BC Premier David Eby has called a snap election with a promise to build a “firewall” against US President Trump — amid the internal turmoil tearing apart the province’s Conservative Party.
In a midday press conference Tuesday, Eby pitched the election as an existential choice between sovereignty and capitulation to the US president. A win for the NDP, which currently has a single-seat majority, would allow the party to fight back against Trump and become an economic powerhouse as Canada moves away from the US, Eby said.
“This moment that we are in, with new threats every day, with escalating threats and actions from the United States, requires a choice from British Columbians about how we respond,” he said. “There are two clear directions: build up our province, protect our people, support British Columbia, fight back — and the conservative vision.”
The conservatives’ vision for the province, according to Eby, is one filled with “chaos, division, culture war, acquiescence, giving up, cuts … an embarrassing, pale vision of what British Columbia could be,” he said.
The election comes two days after the leader of the BC Conservatives, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, resigned after a tumultuous summer for the party that saw mass defections, damning leaks and a possible RCMP bribery investigation. Findlay won the party’s leadership race in May by pitching herself as a “true conservative,” and soon hired staffers with ties to Alberta’s separatist movement, racists and anti-abortion advocates.
Several of the MLAs who quit during her tenure announced last week they would join Centre BC, a centre-right party that emerged last summer and pitched itself as a moderate option for right-leaning voters. However, since Findlay’s resignation members of both Centre BC and the BC Conservative have suggested the two might merge in an effort to defeat the NDP.
The election will be timed for one week after the BC municipal elections — Oct. 24, with the local elections taking place on the 17th. That timing has frustrated municipal leaders, who had asked Eby not to overlap the two elections out of fear the provincial vote would overshadow local elections.
“It risks confusion amongst voters,” said Jenna Stoner, president of the Union of BC Municipalities. “What difference does it make to call this now, or four weeks from now?”
This breaking story will be updated.
September 22nd 2026
