View on Politics: Snap election imminent?

0:00And for us to check in with Vampommer from the Vancouver Sun, and I don't know, Vand, and is there anything you've been really going on out there? What's happening? Simea, I drove in from the airport here in Victoria this morning, driving night with Dale off. And I was really struck by election signs. They're everywhere, because we're into the civic campaign. And there's a lot of municipalities here in Victoria, like a dozen of them. So there's election signs everywhere, and I'm thinking all these names, civic election, focus, get ready, electing governments for four more years. And then the Democrats are getting ready to swamp us with election signs for a provincial election. And I thought, you know, local government leaders have said it. They said it on Friday. The amount of confusion that's going to be generated for voters with a civic election, and all the names and all the candidates is 3,500 people running for provincial office around the province and 200 municipalities.

1:03And the government's going to come in and dump a provincial election on them. I know, a premier said Friday, I understand, you know, why local government leaders would be concerned about this. And I understand that local issues, you need to be focused and all that. He doesn't give a damn, Simea. He was well into preparations for elections when he said it. He claimed he hadn't made a decision. They're getting ready to launch today. He doesn't care what he's doing to the civic election situation. He doesn't respect local government. This is all about him making a big grab for power. That's where we stand today. I think I'm starting to think on that the confusion is the point, right? If that is part of the game plan to create the confusion, to drive only your voters to the polls, I mean, that might work. Yeah, Simea and I both fond of Lily Tomlin's line.

2:04You cannot be too cynical covering politics. And here we go again. Now we had some announcements yesterday that indicate where we're headed. Big retirement over here on the island, Lanna Poppom, Agriculture Minister, best one in BC history. I would argue she's not running again after six terms. So she's making way for somebody else. And so she's not running. And of course the other one, the bomb shell yesterday, Simea, the Burnaby Hospital. I know, right? We've got a record deficit in the problems. Almost $14 billion. The government has no money for everything. And suddenly, wow, they found $200 million. The Burnaby Hospital expansion was, what would they call it? What was that weird turn? Repaced. They repaced it. Well, it's been re-repaced. It's back on. They must have, you know, they must have searched the couch cushions around the government. They found $200 million that were just sitting there,

3:06waiting to be dumped. Amazing. They're a big election project. Wow. You can't be too sick. Well, we did request, De Boenmont, to talk about the Burnaby Hospital project, but she was not available, which you'd think that's probably convenient given the timing of what might happen today. Yeah, I guess so. I guess there's a weird, it's interesting that we still haven't received an notification about a kickoff rally. Yeah. Speculation last evening was that it's coming in series, series, an obvious battleground in a provincial election of the new Democrats. But shut out in a couple of seats. They thought they were going to win last time. They won their majority by 22 votes in one seat in Surrey. So I think a big launch in Surrey would be about where I would hold it. But I guess we'll see, but it's certainly coming. I mean, everybody says that and everybody knows that. And the prep is well underway. So we're getting ready for the launch.

4:08Do you think it's too late to turn that around? Because it certainly seemed like on Sunday night, the resignation of Carolyn Finley would change everything. So now you're going to allow the opposition to go potentially into this with an interim leader. It just seems bad for him. Yeah, it's bad for him, but, Jimmy, I was thinking back this morning and going through the files on the 2020 SNAP election that John Horton called. And he said, you know, claim for the longest time he wasn't planning it, and clearly he was. And the initial reaction was we don't need an election. In the middle of a pandemic, we don't need an election. There's no need for him to do it. He had a good solid hold on government, even though he was needing a few votes from the Greens once in a while. And the reaction 48 hours for about 48 hours, we talked about that. Oregon answered questions about SNAP elections. And why we need this and people don't want an election. And then we settled into an election campaign. And people go, you know, they're so big-minded.

5:09They go, well, there's an election coming. Who am I going to vote for? They take a look at the options. The big question it turned out in 2020 was, do you want to change governments in the middle of a pandemic? And the VC Liberals led by Andrew Wilkinson. Remember him made that a very easy decision. Horton won his biggest majority, the NDP's biggest majority. Opinion polls suggest David E.B. may top it. They get more seats than Horton got in 2020. So that's where we're headed. And you can say what you want. I will say it is not David E.B.'s fault that the conservatives are in such a mess. Self-executive. Yeah. But they certainly seem to have found though some urgency with this election call to get themselves together. I agree, although it is still an open question, whether or not they will become one party facing the NDP.

6:12And I think that's still an open question. If they can pull that off, we're into a very competitive election. I would say E.B. is gambling that they won't be able to pull that off. And we can talk about that. Talking with Vom Palmer from the Vancouver Sun, potential for an election call coming today. Let's talk about the opposition BC conservatives. And I guess Senator BC, I'll try to catch up with this one. Yeah, we had a nice news conference over here yesterday with John Rustad. And it's interesting to hear Rustad, because he starts off by telling us that he was actually dumped twice from the conservative caucus by Gary Lynn Fenway. She dumped him, reinstated him, and dumped him a second time. This is in the closing hours of her brief career as a party leader. So he says, everybody says, look, she did the right thing. He's pretty generous, spirited guy, Rustad. He said, he's done the right thing. He then jumps into, this is really interesting.

7:16He said, I do have a message to two former prominent politicians in the province that he served with, Christie Clark and Gordon Campbell. He says, it's time to butt out. It's time to get out of any more involvement in provincial politics. You know, stay on the sidelines, tell people to vote all that, but he said, you really need to take your hands off this. And he said, Campbell was involved in the conservative leadership, heavily involved. And he says, Clark has been involved in the intrigue around putting together Senator BC and the conservatives. And Rustad said, you know, he said, look, I'm an old hand of this too. And he said, I've already told Learndurkson, the new leader of the conservatives. If you want me around, tell me, if you want me out, tell me. He said, I'm ready to retire if that's the case. So as interesting, I see, Simmy, that Christie Clark did not waste any time responding. She pushed back on social media and said, John, what's going on?

8:20We have to unite. We have to work together, right? OK. You. It's no wonder David E.B. is optimistic about winning another term of government, even with the backlash we're calling the snap election. He's rightly skeptical that these folks can get their act together and so am I. Yeah, that was an interesting one. Now, today we're also going to be hearing from the interim leader of the BC conservatives, Learndurkson, who has worn a lot of hats over the years in politics. One. Yeah, Russ did, you know, talked about Durkson being a good guy. He said, I totally support the idea of Durkson being the leader of the BC conservatives. He said, I think he's a good choice. He said, you won't find a more decent person in the political arena. He said that Durkson got off the plane from an African safari that he was attending five o'clock on, I guess, the day before.

9:20He said, one of the first things Durkson did was send him. Russ did a note saying, if you want to come back, you're welcome to come back. Russ did said he was thinking it over at that point. He has since come back. So Russ did a very, very comfortable about Durkson. He was asked about Durkson as the interim leader of the conservatives. And the conservatives have a constitution that doesn't allow them to just automatically put somebody in, but they can pick an interim leader. And if there's an election, the interim leader will lead the party into the election. And Russ did said something interesting. He said, you know, he's confident that BC conservatives and this center party will come together in a common slate. He said that. And he said, he thinks, you know, Durkson will be premier British Columbia. He wins his interim leader. We asked him, we said, well, you know, when he still have to go through a leadership, and Russ did said, now, look, he said, there's 42,000 members of the conservative party.

10:21I'll tell you, if the conservative party wins the majority of seats in the legislature under Lurkson, everyone in the party will say, okay, fine, learn your premier. So it was a pretty lively discussion, a lot of speculation. And of course, Jimmy, you and I, I mean, I'll go unskeptical at this point that the conservatives and Senator BC can get their act together into a single party. They've already gotten further along on that than I thought they would. So here we are. Well, I say the one good thing about this potential election call that's coming is it is really kind of solidified the urgency on the other side of the aisle. But we still don't know if that means we're going to have the two parties like center BC and BC conservatives or whether they're going to join together. Yeah. And I think one of the things behind Russ dead saying that Campbell and Clark should

11:21butt out is a suspicion that Christie Clark has been involved in backing Milobar and center BC as the alternatives to the conservatives. And Russ dead is saying, now, you got to get this together. And it's interesting. I know you had Gavin Dew on yesterday and he predicted that the conservatives' ranks would be increasing. So yesterday morning there were 24 conservative members of the legislature as of five o'clock yesterday. There's 29 now because Dirkson went and invited six people back and five took him up on it. So the conservatives are now 29 strong. The Milobar party center BC is eight strong. And it's really an open question. Can they get it together? Some kind of a deal. Like imagine they just they simply struck a deal and said we won't run against each other. Your 29 members conservatives, those will be the candidates

12:26in those writings. And center BC, the eight of us will be the candidates in those writings. They might try to do something like that. Russ dead says there's high level discussions going on. We've heard some denials from others that don't know it's not as far along as that. But I agree with you, Simee. It's focus. David EBS focused it. Yes. And that's what I think he should be concerned about is when you hear that he's he's provided the motivating factor that was lacking for these parties before. You know, that's a good point. They couldn't get their act together. But maybe David EBS has heard of them together with the challenge he's thrown out by getting ready, as I said today to call the snap election. And I guess if we get it today, what? A voting day would be October the 25th. So for three weeks, the provincial campaign signs and the civic campaign signs will be occupying all of our boulevards and front lawns. And then civic

13:27voting is on the 17th. Yes. And so that's the and then the next is not the 25th is the 24th Saturday will be provincial election day. We will see. The election will be off. That's the other. All right. The biotech will be off. People have already voted advance in this. So they're vote their ballots. I don't know what I'm so weird to get sent to the dumpster. But anyway, this whole thing is so weird. Also, just very quickly, Vaughn, what do you think? Are we getting it today? Are we getting this election? Yeah, I think we're getting it today. I think they've been so ready. And so they they couldn't slam on the brakes and stop it, even if they wanted to. I think EBS decided to roll the dice and look, he's rolling the dice on his own political career. He won't have a political career unless he wins this election. That's true. All right. Thank you for that Vaughn. Bye bye. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places.

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