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

I'm your host, Rob Shaw, coming to you from the Czech News World headquarters here in Victoria.

The legislature is back.

First week of the fall session is in the books and it was a doozy.

There is lots going on inside and actually more going on outside the house.

To break it all down, we're going to bring in the pod squad this week, Jeff Ferrier, Jillian Oliver and joining us this week to fill in for Ali is Vanessa Schneider, former senior advisor to cabinet ministers in the federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper and a director of Communications formerly in the BC government.

Vanessa, thanks for joining us and helping us out on a busy week.

Thanks for having me.

Lots of talk about four month break politicians come back to the legislature start of the fall session.

Premier David eb says he has a bold agenda to grow the economy, make Canada the new economic engine, sorry, British Columbia the new economic engine of Canada.

He's got a lot of domestic issues too.

Has he meaningfully addressed any of that in the first week of the session, Vanessa.

As the new guests, you get to start us off this week.

What did you think of Week one?

Well, Week one can be seen as a bit of a missed opportunity.

Like you said, we are dealing with some big issues here in British Columbia.

We've got some economic struggles.

We're staring down a eleven point five billion dollar deficit, the healthcare crisis is worsening, and we have a public vector strike that's been going on for weeks.

So there's some big issues on the table.

And I think for an observer like me, we're seeing David eb and Premier Smith getting into a war of words and the BC Conservatives kind of in a ambles and not providing a firm opposition.

So where's the big talk about the issues that matter?

Yeah, sometimes it gets lost by the theater of politics.

The strike that you mentioned there, Vanessa.

Jeff, I'll go to you on the strike, because there was a point during the week where bcgu workers stand outside the Premier's office yelling something like, David's deficit is not our problem.

This is now the longest public sector strike in BC's history.

It's an interesting backdrop for week one in the session.

Yeah, well, David's deficit is all of our problem.

It's paid for by taxpayers.

It's going to be paid for by our kids down the road.

So the government needs to be prudent and how it negotiates with its public sector unions.

I think look this week, I think we saw some interesting legislation.

Less the miscellaneous statutes amendment acts there were two of them, but serting it's right to sue vaping companies.

Interesting referendum on abolishing Vancouver's park board.

They should just abolish it.

But referendum fill your boots.

Childcare and after school care allowed at public schools.

That's going to be big for parents.

But you know, I agree with your suggestion.

It wasn't a legislative addressing issues heavy first week.

I think the most important developments this sitting will be policy and programs, and notably a new industrial strategy focused on getting federal military money.

It is always risky, Jillian, and you know from your time working for the Greens in opposition, it's an opportunity for parties to hammer government when the legislatures in session.

Here, you try to balance it by getting things done as a government that people are going to care about to sort of counterbalance the fact you just get hammered every day in the House.

What did you make of week one?

Yeah, I think in terms of the legislative agenda, the government is really playing it safe.

It's almost like they're like made a list of their previous greatest political hits.

Suing vape companies.

That's similar to what they've done in the past suing opuoid companies successfully, also going after people who violate short term rental rules.

That's been politically quite popular for them, cracking down on short term rentals, and then the childcare as well.

I think that's been the government's biggest answer to what they're doing on affordability.

But really there's nothing major here, and that's because we saw in the last session so much major enabling legislation that behind the scenes now I think government is getting to work on to expedite major projects and those sorts of things, and those things just take time to get rolling.

So I think their strategy is put out these kind of you know, greatest political greatest hits to sort of keep themselves in good news stories and let the conservative opposition continue to blow themselves up, which they have been doing.

We will talk about the conservative opposition later and in the show.

But you know, Vanessa back to you, like, this is a government now that is in its eighth year.

There's a lot of baggage behind it.

There's a lot of issues.

There's a lot of big complaints that people have about it.

For example, that childcare bill that Jillian talked about.

You know, it's the government that ran on ten dollars day childcare.

It's nowhere to be found, uh in terms of getting that fulfilled.

Like how hard is it?

Does it get harder for a government this far into its mandate to keep showing up at the legislature when it's it's got so much baggage behind it.

Yeah, as the years go on, it gets harder to distance yourself from previous decisions when they were your decisions.

And this this government has had a lot of big promises.

They've they've delivered on a lot of their big promises over.

The past eight years.

And now there's some some nitty gritty that has to be dealt with and there's some big some big questions that have to be answered, including the deficit.

Like you said, yeah, the dwell there is no answer to the deficit, Jeff, we don't have one.

It exists and will continue to exist.

Do you think that's still playing a role in the underpinning of the discussion on a week like this.

I think we do have a plan to erase the deficit and its economic growth major projects try and grow the economy to bring down the deficit.

But on the you know, the question of is it top of mind with voters?

I think.

At this stage the big numbers don't seem to be phasing folks so along as there are no cuts to health, education and the areas where they want to see progress from government, and you see it in the public opinion research.

There's a research and co pull out to mark the start of the week and have the NDP up six points in the premiers favorabilities approval rating at fifty three percent.

So that's encouraging for government.

But that's a moment in time, and who knows when folks will shift to focusing on those big issues like the deficit and progress on other issues.

Probably not until the opposition sorts itself out.

We do and we'll get back.

We'll get to the opposition a second though.

I'll add in the other opposition party you have the Greens Jillian kind of jockeying to be heard at the same time that one BC is doing a lot of stuff this week, a bill on to try and ban gender transitioning for youth, bringing in a controversial figure, throwing out some question period questions like the dynamic of this first week was far different for some of the other parties in the House.

Yeah, it's a very it's a new dynamic that we have in the party.

On top of that, we have a couple of independent members as well, and so you know, for a long time VC had sort of a two party system.

For sure, quite simplifies the narrative.

Now we've got parties all over the spectrum, all kinds of different issues.

You had the Greens out on the law and supporting the strike workers, calling on the government to step up and fund those folks, and then you have, you know, people on the right complaining about the deficit and then on the far right complaining about social issues.

So there's a lot of noise and I think it's it's tough to break through and it's creating a dynamic where we are starting to see MLAs and parties go to greater and greater extremes to be heard, and I think you know, adds to the problem for the government where they're sort of playing it safe with legislation, where they themselves are also going to be struggling to be heard on the initiatives that they're trying to push forward.

Mm it is tough, Vanessa for a government to kind of to battle so many different attacks from across the spectrum, from one BC over here to the Greens over here in the environment and everything in between.

It's watching the government get hit is from across spect.

Yeah, I'm sure it's a bit unpredictable and getting hammered from all sides.

So we're looking to the government to clearly articulate their vision for the economy for our province and.

How we're going to get there.

So it's it's hard to not be playing black them all and trying to deal with all these dissenting voices, and so we're looking to.

Get some get some clarity for the fall session.

All right, more to comm including a look at the awful week for the VC Conservatives when we come back right after this.

All the MLAs and caucus expressed willingness and interest and desire to make sure that we try to find out who was responsible for a potential leak, and so they expressed interests, said yeah, let's deal with this.

Let's look at this now.

So that's what we did.

So we had Emily's look at the at the at the other Emila's films, make sure that there was nothing that had gone out that was inappropriate.

Welcome back.

That was Conservative leader Jean Rustad admitting yes, indeed, he did search the cell phones of his MLAs this week looking for leaks to the media as part of a caucus meeting where his lieutenants have blocked a vote on his leadership.

There's all sorts of internal turmoil over firings and departures.

Vanessa, We're going to go to you first.

I have never heard of somebody, some political party leader, searching people's phones.

That's weird, and it seems like kind of a sign perhaps Rustad is losing control of his caucus along with other things.

But how are you viewing the BC Conservatives when you're watching this play out?

Well, yeah, I don't think those anti surveillance measures are going to be the subject of a Hollywood movie anytime soon.

It definitely seems unusual, and I mean we all know this.

There's nothing more frustrating than having a meeting that is intended to be private and then seeing the discussions show up on Twitter a few minutes later.

So I can understand their frustrations.

But I think it's important to look at why is information getting out of private caucus meetings?

What does that say about the trust and the leadership, about the cohesiveness of caucus and the insert metaphor here for the party working together in a collaborative fashion.

So I think it's.

Indicative of some of the things that we're seeing from the outside of the Conservatives.

You're right, they wouldn't have to worry about leaks if people weren't so unhappy about the leadership.

Perhaps, but Jeff, it seems like we could call it a clown college.

But I don't want to insult clowns.

It is a difficult time to be in the Conservatives.

You have all sorts of problems there.

What did you make of it?

Yeah, I was watching A Terminator to last night, and I don't know if you remember the opening credits of a playground in a whole city on fire.

It kind of got me to thinking about about how the week was for genre this week.

Look at we could use an effective opposition holding the government accountable.

That's what makes good government.

There's a lot to hold the government to account on.

But instead we've got paranoid John Rustad's iPhone inquisition, taking MLA's phone, scrutinizing their phone logs, scrolling through their text messages.

I think it would be good for British Columbians if the BC Conservatives should were to focus a little bit more on our societal challenges and a lot less on MLA's social networks.

Just a couple of things on that.

But the word paranoid was a question that my Canadian press colleague Wolfgang Dppner asked John rustadt are you paranoid, prompting his chief of staff Brad Zubik, in front of all the cameras at the legislature to start swearing at Deppner, saying he's done in politics.

He'll never get another question to this leader.

If I was a betting man, I bet on Wolf on that one.

But just an extraordinarily weird and untenable situation, Jillian.

Not just, but the party kept getting hit by votes in the legislature.

There was a vote on one BC's sort of anti trans bill.

There was a vote from an NDP motion on a Christian anti abortion group.

In both times Rustad had to whip his caucus, in one case whipping them to leave the chamber and not vote at all, in another case having two MLAs leave because they didn't want to vote with him.

On the way he was doing it.

That seemed extraordinary to me.

Yeah, I mean, there is an endless playbook for one BC to drive wedge issues amongst the Conservatives, and you know, they're sort of focused on this like vengeance project after being kicked out, which is really remarkable because it is how Rustad himself ended up leader of the VC Conservatives, you know, and it's an easy playbook for the far right.

Rustad did it himself, trying to ban trans athletes from sports, trying to ban books from schools.

These sort of like grabbing sensationalist issues that can be raised in the legislature and cause a lot of division within this sort of side of the house.

Normally, session is when the concern when the opposition is really excited to be there and hammer government and make them look bad.

But I think it's we're seeing the reverse because all of the with all of the Conservatives and the one BC and the Independence together in the same place, tensions are high and it's just all too easy for them to get picked apart.

I think untenable is the right decision, and I think it's just a matter of time until we end up in a leadership race.

I don't see how this ends any other way for them.

Yeah, Vanessa, what do you think about that?

Is there any path for a leader who has this many problems to get control of a caucus that doesn't seem to want to be put under control or is it kind of he's down a path he can't get back from.

I think it's up to the leader to demonstrate leadership, and from the outside we're.

Not seeing that.

What what they had the whole summer to prepare for this fall session?

And what did the Conservatives do this summer?

They had this prolonged, confusing, indecisive leadership review with quite unsatisfactory results, where instead they could have been working together to develop a cohesive plan to push back against the government, to deal with someone.

Mentioned, to shore up their support and to show.

Up on day one in the House ready to kick butt, take names, hold this government to account be the voice of opposition that we do need in our parliamentary system, and it just shows that they haven't been doing that and they're still trying to figure out what's next.

The analogy everybody kept saying a year ago is that they were trying to build the plane as it was taking off.

It's been a year, so the plane needs to be.

Well flown now, and it still seems like they're scrambling not to find out who the are not, but to find out who they are and to share that with the rest of.

Us so we know what we can support them and vote.

For them or not trying to think, Jeff, you get a free shot on this one.

What is the analogy of the plane being built?

Is the plane crashed and they're and they're building it on the ground now or what is the best way to describe it?

Do you think I go back to the flames of Terminator too and the plane being on fire after it's it's been crashing.

Look, I think I think they're I don't think they've crashed yet.

I think they're in a They're they're flying mighty fast towards the ground and they need to pull up, uh real fast.

Look, at on on those votes that you talked about, and uh on LGBTQ rights and abortion rights on the one where they didn't show up.

You know, it's it's odd to see a party that ran on a platform of freedom whipped into not showing up to vote.

They strike me is to use another pained analogy, Sir Robbins from Monty Python's Holy Grail, face a tough vote and run away.

Look at these guys get paid one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year.

Rusta gets paid fifty percent more than that one hundred and eighty thousand.

The least they can do is show up for work and vote.

Okay, we're going to leave that there, take a quick break, come back, talk a bit about Premier David Ebee and pipelines.

Way back after this.

If Alberta gets a fifty billion dollar publicly funded pipeline, then I want a fifty billion dollar federal guarantee for projects in British Columbia as well.

And I want fifty billion dollars for every province across Canada and every territory because their projects are just as damn important as Alberta's project is.

It's not the Danielle Smith Show.

It's the Canadian team and we all deserve the same opportunity for the same federal funding for our projects as she does for her.

That's not on Canadian.

That is fair and there's nothing more Canadian than fairness.

That is it's a core national value.

Welcome back.

You just heard from an angry Premier David eb on the pipeline issue, Alberta's premier calling him un Canadian, Saskatchewan's premier saying it is Canada's coast, not BC's coast, and this oil pipeline of frustrated David Eb unhappy talking about that issue.

Vanessa, There's a lot of different ways to look at this nation building, pipelines across borders, messaging Alberta versus BC, the Prime minister.

What's standing out to you as this continues to just play out week after week.

What I'm hearing, and I think we're hearing the exactly like we said, the frustration, the.

Unhappiness.

What I'm hearing from Premier Ebe is there is money, and not just money, but approvals and permitting on the table in Ottawa and when the government turns on the top, you want to be front and center ready to get your projects funded.

And Ebe knows this because he's often the one in that position in this problem.

So the Premier Smith is taking attention away from BC, from eb's priorities, from some of the projects that he is prioritized that are important to ask here.

As a product, if he supports Alberta's priorities, that the assent that it's taking away from his priorities, from VC's priorities.

In some of those projects that we want to get built.

So everybody, all ten premiers and many others are going to be.

Jostling each other, shoulder to shoulder to be first in line with this.

We know that political resources are finite and political will is finite, so.

You've got us strike when it's there and do what's best for you in the province.

So we sent that frustration.

If he gives too much airtime and and to te Alberta, then it may overshadow BC in our opportunities.

We saw that one and he said, if Alberta gets fifty billion, then we should get fifty billion.

What we want to stand up for BC.

There's there's broader questions, as you said, about the role of each province working together.

But that's what I'm hearing from him in the.

Mhmm, Julian, do you think eb has maybe underestimated Alberta a bit here and is getting caught a little bit off guard in the sense that Alberta seems intend to take this pipeline to the Prime Minister's desk and get an answer, and BC's position up until now and continues to kind of be this isn't a real project, but it is going somewhere to a decision by the Prime Minister conceivably.

I think that Ebe wanted Smith to be the first one to escalate it.

Again.

We talked a lot on the show about how he didn't want to initially put himself in that position of being the one trying to prevent a pipeline, especially when it doesn't exist or is an even doesn't have a proponent.

And I think, you know, there's a couple of other things in addition to what Vanessa said, which I really with is it the main driver is the provinces are in competition with each other for these major projects that the Prime Minister is going to be funding and expediting.

The first Nations came out and said that this could imperil other projects that they are currently supporting and that are funded if the bit you pitching in pilot.

Plan is forced through their lands.

And also the Prime Minister is said that he won't force a project on a province if they really don't want it.

So I think with that being out in the public, the Premier is kind of at a point where he needs to make clear his position otherwise he could be held responsible for, you know, not voicing BC's opposition.

And I think there's a lot of people in BC that don't want another oil pipeline to the coast.

So I think that there's there's a lot of things that have kind of come into play this week that have caused the Premier to step up his rhetoric.

Jeff, what do you think?

And we've only got a minute left here, So what do you think are the implications of EB taking this harder line in the way that he's speaking about this.

Well, first all, note that it's it's interesting that EB is taking the typical role of Danielle Smith as the outsider shaking his fist at Autawa for not understanding the province's priorities.

I think the implications for EB is that he's risking walking into a trap here if he hasn't already walked into it, to be the nightly whiplash to the Dudley do right, that is Carnie and Smith in this instance.

And I think a smarter move would have been to just say we're going to judge each project on its merits.

Are the proponents capitalized, do they have customers?

Is their first nation's consent?

Can they meet BC's environmental laws?

May bother the base, but it lets you say yes or no without getting dragged into a national brawl like.

He has now, a national brawl that's going to continue for weeks, if not months, until the Prime Minister, if he ever does, weighed in on this.

Okay, great, Thank you to the panel, Thank you for watching, Vanessa, Thanks for filling in this week during a busy time in BC politics.

Make sure you subscribe Vie to our audio podcast and YouTube feeds for extras.

We'll be back next week with all the latest in BC politics.

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