Geoff Russ: David Eby ditches nationalism for the hammer and sickle - National Post

BC NDP leader and Premier David Eby makes an election speech in Surrey, BC Wednesday, September 23, 2026. Photo by Jason Payne /PNGArticle contentIn British Columbia, it appears that New Democrat Premier David Eby has found another figure to impersonate after his Mark Carney impression flopped.

Now, Eby is auditioning for another four years as premier by pretending to be a hybrid of former NDP premier Glen Clark and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. It is unfortunate that the costumes don’t fit, and not only because the premier is built like a giraffe.

As part of his Clark-Mamdani act, Eby is playing the part of a class warrior who will relentlessly take the fight to big grocery and big oil. His NDP government is promising a steep tax hike on incomes above $1 million, and price controls on essential groceries and fuel. These are the campaign’s early days. He had already pledged an extra tax on newly built condos that remain unsold and empty for a year.

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All of this could have been done had the premier not called a snap election. He still had a majority in the legislature, and the small Green party caucus would likely back his hard-left promises.

The reason this class-warrior charade is occurring now is that the NDP campaign has been in a state of emergency. When Eby tried to capitalize on a divided and bickering B.C. Conservative opposition under Kerry-Lynne Findlay, he was going to portray Findlay as a surrogate for President Donald Trump. It had not helped that Findlay had filled her office with operators from Alberta’s separatist, so-called  “Republican Party.”

“Build BC Strong” was to be the NDP’s campaign slogan, a copy-and-paste edit of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s 2025 “Canada Strong” campaign slogan. So blatant was the imitation that the recycling bin could have billed for expenses.

In any case, the rapid removal and replacement of Findlay with Lorne Doerkson transformed the snap election from a wipeout into a horse race. According to polls, the Conservatives are either ahead of or even with the NDP, running on a big-tent, mainstream conservative platform that focuses on pocketbook issues and other salient matters, such as strengthened firefighting capabilities.