear regulatory and legislative hurdles, basically make it easier for her to find a proponent because none exists right now.

I kind of think, you know, Ebe's strategy so far has been to say, there is no proponent, this is going to require taxpayer dollars, it doesn't exist.

You know, why would I respond to it.

I think to date that's sort of been working for him because it's made her come out on her own.

In response, we saw a bunch of first nations come out against it, So he has avoided putting himself as sort of the person standing in the way of it and kind of let it unfold a little bit further.

But I think he's getting to the point where he might need to take a bit of a stronger argument because the things that he's saying just kind of are starting to not hold up when his government is also giving a lot of tax breaks and tax dollars to LNG projects announced just a week apart from responding to this, I think it's time for him to make a more forcil argument against why a pipeline doesn't deserve tax dollars, because the reality is right now, with the economic situation that we're in, every big project or new initiative is going to require some sort of government support at this point.

That's true.

You know, ranging from you know, the tax breaks that Lergy Canada received in order to get to a final investment decision, all the way up to the safe se Dam, which was an entirely provincially funded project, you get varying levels of private investment.

To Jeff, what do you make of the Premier's response and Alberta's.

Push here, Well, I think the Premier's response does hold water because it has the merit of being true.

Look at this isn't this isn't a project.

It's a mirage.

It's a sixty to seventy billion dollars mirage that the oil patch is so excited about that they've so far best at exactly nothing, not a single thin dime.

If this ever moves forward, it's going to be taxpayers putting most or all of the bill.

And as for me, I can think of better things to spend seventy billion dollars on than a make belief pipeline.

Well, that was essentially what Evie said.

Allie, do you think it landed with what the Alberta premier was saying?

No.

I think what's happening here is that Danielle Smith is offering a chance to figure out what the solution can be while working with the federal government.

To Jillian's point, though, like I think that this hostility towards the announcement doesn't necessarily work because it means that you're iced out of the conversation when we're starting to talk about the regulatory changes that are needed for this to really come to fruition.

In summary, here she wants to make sure that the emissions cap is talked about.

She wants to make sure that we're talking about the tanker bed.

These are British Columbia choose.

And so if you're going to be hostile and say that I don't want anything to do with this because this is a make believe mirage of a project, you're also excluding yourself from the conversation that's also going to impact British Columbians.

What about the tanker ban.

Let's go around on that, because it feels like maybe part of this is the Alberta premier trying to get the Prime Minister get this thing on his desk to the point where he has to make a decision about the tanker ban.

We saw the CEO of Enbridge come out in a speech this week saying no private company will get involved building a pipeline to nowhere if you can't put tankers at the end of it and ship it somewhere.

Jeff, let's go back to you on this.

So do you think it is trying to force the Prime minister to make a move on the tanker ban?

And also what if we reach a point where he has to start making decisions that the BC government might not support well.

I think on the tanker ban, I think that British Columbia will hold fast on its position that it wants to keep it in place until they see a project that merits taking the tank or ban off.

Look, I think what Smith is doing here is very political.

She's a master of changing the channel back home in Alberta for folks who aren't watching Alberta politics so closely.

She's in the middle of a scandal where there's corruption allegations related to health contracts, and so what comes up this pipeline And when this thing stalls and it's going to stall, what's she going to do.

She's going to call an election.

She's going to blame BC, she's going to blame Ottawa, and she's going to run as Alberta's great defender.

It's pretty shrewd politics, but it's politics.

Jillian, what do you think of that?

Yeah, I think that's right.

I think on top of all of those issues that Jeff mentioned, Alberta is also facing a new big deficit.

They went from an eight point six billion dollar surplus to a six point five billion dollar deficit because the price of oil is tanking, and that's why you're not seeing proponents jump up and raise their hands to get to get in supportive another Canadian pipeline project, because it is it's economically risky, and I think Smith is it doesn't have any other ideas for how to grow the economy.

Yeah, really, to use Danielle Smith's words, it's kind of a chicken and egg problem.

So the whole point of this advisory group is to make sure that they're creating an economic path for that private capital to come into these two provinces.

And so while there's nothing in terms of private investment right now, there could be, is what she's trying.

To convey with this.

Yes, it is political to Jeff's point, but that sometime needs to be leveraged in order to really get a favorable response from the federal government as well.

So good for her for putting some money behind that.

Is they try to advocate for the issues that are going to end up helping Alberton's.

Could you've all been in politics long enough to remember, as I remember the twenty seventeen NDP government opposing the Trans Mountain Pipeline expand and realizing that it actually had, in the words of John Horgan, like no tools.

Eventually to do anything about it, but it could make investors in that case Kinder Morgan very nervous and they get out of the project entirely.

Do you think BC follows that same path, Jeff?

If this develops knowing that it can't stop a project that the Prime Minister might deem in the national interest or that might proceed, how far does it go?

Do you think having gone through the TMX pipeline issue and realizing that the province can't withhold permits, it can't actually really do anything.

Yeah.

I think the TMX sale from the private sector to the federal government was more about the First Nation's component than it was about BC.

I think that the pipeline advocates there knew well that British Columbia didn't have the tools, but they were acutely aware that if you're going to build anything in British Columbia, you have to have meaning full engagement with First Nations and that wasn't happening on that pipeline till the federal government stepped in.

Look, if I think PC's going to hold true to its values, I think Premier Eb's going to hold true to his value.

He's going to say We're not going to review a project that does not exist, especially at a time when we should be focusing on LNG and mining in the Northwest as the real drivers of economic growth NBC in.

Canada, Jillian, do you think we get to a point where it's Edi versus the world here?

I don't know if he has to.

I think, you know, we saw those first nations, a couple of them come out this week against the project.

I think they he can kind of let them take the lead and they have the greater legal standing anyway.

I think talking about alternatives, you know, I think LNG, like I said, I think it comes off a little hypocritical, but I think being a bit more specific and a bit of a stronger advocate for what the economic alternatives are to sort of give the Prime minister and out is kind of the way to go on this.

Yeah, all g though you know, it doesn't sink like oil in the in the ocean, so there is that argument the government might use ALI to say that at least LNG, you know, or natural gas would and pollute the environment like oil if something went wrong.

Let's not be confused though.

I think now David eb also has a threat within the Green Party and the resurgence of you know, life and a bit of a new leader that's ready to take this issue on.

And so perhaps his comments this week were also with the veil of concern that the Greens might come after him and take some of his voter base as well.

Okay, great, we're going to come back from a commercial break here to talk a bit about BC Conservative leader John Russtad in trouble for firing a caucus communication staffer.

We'll be back just after these messages.

All right, welcome back our next topic here.

B C Conservative leader John Russad fired a junior communications staffer this weekend.

Boy, is he facing an internal revolt over that issue.

It doesn't sound serious.

Ali.

We're going to come to you to get you explain it a bit to us.

But Lindsay Shepherd, the person who was fired over tweets that she made calling orange shirt Day and the orange flag essentially the grandest lie of them all, and that is a disgrace that the orange shirt flag flies at the legislature caused her to get fired.

But she's a longtime member of the party and that hasn't gone over well.

Just sort of explain to us what's going on there.

Yeah, this is really a fundamentally a problem of managing a coalition party.

The context for this particular person in Lindsay Shepherd.

She's the author of a book on confronting campus club or campus free speech crisis.

So it's relative to what's happening right now.

She's a significant media following, more followers on x than the premier.

She was a member of the Conservative Party of BC board until just recently she was featured at the annual General Meeting as an MP.

All of this is important because she's a darling of the Conservative Party and then on a national profile.

We're now seeing federal members of Parliament way in be a very carefully worded post.

Mind you, there was a Toronto Star article about this as well, and so this isn't just a staffer.

This is someone with a significant following and she's definitely using it to her advantage.

Now, the problem that I believe is happening here is that there's a.

Caucus operations crisis in managing this coalition.

The tough situation for the leader right now is very similar to a speech, one of my favorite speeches from Candice Bergen, who at the time was the leader of the Conservative Party federally, and this was at the peak of a narrative building about the divide within the federal caucus, with MP Leslie Lewis talking about her pro life advocacy and how that reconciles with her colleagues that may.

Have differing in opinions.

But what she what the fundamentally with this part of the speech was that she concluded it in saying that the internal the internal debate makes them stronger and more representative of the Canadians that they represent.

The problem with John Rut's.

Dad right now is that this is all very very public, and there's so much that he could have done robly.

Who could have prepared a statement knowing that she had.

A significant following.

He could have very well also leveraged that coalition of Conservatives that he has within his caucus.

What could have been if the statement included a quote from an MLA that with the two MLAs, with those two different bring opinions.

And then finally, in this crisis comms management, what did you lost the plot on what it should have been, which is continue to talk about his position on the issue.

You could have done that with a video.

This was the leaf to do that.

You could have talked about his previous commitment to the reconciliation file when he was the minister responsible for it, and he missed the opportunity to do that.

And now she's taking narrative and he is not even responding at all.

Aren't we missing?

Jeff?

Though?

Like the other part of this, which is, if you're a junior staffer in a political caucus, you don't get to beak off online with your hot takes about whatever is in your mind.

You're part of a team, You're have an employer, you have a caucus, you have a leader, you're representing.

Like, what kind of I mean, just remove the parties and the people from this.

It seems like that was maybe a fireable offense.

Yeah, if you're a if you want to have full freedom of speech without consequence, become the leader of a political party, then you won't have consequence from your own ranks.

Run.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Yeah, become Leon ren for office if you're if you're free to say whatever you want as a staffer, but expect that if it is something that is in direct opposition to what the leader has established as party position, you're probably going to get booted out the door, and that's what happened here, and I think John Russtad frankly did the right thing here.

I think the bigger issue is that BC needs a strong opposition.

We see the BC Conservatives, as Ali noted, you know, struggling with those growing pains as a result, you know, they're not focused on holding the government to account.

They're having bum fights with each other.

At some point they've got to decide if they're going to be a big tenth conservative party, if they're going to be a branch plan of American culture war politics.

Julian, what do you think, John Rustad, I guess it's worth pointing out he got booted from the BC Liberal Party for tweets he made about climate change, and now he is the one booting people.

There's a lot of booting going on in a circular fashion, exactly.

I was going to make that point.

I think, you know, he started or became leader of the Conservatives because of a very similar issue and promising to have more free speech in his party.

New political parties are experiments, and we've seen this sort of like realignment in BC politics since the Conservatives have become the official opposition.

At the same.

Time, the far right is being driven by the rise of the right in the US and this sort of anti woke, say anything goes kind of politics down there.

And I think while most of Canadian society is sort of trying to actively resist the influence of American political culture right now, it's really hard to drown it out to ignore it.

So it's a really interesting question, I think for all of Canadian politics right now.

Are we going to continue to sort of have our own culture or is the arch conservatives going to be subsumed.

I think it was really interesting to see what Pierre Paulia did.

He put out a.

Really strong statement framing the issue as government intervention and saying that residential schools are an example of government overreach and the federal Conservatives are going to stand up against that.

I think probably anticipating that this is going to be a divisive issue within his caucus and trying to find a unique angle that really fits with their shared values so that he could sort of limit the outspokenness within his own caucus.

Yeah, Okay, coming up, we're going to discuss the new Downtown east Side czar.

Should we call him Azar?

Why are we calling these people a czar.

It's one of the questions I'll put to the panel coming up after the break.

All right, welcome back, Premiere David Ebe appointing a new Downtown east Side advisor slash czar, former Vancouver mayor and senator Larry Campbell.

It's comes just a few months after you had to fire the last czar, Michael Bryant, because of public backlash over the idea of hiring a czar Jeff Czar.

Yes, Zar No.

I don't even know why we use that term, but do we need it down town east side advisor?

I know we used our it's because there's headline writers and newspapers that have only so much space, and as czar is a short way to say it, I think we do.

I think Larry Campbell is a good person to do it.

He's a police officer, former police officer, former coroner, former mayor, former senator.

He's someone who knows Vancouver really well.

He brings people together, he knows the Downtown east Side really well.

And I think it's important because you know, cabinet ministers have so much that they deal with on a daily basis, and you need someone anyone who's walked down the streets in Vancouver along Hastings.

You know, yes, and you know about the deaths, you know, but the street disorder, you got to do what you can to bring it to a stop if I were.

The One question I have though, is we're a Vancouver Island show here and Victoria has its own challenges.

I'm wondering if there's going to be a czar for Victoria now we.

Would call it probably the Pandora f Hubah, I think, not bizarre, but that's just me.

But Gillian, I guess one of the problems here is that we're three years into the Premier promising to get hold of the downtown east Side.

One of his first promises is Premier and now we're reviewing it.

Yeah, definitely, I mean, I think it was interesting.

One thing that jumped out to me is very different framing between announcing Bryant and announcing Campbell Bryant.

The Premier said that we need a fresh set of eyes on this problem.

Now they're bringing in someone who has been around for a long time, very much not a fresh set of eye, somebody who has a real connection to the neighborhood and a lot of experience and I think that that shows that this is about the relation and government wanting to have someone to sort of smooth things over.

I think both probably genuine to you know, for moving things along, making sure that the housing is getting expedited, services are getting expedited in all of those things.

But also we've got a municipal election coming up with a Vancouver mayor who wants to crack down and sweep the downtown east Side, and a provincial government that is moving away from progressive solutions like harm reduction towards more conservative ones like involuntary care.

So I think having somebody with good relationships and credibility in that sort of world is probably why they've made this appointment.

Yeah, all the validators were there behind him, as opposed to Michael Bryant, who seemed to tick some people off for not consulting with them in his earliest days.

Alley, we only have about forty five seconds.

What do you think of this?

But those endorsements came and the rollout came because the last time that the NBPA government tried to do this that it didn't land very well and that person ended up being fired right away.

And so the launch of this mattered just as much with a substance of work that he's going to have to do.

And then to that extent, I guess it launched well, although the question will be what does it produce the most overstudied neighborhood in the province.

Hugely complex issues we talk about every week on the show that the Panels has talked about here, how do you tackle those, you know in the toughest neighborhood to tackle them in the entire province.

So we'll see what Larry Campbell comes up with.

Check out Da Vinci's Inquest.

By the way, great show based on some of his earlier career.

Big fan of that.

I don't think it airs on check but that's okay.

You can change a channel if you need to to watch that show.

So it's probably un streaming somewhere too.

All right, next topic here, the legislature back for the fall session.

We've heard from government House Leader Mike farmerth I think he said there's eighteen bills.

That's a lot of bills for a short session from a government that in the spring session didn't really have a lot of stuff.

Some of those are continuations.

There's the one for everyone who has kids like myself who are learning to drive.

There's the one that scraps one of the two driving tests in BC that still needs to pass that'll be up for debate.

That could go wrong.

What could go wrong?

Apparently, and this was explained.

Apparently there's no statistical evidence that two driving tests produce safer drivers, So the government's going to get rid of one of them, which is part of the graduated licensing.

Broomer, you're only on one road test.

I think the experts in that were teenage kids.

That's right, Well, that's what happens when you when you yet let young people vote.

I guess are they taking the one to get to get your end on, like the middle one, or the one to get your end off.

I think you have to take the driving test to get your end and then you keep your end for a year.

I think no.

Wait, I could be getting this wrong because they haven't debated the bill yet.

But the end goal is that you automatically get your full license with an asterix on it, and if you do anything wrong during the first year of your full license, like a speeding ticket or something, you have to start your your year of restriction again.

Uh, so you got to get through the first year restriction free UH in order to get your restrictionless license.

I I find it interesting.

And apparently the argument is that because tests are so stressful and tough that there's no evidence that if you pass it that means you're a good driver.

I don't know about that.

And then the other thing that people aren't saying is this massive backlogs to get tests right now from ICBC to the I think that's partly why government is doing this, to get rid of the six month backlog for tests.

But anyways, one of the I think the only part the only reason we're mentioning that is because actual bill that affects people, and sometimes we end up in sessions where there's like the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act to change the you know something or other and no one understands what it means.

Nonetheless, Jillian, a fall session.

We're a year from the election.

Everybody's uh in.

A year from the election, three years away from it, a year from the from the last election.

Sorry, okay, you're correct, a year since the elections they're giving and all the parties are in the kind of state of flux.

New leaders, leaders under under siege, leaders you know, what kind of session do we expect with those Tibet dynamics.

Do you think, Yeah, I think this session is really going to be about vibes rather than issues.

I think, you know, it was surprised to see Farnworth say there's so much legislation because they haven't signaled on anything.

Like last session we got eb coming out saying where they're going to release all these bills to fight the tariffs and shore up the economy.

Before they introduced legislation.

We haven't heard anything.

I think I would be really surprised if there was anything or shattering.

I think it's going to be a lot of like housekeeping.

All often they just kind of update bill because of legal issues that come up, or you know, different things that happen, or they just need to be updated.

I'd be really surprised if we see anything really really major.

The government has a lot of initiatives underway, those expediting project bills I mentioned, as well as they recently had to announce that they're pausing the Heritage Conservation Act, which is giving trying to speed up permitting and giving First Nations more say over protected heritage sites because of local government pushback so they're experiencing a lot of pushback to their initiatives, trying to get things actually implemented, and I think they're going to be focusing more on that and letting the messiness of the Conservatives and the factionalism kind of be the star of the show.

Of course, we also have the strike happening, so I think that's also going to add to the tensions.

So I think I think that's really what's going to dominate the session rather than any of the big legislative issues.

I like it.

I like it.

The vibes, the fall vibes, sessions very pumpkin, spice.

Forward, spooky spooky by what was the.

Name of Taylor Swift tour eras.

Yeah, I'm totally not totally off.

Anyways, I was thinking.

I just dropped so.

That I was thinking of Taylor Swift because can you imagine if she dropped eighteen new songs in the same week.

I think she just did.

Because that makes my tea.

Mike Farnworth is the Taylor Swift of BC politics.

Then I guess the lesson here you have governments they've been around for eight years?

Do you hear like the running out of gas?

They you know lost team lost direction.

Well, here's a government that's got eighteen bills, so we'll see what they are not coasting.

It's flooring it in my perspective.

One of you talked about the graduated licensing.

Another one is the North Coast Transmission Line, which is going to create a line from Prince George to Terrace and it's going to open up possibilities for critical mineral minds and LNG up there, which is key to BC's economic future, I think.

But in addition to that, I think the big thing the government's going to try and do is going to try and stay focused on the economy.

I'm hearing talk of an industrial strategy that will come from the Premier Minister of Calum that it'll be a sector bi sector plan to grow BC's economy.

And I think, even more than that, a strategy to scoop up all these federal dollars tied to Canada's new defense spending.

So that's something that I'm expecting to see in the substance side of this.

Sitting industrial strategy.

Interesting, Hey, you go back to you go back to the nineteen seventy nine Federal leader's debate and you have Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark and Ed Broadbent, and Pierre Trudeau was like, we're doing a great job.

Joe Clark was, you're doing a pretty good job, but there's things that you can improve.

And Ed Broadbent said, what we need in Canada is an industrial policy.

So here we go twenty one, thirty six years later, Finally, finally it's getting his wish.

A long national nightmare is over.

Ellie, what do you think?

It's a session where there's no shortage of topics to criticize the government on, but the people doing the criticizing.

You know, whether John Rusted lasts his leader.

The Greens have a leader who's not even in the House.

One PC is doing their thing.

Eleanor Stko, the source of most of the great questions in Question Period, is off as an independent who may get one question a week.

It's kind of a weird dynamic there.

What it means to me, though, is that a lot of busines is going to play out outside of Question Period, because that's the platform that the Green leader.

Emily Land will have.

It's what Eleanor Stirko will be able to base her her messaging on in the absence of time.

Within question period and so like Chilean's absolutely right, it's it's going to be like the social media vibes of what you can try to get out there.

But what's also interesting to me is I was thinking about, well, what is the premier brain up to since the last day of the legislature, And you know, he went to Ottawa it was an economic forward messaging and so I think he'd be better served making sure that he's framing this session a little bit better for us, because it's not really coming across in a very obvious way what his priorities were.

It was my criticism of the UBCM speech where it wasn't really forward thinking.

It was rather just here kind of the things that we're working on, and this is where we.

Hope to make some improvements.

But if you were to try to figure out what THEND can really stand for in this quarter, you don't really know.

And so there's a lot of communications work to do.

And then speaking of the communications work, because there's so much happening, I'll laughing.

At I guess making a lot of noise.

Carry on, Ali, I'm just gonna let her out of their closet that I've got ever locked in to keep going, keep going.

In the communications criticism of what's happening with the Conservative Party?

Did you guys know that there was a shuffle this week and including some very interesting ones like John Rustad is now also has like Indigenous relations and reconciliation as part of his portfolio.

Harmon Bangu has been promoted to jobs and economic growth, and then macla McCall has public safety because Eleanor is out and mac is in and so like that's one of the things where we should have been talking about this.

Rather we were talking about other stuff because our political comms was off.

Did you cover well?

I was away doing cat duty?

Did you cover John Rustad appointing himself indigenous reallyation's critic so bizarre.

I was trying to figure out if there was any other UH political leader that had done this, because like, as leader, you have all of them.

So why is it that on this one you made an effort.

Is the only one that he can trust to not blow the issue up in his own caucuses himself?

I guess half of them, half of them don't think or Shirt Day is for real?

Does he had to eject two people on Indigenous relations issues so far?

So I guess that's why he's now the critics I.

To show that he's taking leadership, but I don't know has yet to actually do that.

Yeah, is Jeff just to go back to you on the on some of those points about like government's agenda, like the previous talking a lot about big projects, billions in spending North Coast.

Does that resonation?

Is that resonating with people?

Like?

Is it do people in We talked during elections about how the fact that you only have to win Surrey in a handful of suburban ridings to form government, which is what this government did is talking about mining projects and a part of the map that most Vancouver rights couldn't find and LNG, which Christy Clark proved doesn't win elections, and big infrastructure projects that most Vancouver rights know nothing about.

Does that go far for this government given it's kind of power base.

Do you think, well it resonates with me?

Yeah, it's good for urban hipster, it's a.

Good start day.

Those are fighting words.

Christy Clark did win an election on LNG that was in twenty thirteen.

That's king and Okay, it show's over look and I think it's tough for government in this day and age where there's so much going on in the world and every day you're getting bombarded with what's happening in Europe and what's happening south of the border, and in the space that's available for BC politics, government doing great job or government focused on this is not the kind of thing that gets eyeballs, even if the story gets written.

So I don't think it's I think it's the right message.

They're focused on the right people, they're doing the right things, but that the message isn't getting out.

And if I were them, and I'd probably be pilloried by the opposition party for this, I would advertise the heck out of what I'm doing, because it's the only way I think that the public is going to start tuning into what the government is doing, at least until the election.

But we just got through a ubcm Jillian where most people were talking about crime and disorder and street disorder and fear and downtown cores and healthcare shortages and the uncertainty over the couch and nation decision, and like you know, the government has a lot of questions that we could face this session about those issues, and I don't know if there's a lot of answers that are immediately available for them.

Yeah, I think those are hard question things to respond to.

I think, like again, it's all about vibes these days, Like we look at the success of Horgan and I think, you know, the vote that kind of shifted to the NDP since he was elected, and that grew, and that he was able to retain where people who were like this guy seems reasonable and trustworthy and that he's you know, trying his best.

So I think that that is kind of like the standard that the NDP is an ebist kind of trying to hold themselves to.

You know, are they talking about economic issues in a way that seems reasonable?

Do they seem like they're doing everything that they can?

And I think that's you know, what they got to strive for.

They do need to answer all of those things.

I think it makes sense also that those issues were really top of mind at UBCM because we have local elections coming up and and people tend to think of those issues as like voters tend to think of those as local government issues because they're in their local community, and I think those politicians are really feeling the heat.

I think still for voters it's cost of living and economic uncertainty is like what people are mostly thinking about and want from their provincial government.

So and I think that that's what why the NDP is focused on those things.

I think it Obviously another fun thing at UBCM was the LNG balloon with eb like standing on like a pile of flames.

You guys see that, and I think I have to imagine that that is a bit hard for the premiere to see and for parts of this caucus to see.

And I think, you know, there's risks for really doubling down on natural resources and especially on LERG and it's going to be interesting to see how you know, that moved forward with the Greens having a bit more of an activisty kind of vibe heading into the session, but I think, yeah, I think they're kind of really focused on what they know is top of mind for voters and try to just seem reasonable.

M We'll see what the Greens do on that if they have a much sharper kind of leader now to lead that charge.

But Allie, what do you think.

Je The federal budget comes out during this session as well, and so we talked a lot about in previous shows about you know the relationship between BC and the federal government.

But then is there romance still with David eb and Mark Karney or is the budget if we don't get a lot for BBC, would that really start creating a little bit of a divide.

So it's very interesting to me when we break down political politics.

Sometimes the opposition is not quite the natural opposition.

It's not quite just across the aisle between the NDP and the Conservatives.

Sometimes the bad guy is also the federal government.

If we don't get anything out of this budget too, it could also used as a shield too for the NDP.

They could blame a lot on the federal.

Government versus taking responsibility on the deficit.

Yeah, so that'll be an interesting week.

We're still watching the dynamic between Mark Karney and David Either.

They're on the same page on a lot of things.

The Major Project's Office.

BC got a lot out of that, but then every now and again EB pipes up with his complaints about you know, equalization payments and Ottawa's not listening and the bail reform is slow and some other things that.

That it's a challenge for BC to get heard because there's a mountain between US and in Ottawa like it's it's real and figurative.

But just to give you an indication of how tuned in Ontario is too in Audowa tuned into BC.

The premiere was recently in Ottawa.

He was given a speech at the it was the Canadian Club, and the person who introduced him said, I'd introduced to the audience the Premier British Columbia, David Ebbi.

And then they did it again, and then there was a podcast that was happening and the podcaster made a joke about how the person mispronounced the premier's name, and then the same person came back to close the session and thanked David Ebbi for coming onto the show.

So just rolls off the tongue so well, but.

If they can't they don't know how to pronounce his name.

I mean it just as a sign of how tuned in the federal government is to Ontario in Quebec.

So I think Ali's right.

Will be really interesting to see what's in that federal budget and if there's anything in there for BC.

Okay, any other predictions for the for the session?

Anyone got any predictions?

Are hard?

But Ali, what the.

Other milestone is that I just recently learned because I don't really pay attention to the NDP party, but they have their convention that also overlaps with all of this, and so a bunch of ndpers are going to descend upon Victoria and there's a leadership review for them.

We'll see what kind of policy comes.

Out of that and how they balance that during their message from caucus, because caucuts and parties can sometimes be very different in what they what they want, what their priorities are.

There's a lot of buzz about that convention in the in the idea of the dissatisfied areas of the NDP sending the premier message on his leadership review, mainly through organized labor and the the what's the expression cutting off, fighting off your nose to spite your face or whatever, you know, kind of going at yourself within the party.

But we shall see if that happens as well.

We'll talk more about that, because I think that's in November, Jeff, you.

Would know that's mid mid November.

I guess the fourteenth to the sixteenth, Not that I want anyone to show up and pick.

It, but there could still be a yeah there.

But no, I think the strike is going to be a big backdrop to the whole session.

I expect to be a exuberant crowd of folks at the legislature on day one when it comes back.

The sides are still, you know, miles apart.

The strikes could drag on.

It's awkward for a government with ties with labor.

I think, UH.

One thing that the union's actually doing really well is they're gradually ramping up uh and which has done a really good job keeping the story alive in the media.

UH.

So that's been clever.

I think their challenge is going to get people with grocery bills UH to agree that public sector workers are worth additional cost.

And the more they put forest firefighters out front, the more likely they will be to be a sympathetic face in the public's eye instead of you know, just union leaders who are who are important and an important voice.

But it's hard.

It's hard to speak out against those forest firefighters.

Well.

We all also don't talk about the often enough.

The other professional kind of employees association with the BCGU that represents the engineers, the inspectors, the kind of folks that are required to do the permitting and approvals of big projects that the Premier is trying to get off the ground too, which is sort of an uncomfortable reality for a government that's trying to fast track a bunch of things, but the people who need to sign off on them are out on strike as well.

So I guess we'll watch that and then potentially, potentially, who knows, you get the other unions involved at some point, the nurses, the teachers, and then things start to get serious because the minute hospitals and schools get involved in any type of labor action, oh boy, people don't like that.

They don't like not having their school open where their kids to go to.

So it'll be fascinating.

The last real I remember sitting in the late stage BC liberal government when the teachers were on strike and there was a rally outside the legislature where the entire lawn, the entire downtown causeway right in front of the Empress was packed thousands and thousands of angry organized labor people just shouting and chanting on the lawn of the legislature.

And so I'll keep that image in my mind as we get to Monday.

How big is that rally?

Who's there?

What are they saying, and how does that kind of compare to the immense labor strife that that government had to deal with, And it's kind of final final days when they were offering like zero at one point one year, they just were convincing all the UN needs to take zero.

So we shall see.

Okay, all right, great, Thank you to the panel for being here.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Next week, busy week in BC Politics, so you can get ready to have us ding in your pod box.

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