Here are the B.C. party leaders as voters go to the polls

British Columbians are going to the polls about two years ahead of schedule, after Premier David Eby called an early election to be held on Oct. 24.

Here’s a look at the party leaders in a political landscape that is very different from the one that emerged after the last election in October 2024.

Eby’s New Democrats clung onto their majority in 2024 by their fingertips, their one-seat margin in the legislature confirmed by Garry Begg’s 22-vote win in Surrey-Guildford after a recount.

Eby would nickname Begg “Landslide,” but the joke belied the seriousness of the situation for Eby, whose majority would be tested by differences within his own party about the fate of its Indigenous legislation, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People’s Act. When he sought to change parts of it, the threat of losing a confidence vote forced him to back down this year.

But while his majority is slim, the margin between the NDP caucus and that of the B.C. Conservatives has only grown since 2024, going from 47-44 to 47-29 as legislators bled from the official Opposition ranks.

Despite a host of issues having beleaguered his government, from DRIPA to the growing deficit, health care to drug decriminalization and street disorder, Eby has recently been enjoying a bump in his poll numbers.

Born in 1976, in Kitchener, Ont., he spent his pre-politics career as a human rights lawyer, including running the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and also playing guitar and singing in a band called World of Science.

He became a political giant-killer by beating then-premier Christie Clark in Vancouver-Point Grey in the 2013 election, later holding portfolios, including attorney general and the minister of housing under the NDP government of John Horgan.

Eby was acclaimed leader of the party and premier in 2022, replacing Horgan, after environmentalist Anjali Appadurai was disqualified from the leadership race.

He is married to family physician Dr. Cailey Lynch and they have three children.

Interim B.C. Conservative leader Doerkson is not exactly a household name in British Columbia.

One of his predecessors, John Rustad, acknowledged as much on Monday, telling a news conference at the legislature that there were “obviously lots of people” in B.C. who don’t know the Cariboo-Chilcotin legislator.

However, he praised Doerkson as a “real quality individual” and said he would be happy to have him lead the party into an election if he wanted. “I’ve worked with him for many years. His heart is in the right place, and he truly cares and believes in the people of this province, and he wants to really make a difference,” said Rustad.

Doerkson was a consensus choice by the party’s board to lead the Conservatives after Sunday’s resignation of Kerry-Lynne Findlay, whose four-month tenure was marred by fierce infighting and 13 resignations or expulsions from caucus, as she rooted out opponents.

Doerkson moved swiftly to try to put that period behind the party, welcoming five MLAs, including Rustad, back to the caucus on Monday.

He may command the official opposition caucus and its 29 members, but whether or not Doerkson will be able to become more than an interim premier remains an open question — an interim Conservative leader is prohibited by the party’s constitution from seeking the leadership on a permanent basis.

Doerkson was first elected in Cariboo—Chilcotin in 2020 as a member of the BC Liberal Party, which rebranded as B.C. United, before he crossed the floor to join the Conservatives. He was re-elected in 2024, winning 70 per cent of the vote.

His party profile says he’s “honoured to represent one of British Columbia’s largest and most diverse constituencies.”

It says that before entering politics, he worked in small business, publishing, auto sales and financial services, while volunteering as president of the local Rotary Club, vice-president of the Williams Lake Stampede, and a director with the Chamber of Commerce. The former publisher with the Black Press group has also served as president of the BC Community Newspaper Association.

Doerkson’s social media output is relatively scant, having last posted on social media platform X in August, while the slim public content of his Facebook page includes numerous family photos.

Peter Milobar is the interim leader of eight former Conservative MLAs, most of them having defected from that party over the leadership of Findlay.

Initially they planned to form a new party, but last Friday they joined CentreBC, with Milobar taking over from Mike Bernier as leader.

Although they are still listed by the legislature as Independents, the group of eight represents the third-largest grouping in the legislature. They have pitched themselves as a centre-right option that Milobar has described as a “stable, serious” alternative to the NDP.

Milobar, a former Opposition finance critic, has represented provincial ridings in Kamloops, B.C., since 2017 and was the mayor of Kamloops for three terms before that.

He was among the BC United legislators who joined the Conservatives when United suspended its campaign ahead of the 2024 provincial election.

He ran to replace Rustad but was eliminated in the first round of voting.

Milobar clashed with Findlay, the eventual winner, during a leadership debate. Findlay suggested that Milobar had “a conflict-of-interest issue,” because his wife had worked for the Kamloops Indian Band.

“Just say it: My wife is Indigenous so you think I’m in conflict of interest?”

He later called Findlay’s line of attack “so ridiculous.”

Milobar was born in 1970 in Edmonton and has three children.

Emily Lowan has been leader of the Green Party since last year when she won a race to replace Sonia Furstenau, who lost her bid for re-election to the legislature the year before.

Lowan, who does not have a seat in the legislature, won the leadership on a promise to build a “formidable political movement strong enough to take on this province’s billionaires, its largest corporations, and big oil, who take far more than they give.”

She leads two legislators, Rob Botterell in Saanich North and the Islands and Jeremy Valeriote in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

The party said this year it was not going to renew an accord with the NDP aimed at helping stabilize the provincial government’s one-seat majority.

Lowan told reporters that the government’s failure to complete two thirds of its first-year commitments was “not a strong foundation of trust to build on” after one year of the deal.

Lowan, 26, previously served on student council at the University of Victoria.

Dallas Brodie is the interim leader of OneBC, which is poised to gain official party status in the legislature as it welcomes Brent Chapman. The South Surrey MLA announced he was leaving the B.C. Conservatives on Monday, just before the election call.

Brodie represents Vancouver-Quilchena, a riding she won under the Conservative banner in 2024. But she was ejected from that caucus in March 2025 over comments then-leader John Rustad said mocked residential school survivors.

She went on to form OneBC with MLA Tara Armstrong, who left the Conservatives in sympathy with Brodie but later split with the party and sits as an Independent.

Brodie had proposed a failed bill in the B.C. legislature last fall to prevent publicly funded employees from making Indigenous land acknowledgments, introducing it by saying the acknowledgments were the “anthem of a suicidal nation.”

Brodie’s profile on the B.C. legislature website says she worked as a lawyer, a radio and television broadcaster and as an arbitrator at the Residential Tenancy Branch of B.C. before entering public office. She lives in Vancouver with her family.