How David Eby Won the NDP Convention

Website editor: Also missing: the existential climate crisis? growing inequality, (taxing wealth?), the cost of living?

Nov. 20, 2025

The drug crisis, crime and affordability were missing from the convention speech aimed at shoring up his leadership.

Just 12 months after an election he seemed certain to win but almost lost, Premier David Eby has won a solid endorsement from an NDP convention that some feared would give his leadership a failing grade.

The decisive 82 per cent vote against a leadership review, which came from a packed convention in Victoria on Saturday, not only marked a significant personal achievement for Eby. It also demonstrated the BC NDP’s readiness for the next provincial election, whenever it comes. Given Eby’s one-seat majority and the chaos on the B.C. Conservative opposition benches, that could be any time.

The province is “at a pivot point between an old order that’s fading and a new one that has yet to be defined for us as the party in government in British Columbia,” Eby told delegates. “The decisions that we take will have consequences for generations.”

Those decisions include a push to increase resource extraction, especially natural gas and critical minerals, fuelled by a dramatic expansion of B.C.’s renewable energy supply generated in collaboration with First Nations.

In the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and mounting job losses in the forest sector and elsewhere, Eby’s NDP team is betting it can win broader public support by building the economy, or, as Eby puts it, making British Columbia the “economic engine” of the entire country.

The NDP fought the last election on affordability, housing, better health care, safer streets and jobs, while railing against Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad’s Trump-adjacent views. This convention turned the page on that election, that platform, the John Horgan era and much else.

Yes, health care is still a priority, but if Eby’s convention speech — interrupted repeatedly by standing ovations — is any guide, some other issues once high on the public agenda, including mental health and addictions, are not. From here on, the focus is jobs.

In the months after his near-death electoral experience in 2024, Eby struggled to find his feet, tabling a runaway deficit budget, failing to move key legislative pieces through the House, reshuffling his cabinet and responding to an endless series of crises, from emergency room closures to wildfires and mill closures.

Two key constituencies that had helped make the narrow NDP victory possible became restive. One was labour leaders, who had demanded little from the Eby team in the run-up to the election and didn’t receive even that. For private sector union leaders, whose members had swung Conservative in many constituencies, this was particularly galling, especially building trades unions whose training programs began to get hit by funding cuts.

Public sector union leaders had their own grievances. After talks for a new collective agreement broke down in July, the BC General Employees’ Union spent August taking a strike vote that produced a 92 per cent mandate for job action. An attempt to outflank the BCGEU with a “tentative framework agreement” with the Hospital Employees’ Union backfired badly, angering BCGEU president Paul Finch, an erstwhile ally and friend of the premier.

Then there were Indigenous leaders, represented by the First Nations Leadership Council, who had leaned in to protect the government that had passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, legislation Rustad had vowed to kill. They were dismayed, then angered, when Eby brought in two bills to fast-track resource projects without the consultation that DRIPA-related protocols had made routine.

But dissatisfaction really boiled over in September when Eby returned from holidays to announce 1,000 new classroom seats in Surrey.

In a wide-ranging scrum that used rhetoric many associated with the Conservatives, Eby called for cancellation of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, arguing that workers were clogging the food banks and filling up homeless shelters.

He then went on to express the hope that appeal court judges in the Cowichan decision, an important legal case regarding an ancient village site in Richmond, would hear the views of “real people,” presumably non-Indigenous landowners.

Social media accounts exploded with outrage and condemnation from NDP activists, many from the senior ranks of the party and the labour movement. Were these really the views of their leader? Speculation mounted about a tough convention ride for Eby.

Luckily for the premier, life was even harder on Rustad, whose caucus was imploding. By the end of the summer, five MLAs had quit or been ousted. Rustad limped through a lengthy leadership review process with a weak 71 per cent margin of victory in a vote that drew only 1,268 voters.

To be fair, Eby consistently enjoyed solid public support, despite the growing turmoil within the NDP base. An October poll by Research Co. showed him leading Rustad by a 16-point margin over who would make “best premier,” with 44 per cent of decided voters ready to cast a ballot for the NDP. Polling aggregator 338Canada showed the BC NDP leading the Conservatives by several points, according to most polls, and within striking distance of the 57-seat majority Eby had held heading into the 2024 vote.

But alarm bells were ringing in the premier’s office, particularly after Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles was stunned by an unexpected and humiliating 68 per cent approval in her own leadership vote in September.

Given that even John Horgan had won only 83 per cent support in the wake of his record 2020 election majority, it was easy to imagine a cantankerous convention plunging Eby’s leadership into the dangerous territory that was upending leaders like Rustad and Stiles.

While the Eby team deployed organizers to ensure that supporters became convention delegates, the government’s legislative operation finally kicked into gear. In the days leading up to the convention, the government rolled out a series of announcements designed to win the hearts and minds of New Democrats.

The tide had turned for the government Oct. 26, when the BCGEU announced a tentative four-year agreement to end its eight-week-long strike. It wasn’t cheap. Mediator Vince Ready recommended a settlement twice as expensive, at 12 per cent over four years, as the government had hoped for. But it meant an interval, at least, of labour peace.

Then, with the First Nations Leaders’ Gathering as a backdrop, Eby signed a declaration with Indigenous leaders to defend the tanker ban on B.C.’s north coast, a defiant poke in the eye of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Next, Prime Minister Mark Carney blessed Eby with a cash commitment to the $6-billion North Coast Transmission Line, an initiative so critical to the government that Eby has declared the necessary legislation to be a confidence matter that will trigger a snap election if it fails to pass.

Carney had already included LNG Canada Phase 2, as well as expansion of the Red Chris copper mine in northwest B.C., in his first major projects package. The transmission line, bundled in Carney’s second major projects announcement with the Ksi Lisims LNG terminal and pipeline, added up to tens of billions of dollars in new investment, all involving close collaboration with First Nations. They form the foundation of Eby’s economic agenda.

Then, on the eve of the convention, a third bombshell: a massive $241-million commitment over three years to double skills training in the province, ensuring that the skilled workers necessary to complete all this construction are available. Tension in the labour movement noticeably eased.

After this preliminary barrage, Eby’s team threw every trick in the convention management playbook into the battle, ensuring that the first five convention resolutions were job-related and endorsed by labour leaders on the convention floor.

First up: a demand that all future BC Ferries vessels be built in B.C. yards.

Then came a convention speech designed to touch the heart of every one of the 800 delegates.

In what federal NDP interim leader Don Davies termed “a pro move,” Eby’s daughter Iva, 6, and son Ezra, 11, were marched out to introduce the premier for his keynote address. “I do like it when he takes me to school in the police car,” Iva declared solemnly, adding that the kids welcome Eby home with a blast of “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. Cue the Demon Hunters!

Who could vote against a dad with kids that cute?

To warm up the crowd, Eby did a brief spin through NDP history, acknowledging the recent loss of “our buddy John Horgan” and former Chilliwack MLA Dan Coulter — “I miss them both dearly” — before conjuring up the achievements of the NDP’s pantheon of premiers, from Dave Barrett to Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark and Horgan before shining a light on the delegates themselves.

“Everyone in this room has put in long hours for our movement under incredible pressure on their time, on your families, on your own well-being,” Eby declared. “I want to say how much it means to me.”

For the most part, the delegates responded enthusiastically, rising repeatedly in standing ovations for achievements like B.C.’s $17.85 minimum wage, the highest in Canada.

Sometimes, however, they found the new emphasis on the economy required some getting used to. When Eby boasted that “we have some of the strongest private sector job growth in this entire country,” the convention fell silent. “That’s some good news,” the premier advised them. “That’s some good news.” Delegates took his word for it. (Eby and Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon released Look West, a new 10-year economic strategy, the day after the convention.)

In the end it all came together for Eby with an 82.6 per cent rejection of an immediate leadership review. With the next convention two years away, the premier has a powerful party mandate to take into the next election if it happens at the halfway mark of this mandate, as many expect.

In the meantime, the Eby administration has found its prime objective in economic growth, the solution to all that ails us.

In Eby’s words, this all means “tens of billions of new investment, thousands of good-paying jobs, new revenues for health care, education and housing we all rely on. And all because we are working together. Reconciliation is the work of generations and generations to come. That work must and will continue under my leadership, with this team and with your support.”

Will the economy really be the ballot question the next time B.C. goes to the polls?

Other political challenges ahead for the Eby government are daunting. Despite Eby’s success at securing major projects on the federal priority list, none will be completed in the next few years. In the meantime, mill closures in the forest sector, driven by Trump tariffs, and systemic issues in B.C.’s forest sector are costing hundreds of jobs.

Even more difficult is the budget process, which delivers regular doses of bad news as the BC NDP seeks to bend the deficit curve down. Every day brings more reports of fiscal austerity measures, triggering cuts to services to Deaf people, or raising the threat of long-term care bed closures.

Can public sector layoffs and further cuts be far behind, given Eby’s declaration that reduction of the deficit, at least as a share of GDP, is “non-negotiable”?

Then there’s public sector bargaining. BCGEU members ratified the new agreement by 89 per cent, suggesting a settlement might have been achievable at much lower cost had the government attempted a different strategy. What is certain is that other unions, including the BC Nurses’ Union and the BC Teachers’ Federation, may feel emboldened to make their own efforts to break the government’s budget, having seen the BCGEU’s success.

Finally, there’s the growing cost of B.C.’s struggle against organized crime, which has made the toxic drug supply a leading cause of death, producing street disorder, gun violence and widespread extortion, particularly in Surrey.

None of these issues, which dominated the last election campaign, were mentioned in Eby’s speech, although the route to victory in the next campaign will certainly run through Surrey.

It’s an old political maxim, of course, that to win an election you don’t have to be the best, just better than your opponent. So far, Eby has excelled in that regard.

Throughout Eby’s speech, Conservative Party of BC Surrey White-Rock MLA Trevor Halford sat in the observers’ section with party executive director Angelo Isodorou and party activist Mauro Francis, all busying themselves with email during the standing ovations.

They may have missed the morning report by BC NDP treasurer Karen Cooling, who assured delegates that the party is debt-free, holds $9 million in assets and is ready for an election at any time.

The next day, convention delegates elected a new provincial executive representing a new generation of seasoned activists, headed by incoming president Aman Singh, former MLA for Richmond-Queensborough.

With a solid personal mandate, a united caucus, a strong party organization, a bursting war chest and a divided opposition, Eby has the building blocks for an unprecedented fourth NDP victory, provided he can get the government working as well as the convention

Geoff Meggs is a former journalist and Vancouver city councillor. He was chief of staff to Premier John Horgan and has written several books on B.C. politics. This article originally appeared on his Substack Lotusland.

[Top photo: Premier David Eby’s speech at the NDP convention in Victoria Saturday was part of a successful campaign to maintain party support. Photo by Chad Hipolito, the Canadian Press.]