sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

SQUAMISH, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ — New Democrat Leader David Eby is urging Green voters in British Columbia's tight election to back the NDP to keep John Rustad's sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Conservatives from forming government, but the Greens say people should support the candidate of their choice.

Green and NDP voters must stick together this election to defeat the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Conservatives, who are running a campaign of division, denial and plans to dismantle climate initiatives and cut health care and housing affordability plans, Eby said Sunday.

The NDP leader, at a campaign event in Squamish, asked Green voters to consider their thoughts the day after the Oct. 19 election if Rustad's sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Conservatives were going to form government.

"I want you to just take a moment and think about how it would feel if on Sunday morning, the morning after the election, you wake up and the premier of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ is John Rustad and he begins his work to cut the services we all depend on?" said Eby. "It's incredibly tight and I'm asking people to think very carefully about how they would feel if they woke up on Sunday morning to premier John Rustad."

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau said voters should consider what they want to hear from the parties during the campaign and evaluate their platforms in making their ballot choice.

"Oh, for goodness sake," she said in an interview Sunday. "I think we should hopefully wake up on the day after the election and have a legislature that is representative of what people in this province want. Ideally, that's not a majority government."

Furstenau, who has said she doesn't expect her party to garner enough votes to form government, expressed throughout the campaign that electing Greens would ensure sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ politics is not dominated in the legislature by the NDP or Conservatives.

At last week's televised leader's debate, Furstenau said both Eby and Rustad will need to be held in check by Green voices in the legislature.

She said the two leaders are aligned on continuing to subsidize the fossil fuel industry, and both are proposing a program on involuntary care to fight the province's drug overdose crisis instead of increasing voluntary treatment.

"We've put out a platform, a vision," Furstenau said. "We've campaigned in a positive way. We've demonstrated that we've got solutions for all the things that we're facing in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ If people think that these are good solutions and if they're inspired, then they should vote for what they want."

Furstenau, whose Greens won three seats in the 2017 election and helped the NDP form a minority government, has also often said her party was blindsided by the NDP when former premier John Horgan called a snap election in 2020.

Furstenau, who is recovering from a cold and has limited her campaign events over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, was one of two Greens elected to the legislature in 2020.

"The stakes are higher in this election than they've ever been before," Eby said. "This time let's stick together. Your vote matters in this election in a way that hasn't been the case before. We can ensure we're delivering a high quality health care system and we can make sure we're continuing to take climate action."

Rustad said at a campaign event Saturday, if elected, he would make cuts to the province's Clean BC program that aims to reduce harmful climate emissions by 40 per cent by 2030.

Former sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Green leader Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist whose research earned a Nobel prize, said he's backing Rustad's Conservatives even though he doesn't agree with the leader's skeptical views on climate change.

Kevin Falcon, leader of the Official Opposition BC United, suspended his party's election campaign in late August and asked his incumbents, candidates and supporters to back Rustad's sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Conservatives in an effort to prevent a vote-split on the centre right that would favour the NDP.

But sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Indigenous leaders called for voters to support the NDP "to ensure that Indigenous rights are not rolled back and that we can work together to address the climate emergency."

"We all need to realize what is at stake and what the consequences will be if your vote leads to John Rustad and the Conservatives getting elected," said a statement Sunday from Union of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Union of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Indian Chiefs vice-president Don Tom and Chief Marilyn Slett of the Heiltsuk Nation.

"We urge you to vote for David Eby and the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ NDP in this election," said the chiefs. "Voting for anyone else risks a win for John Rustad and the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Conservatives."

Rustad has previously said if his party wins the Oct. 19 election, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ would partner with First Nations and "unleash the potential" for prosperity through mining, forestry and other resource projects.

He said earlier the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Conservatives would repeal legislation adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but the party has since said in a release it would honour the declaration "as it was intended," with laws advancing economic reconciliation and Indigenous autonomy.

Elections BC is reporting record voter turnouts for the first three days of advanced voting, with 171,381 people casting ballots on Thursday, 155,464 on Friday and 150,250 Saturday.

Advance polling was open Sunday, but will close Monday for the Thanksgiving holiday and reopen Tuesday and Wednesday's ahead of Saturday's election day.

-- By Dirk Meissner in Victoria

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2024.

The Canadian Press