Tuesday TV tilt: Furstenau comes up the middle to win B.C. leaders debate

Briefly: NDP and Green leaders attack Conservative Rustad’s lack of platform during Oct. 8 debate at the CBC studios in Vancouver.

Bob Mackin

Part Deux

After the Oct. 2 radio debate at the CKNW studios in downtown Vancouver, the three leaders reconvened two blocks east at CBC for the second and final debate on the Tuesday evening before the opening of early voting en route to the Oct. 19 election.

Who won?

Green leader Sonia Furstenau. She leads the third-place party, the only leader chosen by a vote of her party membership, but came into this campaign with less than a full slate of candidates (69). Furstenau had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so she sold herself as a viable option for disaffected environmental voters and increased her profile, weighed the good and bad of B.C., sprinkled with a few optimistic comments. “We have so many solutions that we could be implementing, and yet our politics and our governance gets caught up in exactly this, in the polarization,” she said.

John Rustad (left), David Eby and Sonia Furstenau on Oct. 8 (CBC/YouTube)

Furstenau needed the profile if she’s going to stay in the Legislature, after moving from Cowichan to the NDP-held riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill.

Conservative leader John Rustad needed to win. Though he held his own, he failed to make a friendly connection with viewers seeing him for the first time. NDP leader David Eby found creative ways to avoid talking about his government’s economic and healthcare record.

No platform?

“It should have been a prerequisite to walk into this room, to have a costed platform,” NDP’s David Eby challenged Conservative John Rustad.

Eby’s platform proposes another $3 billion of spending. Furstenau’s party was first out with a platform, containing some policies that the NDP abandoned as well as others aimed at redistributing wealth:

“There’s no plan in the NDP platform, there’s no Conservative platform so far. But if we were concerned about that enormous accumulation of wealth, if we were concerned about the growing inequality and the growing poverty, we would be looking at ways to actually tax some of that wealth,” Furstenau said. “We have that in our platform.”

Rustad said at the post-debate news conference that the platform would be out later in the week. He did correctly note that the Conservatives had released much of it already. Although, it’s a la carte on the party website, rather than in one handy, full-course, downloadable document.

Will it make a difference to voters? History says unlikely.

In the 2008 federal leaders debate, NDP leader Jack Layton challenged Conservative Stephen Harper.

“Where’s your platform? Under the sweater?” Layton said, noting Harper’s casual wear on the campaign trail.

Harper remained Prime Minister when he led his party to a minority win, with 16 more seats than the previous election.

Give it a shot

Eby challenged Rustad on his pre-election interactions with activists hesitant of or outright opposing COVID-19 vaccines. He also told one group that he was open to the idea of a war crimes-style trial for health officials — an idea Rustad had condemned the night before.

(Notably, none of the leaders suggested a judicial public inquiry about handling of the pandemic, a concept promoted last year by the esteemed British Medical Journal.)

Rustad: “I’m triple-vaccinated. The reality is in British Columbia, I also promoted and supported people getting vaccines, especially for seniors, especially for seniors in our communities. I was supportive of that. However, I am not anti-vax. I am anti-mandate. I believe that people should have choice. It shouldn’t be thrust upon them and forced upon them.”

B.C. Leaders Debate 2024, with moderator Shachi Kurl. (CBC)

No, he did not say that

Eby accused Rustad of comparing “a relationship with First Nations to parent and child.”

But Rustad did not. Eby misconstrued what Rustad had said moments earlier.

In explaining his party’s “economic reconciliation” plank, Rustad said “we are actually going to look at the strategic return of land to First Nations people. It needs to happen. This is rights and title… section 35 of our constitution, so we will be engaged with First Nations. But we want to make sure that what we’re doing with First Nations is creating those opportunities for success.”

He then launched into an anecdote about an appreciative single mother who he said gave him a “meat offering,” because she had found a job and was turning her life around after living on streets.

“That is what economic reconciliation is, connecting with people, making sure they have an opportunity to build a future and look after the kids. That’s what any parent would want in the province,” Rustad said. “That’s what we need to deliver when we’re working with First Nations in B.C.”

Elephant in the room

Just 24 hours earlier, downtown Vancouver, including the plaza outside the CBC studios, was the site of a roving anti-Israel protest march organized by Samidoun to glorify the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.

On the Vancouver Art Gallery steps, speakers chanted “death to Canada” and “death to Israel,” burned a Canadian flag and loudly declared allegiance to Hamas and Hezbollah, groups listed as terrorist by the Canadian government. The Vancouver Police are investigating.

Rustad waited until the closing statements of the debate to make reference to the incident in a parting blow to Eby.

“I care about the fact that our youth want to be able to have a future here. I care about the fact that our youth want to be able to have safety here. You know, we have a government that kicks out a Jewish cabinet minister, Selina Robinson, to appease a mob who, last night, was burning flags in front of the art gallery,” Rustad said. “I find that incredibly offensive in British Columbia. We want to make sure we build that positive opportunity for people to have that future. It’s why our entire plan is about putting you first.”

Quotable

Eby: “When John was in government, gangsters brought hockey bags full of unmarked bills to B.C. casinos. They laundered money with impunity. They used our court system to enforce those same gambling debts. Government had no interest in taking that on.”

Furstenau: “It’s fascinating to me that that John Rustad’s vision for this province is one that’s rooted somewhere around 1957. I mean, he cannot look ahead because he can only look back.”

Rustad: “We just need to get rid of the stuff that sucks in B.C. Paper straws suck. I’m sorry we got to get rid of those. It doesn’t work for people in B.C. There’s a little meme I saw where there was two lines for white powder paper straws, for cocaine, and a plastic straw, and the bottom side said: one of these is illegal in B.C. That to me tells a great story in terms of David Eby’s British Columbia.”

Early voting polling places open Oct. 10. Contact Elections BC about voting by mail and voting at a local election office. Election day is Oct. 19.

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Briefly: NDP and Green leaders attack Conservative