On June 19, nine-year-old Charleigh Pollock and her family got terrible news: the B.C. government would no longer pay for the only medicine that eases the painful symptoms of the deadly disease she suffers from.
Charleigh has Batten disease, a rare genetic condition that causes seizures multiple times a day. Brineura slows the disease that reduces mobility and ultimately causes brain injury, but it costs $800,000 per year.
When asked this week by the Vancouver Sun‘s Vaughn Palmer if his government could make an exception and intervene in this case on compassionate grounds, Premier David Eby said it was a “really hard and difficult decision” but that treatment decisions should be left to the experts. “I have seen nothing positive come from politicians get[ting] involved in health care decisions for individuals.”
The office of B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne earlier justified the decision to stop funding the medication saying the disease has progressed too far in Charleigh to continue. Her family disagrees, saying Brineura still eases pain from the seizures.
It was a troubling choice that raises questions about the severe implications for a child’s life and the priorities of this government.
The decision to halt funding came off as cruel, miserly, and difficult to understand, not the least because Eby can seemingly find money for everything else. The doubling of the price tag to host FIFA World Cup and the explosion of public sector jobs, to name two. And it all exemplifies the confusion, incoherence, and utter lack of direction that has characterized his government.
In November 2022, Eby became premier after an easy race in which his only opponent, Anjali Appadurai, was controversially disqualified. He inherited a projected surplus of $5.7 billion from his predecessor, the late John Horgan, which is especially impressive considering the dismal fiscal state of most provinces during the pandemic. During COVID-19, federal and other provincial governments posted unprecedented deficits due to ballooning costs.
Horgan’s surplus was a gift.
Fast forward less than three years – that windfall is long gone and a whopping deficit has risen in its place.
Deficit balloons with no measurable improvement in results
At the end of the 2023–2024 fiscal year, the deficit was $5 billion. That ballooned into a forecasted $10.9-billion shortfall for this fiscal year. Both Moody’s and S&P cut the province’s credit rating as a result, citing the ongoing deficits and having no roadmap to reducing them.
Moody’s further predicted the 2025/26 deficit will jump to $14.3 billion.
Unfortunately for B.C. voters, despite these massive expenditures, there have been no measurable improvements on any of the fronts Eby prioritized when he became leader.
In terms of public policy direction, his government flip-flopped before and during the 2024 provincial election as many progressive initiatives he once championed spun out of control.
Initially a strong supporter of drug law liberalization, Eby backed off the province’s drug decriminalization pilot when the use of addictive narcotics spread into family parks and playgrounds.
After the consumer carbon tax – previously lauded by Eby as a groundbreaking strategy for combatting emissions – became unpopular with the public and a political burden to maintain during the election, Eby announced his government was willing to axe it. This followed relentless pressure from the provincial and federal Conservatives, both of which promised to scrap it.
These policy retreats, based on fear and political strategy over principle, likely contributed to the NDP’s drop from a comfortable to razor-thin majority government, won by a bare 22 votes.
Since then, inconsistency and confusion have ensued.
When it comes to public safety, the refusal to embrace bread-and-butter solutions like simply hiring more police officers to enforce the law is baffling.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim promised to fund the hiring of 100 new police officers and 100 mental health nurses during the 2022 municipal election, which he won decisively. While Sim has not yet hired the nurses, 100 new police officers have been added, and crime rates have fallen substantially in Vancouver, dropping to a 20-year low.
If a city government can make such inroads, there is no reason for inertia at the provincial level.
Rushed Bill 15 alienates key stakeholders
Eby’s own coalition of stakeholders, which helped land his government a bare electoral victory, is starting to crack too. His mishandling of Bill 15, the Infrastructure Project Act, has alienated Indigenous leaders, municipal representatives and environmental groups throughout the province.
Bill 15 bestows tremendous unilateral powers on his cabinet, allowing government to speed through approvals for “provincially significant” projects and bypass existing consultation and regulatory processes.
First Nations leaders expressed outrage at the intent of the bill and its hurried passage through the legislature, with many accusing the premier of breaking his promises and commitments to reconciliation.
Chief Don Tom of the Tsartlip First Nation on Vancouver Island even referred to Eby as a “snake oil salesman” and warned him that their trust in the provincial government was permanently broken.
Municipal leaders likewise expressed frustration with the contents and the mad rush to pass Bill 15, calling it unnecessary jurisdictional “overreach” that lacked meaningful consultation.
Many progressively minded First Nations have previously supported the BC NDP, and some prominent members of nations like the Haida even successfully ran for them in the 2024 provincial election. Alienating these leaders risks evaporating their support and jeopardizing the party’s coalition.
Labour relations outside of the Lower Mainland had already become tenuous. Thousands of rural blue-collar workers who work in the natural resources sectors, and whose support John Horgan sought to maintain, voted for the provincial Conservatives in the last election.
Frustration over the continuing decline of forestry has led to extensive NDP losses outside of urban areas. Ridings in the north and the interior – where voters rely on forestry, mining, and energy for employment – largely rejected the NDP and their commitment to stricter environmental regulations that even supporters said harmed rural job prospects.
BC Ferry outsourcing shipbuilding to China hits a nerve
More labour frustrations occurred earlier this month when BC Ferries announced it had awarded a multi-billion dollar contract to build four new ships to a Chinese firm.
As a Globe & Mail editorial noted, Eby has the power to halt the ferry-building contract. So far, he’s shown no indication he will, despite a 2021 commitment by the Horgan government to do just that.
Having once championed shipbuilding as a local industry, unionized manufacturing workers reacted with anger and bewilderment to the outsourcing decision, particularly to China, a nation with demonstrated unfriendly intentions to Canada. The Federation of Labour, the Steelworkers, CUPE and the BC Ferry & Marine Workers are united in urging that now is the time to invest in the sector to increase its capacity.
Even the federal Liberal government, in its current ‘Build Canada’ mode, made its disapproval known with a strongly worded letter to the Eby government from Minister of Transport Chrystia Freeland. Given recent revelations by the Globe and Mail about the $1 billion in loans provided by the federal government for the ferry purchases, it bears equal, if not greater responsibility in the situation.
In any event, Eby has rejected all criticisms out of hand, citing the absence of a domestic company willing to take the contract. He did muse about trying to keep the next batch of ferry-building in Canada somehow, but the damage was done.
Public sector jobs up, private sector, down
Regarding workers, there has been more controversy over the explosion of public sector hirings since 2019, and the nearly non-existent growth of jobs in the private sector.
A report from earlier this month found that the public sector payroll rose from $4.7 billion to $11.5 billion, with the number of people employed by government nearly doubling from 50,000 to 93,000 in the last six years.
The Charleigh Pollock fiasco is just the latest in what has become a very bad year for Premier Eby and his government. Cutting funds for medication that eases the pain of a child, while simultaneously throwing billions at tens of thousands of hires, including for political appointments, during an era of massive deficit spending could not come off as more heartless and oblivious.
So, what are David Eby’s priorities?
Family doctors are scarcer than ever, ER closures and wait times have never been worse, public disorder is creating chaos on our streets, and children are being denied end-of-life medication that could ease their suffering.
The consequences are piling up.
Blue-collar voters have migrated to the BC Conservatives. Manufacturing labourers are losing their jobs, massive government contracts are outsourced to China, and once loyal stakeholders have accused the premier and his government of breaking their trust.
Erratic policy-making is shaking NDP support
Sometimes a government can sustain itself and remain very popular despite difficult decisions, because they are regarded as competent managers. Doug Ford’s government in Ontario may be the best current example.
Given the state of B.C.’s finances, any claim by the NDP government to good management lacks evidence.
The most dire consequence of the province’s erratic policy directions may be the thin ice under their majority, as well as the fragility of their agreement with the BC Greens.
Already, the two-member Green caucus has voted against government on Bills 14 and 15, as did the then three Independent MLAs (two have since formed a fourth Opposition party called OneBC), forcing the NDP speaker to break the ties in order to pass the legislation.
The Greens also oppose the NDP government’s recent decision to green-light the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project (PRGT), which will feed the future Ksi Lisims LNG project.
The BC NDP came within a hair of being relegated to the opposition benches in last year’s election. If the BC government continues alienating supporters, putting political expediency over party principles and failing to show progress on key issues, it’s hard to imagine what promises Eby can make next time around that voters will believe.