With that, I am grateful that I am not living in British Columbia (known to most as B.C.), Canada's westernmost province. B.C. voters will choose a new government this Saturday and their choices are just awful.
Before I get into the specifics, I should mention that I briefly lived B.C.'s provincial capital, Victoria, during my Dad's sabbatical in 1978-1979. In fact, we lived just down the street from the provincial legislature. I do remember a lot of gatherings and that there was a both a federal and a provincial election going on concurrently. Being all of six-years-old, my understanding of politics was in rudimentary form.
Now to the present day. B.C. has been governed by the New Democratic Party (NDP) since 2017 first under John Horgan and now under David Eby. The B.C. NDP is seeking its third term in office.
Their main opposition is the B.C. Conservative Party which up until a few short months ago was a moribund organization and had been since the 1950s. From the 1950s until the early 1990s, right-wing voters supported the Social Credit Party which was the main governing party in the province (including during my family's brief stint there). Following the collapse of the Socreds in the early 1990s, the B.C. Liberals (which were not associated with their federal counterparts) picked up the pieces and governed the provinces for most of the 2000's.
Late last year, the B.C. Liberals changed their name to B.C. United in an effort to further distance themselves from Justin Trudeau's unpopular Liberal government. The result was a collapse in support of B.C. United in favor of the B.C. Conservatives now led by John Rustad, once a B.C. Liberal MLA who was kicked out of caucus for his extremist views by B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon. Late in August, B.C. United all but disbanded with Falcon throwing his support behind the man he tossed out of caucus. Support for the B.C. Conservatives further surged.
There is only one problem. The B.C. Conservatives are out of their fucking minds. For a time, Rustad wanted to put public health officials on trial likening it to Nuremberg 2.0.
Then you have the B.C. NDP government led by Eby who fired a Jewish member of his cabinet for being pro-Israel following the October 7th attacks while anti-Semitism was allowed to flourish within the NDP under his watch.
While B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau is seeking to attract Jewish voters alienated by the NDP, the Green Party of Canada has an appalling record where it concerns anti-Semitism. With that said, the Greens are unlikely to form the next government in B.C.
If I lived in British Columbia, I doubt I would cast a ballot for any party. I wouldn't want to support a right-wing party which trades in conspiracy theories instead of seeking to be a reasonable governing party. I also wouldn't want to support a left-wing party which tolerates anti-Semitism within its ranks.
It is not beyond the realm of possibility that I might find myself facing such a choice in the not-too-distant future and it is a choice I would just as soon not face.
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