What’s a voter to do? Vote for the party, the person or “None of the Above”?

With just over two weeks to go before the BC provincial election, we’ve entered the twilight zone of political campaigning. Political parties and their hyper partisan foot soldiers are hitting the streets, the airwaves and the internet with outrageous rhetoric, promises and accusations.

The BC NDP have decided that incentivizing demand, a policy that will only drive up house prices and increase the debt burden for first time homebuyers, is somehow the way to deal with housing affordability. At the same time, and just two weeks after releasing the 2024/25 first quarter fiscal update projecting a whopping $9 billion deficit this year, they promised to give the average family a $1000 hand out. The BC NDP’s Dave Dollars giveaway mirrors the cynical Ralph Bucks that were doled out by Alberta’s Premier Ralph Klein starting in 2006.

The BC NDP’s Dave Dollars announcement came just two days after the Conservative Party of BC touted their Rustad Rebate that would eventually exempt up to $3000 per month in rent or mortgage payments from provincial taxation. Existing landowners and homeowners are no doubt salivating as it gives renters and potential buyers more money to spend on rent and houses thereby pushing up prices due to an existing supply shortage. Not to be outdone with populist policy announcements, the Conservatives just released their Powering BC energy plan that ironically demonstrates energy illiteracy while proposing to “build trust and energy literacy” in British Columbia.  The document demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of energy production, transmission and storage in British Columbia and reads like it was written by 20-something year old staffers imported from Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta team.

To top it off, the BC Greens, lost in an ecosocialist hinterland, issued a platform that virtue signals a pathway to economic collapse. Their bizarre approach to deal with British Columbia’s housing shortage is to rage on the “for-profit industry that financializes” it. I’m not sure how musing about Marxist doctrine that “justifies and predicts the emergence of a stateless and classless society without private property” is helpful in increasing housing supply.

No political party has offered a vision that would inspire you to vote for them. Rather, the BC NDP are spending most of their time telling voters why they should be afraid of John Rustad and the BC Conservatives. The BC Conservatives are spending most of their time announcing what NDP policies they would undo. And not a day goes by without a BC Conservative candidate or their Leader, being associated with one batshit crazy conspiracy theory or another. Meanwhile the BC Greens, under their last-one-turn-out-the-lights sanctimonious leadership and dysfunctional organizational capacity, remain lost in the wilderness as they seek too inspire a handful of activists on the far left of the political spectrum.

Sadly, my prediction for this election is that the winner will be the non voter. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a very low voter turnout and even perhaps record high numbers of spoiled ballots.

With that said, I have always voted for the local candidate who I believe would best represent the riding I live in. In the last four BC Elections I voted for Ida Chong (BC Liberal in 2009), myself (BC Green) in 2013 and again in 2017, Murray Rankin (BC NDP) in 2020 and I will vote for Stephen Andrew (BC Conservatives) in 2024. The choice would be hard for me in a number of  other ridings where I might be tempted to write None of the Above on my ballot or where there are two candidates I might have to decide between. Kootenay Central comes to mind in the latter case as I have enormous respect for both Nicole Charlwood (BC Greens) rand Brittny Anderson (BC NDP).

In case anyone is interested, below is a list of twelve candidates (focusing on Vancouver Island) that I would certainly vote for if I lived in their riding.  In the spirit of non partisanship, I offer three BC Conservative candidates, three former BC United Candidates who are now running as independents and six NDP candidates. I could write long essays as to why I support each of these people, but I will simply link you to their candidate pages so you can read up on them yourselves. There are others who I know or have worked with in other ridings, but I didn’t want to skew the non-partisan nature of my list.

I have an easy choice in Oak Bay Gordon Head where my long time friend Stephen Andrew is on the ballot. Coincidentally, when I announced my decision to run with the BC Green Party in Oak Bay Gordon Head on September 20, 2012, I did so on Stephen Andrew’s CFAX 1070 radio show!

Here’s the list: