Every silver lining has a cloud.
I’ve mentioned in the past that a blessed feature of a provincial election is the cessation of the daily round of emails from the provincial government. From the moment the writ drops on an election to the day a new government is sworn in, my email feed is free of such notices, which is lovely.
Unfortunately, political parties abhor a vacuum, and the hole has been more than filled by an avalanche of messages from the B.C. NDP and B.C. Conservative Parties, which between them are sending out 10 or more releases every day. (The B.C. Green Party, by contrast, has sent out no releases, or at least none that have reached my inbox; perhaps they’re subscribing to the “silence is golden” theory.)
For the most part, the messages are about what the political party in question will do (or try to do) for British Columbians, but this year a new trend has emerged: duelling media releases wherein the parties take aim at each other, with media outlets feeling like innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.
Take Sept. 28, for instance. At 11:05 a.m. a release from the B.C. NDP Party hit the inbox of every media outlet in the province, with David Eby calling on B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad to drop seven candidates with “extreme and dangerous” views. It was followed at 1:07 p.m. by a release from John Rustad, calling on David Eby to investigate the “potential conflicts of interest” surrounding candidate Ravi Kahlon, the previous housing minister.
It was like being on an elementary school playground. I was waiting for one of them to double dog dare the other in a subsequent release, followed by another stating that the two party leaders were going to meet by the swings at recess to duke it out. Such is the state of political discourse in our province at the moment.
And then there are the claims coming out from both sides, which can be disingenuous at best, outright falsehoods at worst. “The BC NDP have a plan to put hard drugs on retail store shelves,” said a B.C. Conservative ad on social media. Really? No. The B.C. NDP have not said anywhere that they will do this, and Eby has explicitly rejected the idea.
The B.C. NDP have, for their part, released advertising stating that the B.C. Conservatives will reinstate Metro Vancouver bridge tolls and Medical Services Plan premiums. There is no mention of this in the Conservative platform or policy documents, and Rustad has not said he will do this.
The NDP says the Conservatives will make $4 billion in cuts to the health care system. The Conservatives say David Eby has opened “drug dens”. Rustad says Eby stated that “The private sector doesn’t have a role in housing.” Eby claims that Rustad has said he will lower taxes for the top two per cent of British Columbians.
No, no, no, and no. It’s exhausting. Journalists do what they can to research these claims from the parties, but for every one that comes out and gets debunked, another two spring up (and this doesn’t even begin to touch the amount of misinformation, partisan pandering, irresponsible clickbait, and lies sloshing around on social media like an oil slick). No wonder voters are increasingly frustrated, jaded, fed-up, and angry.
It’s incumbent on voters to do some homework, not just unquestioningly swallow whatever you hear (or want to believe). If one of the candidates in your riding is holding an event, go and ask questions. Don’t assume that the loudest or angriest voice is right. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Most of all, beware politicians of any stripe who try to reduce complex issues to a three-word soundbite and claim that huge, difficult, multi-headed problems like housing affordability or health care or street crime or homelessness have simple solutions that they alone know. There’s a word for what they’re doing: lying. They know it, and so should you.
