Concerns over pre-election polarization amid online barbs in B.C.

The B.C. New Democrats and B.C. Conservative Party are trading increasingly sharp attacks on social issues that some believe are akin to U.S.-style culture wars.

Premier David Eby has attacked the B.C. Conservatives over abortion, race and gender identity, while the Conservatives have been critical of Eby and the “radical NDP,” claiming the government is trying to distract from its own failed policies on public safety and affordability.

A B.C. Green MLA, meanwhile, says the attacks divert attention from complex issues affecting the lives of British Columbians.

Eby held a press conference in Victoria on Tuesday to tout the NDP’s progress on women’s reproductive issues, including free birth control and in-vitro fertilization funding. 

Even though the B.C. Conservatives haven’t mentioned abortion in their platform, Eby accused party leader John Rustad of trying to erode those rights. 

“It’s fairly safe to say that if he is, at best, ambivalent about reproductive freedom and, at worst, hostile to it, that women’s access to abortion, that women’s access to free birth control is on the ballot this election, just like it is in the United States,” Eby said Tuesday. 

Rustad declined to speak with CBC News, but wrote on social media that “under a B.C. Conservative government, access to abortion, contraception and other items will remain exactly as it is now.”

NDP accuses some Conservatives of ‘hateful agenda’

Eby has accused the B.C. Conservatives of welcoming candidates who are anti-abortion and have offensive views on the 2SLGBTQ+ community and Indigenous people.

“The candidates put forward by the B.C. Conservatives are advancing a hateful agenda,” he said.

Bryan Breguet, the Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Langara, is one candidate that is facing scrutiny for social media activity.

“Indigenous people having a higher incarceration rate doesn’t necessarily mean there are systemic biases against them in the justice system. They could just, you know, commit more crimes. Like Black people in the US,” he wrote in a social media post from 2020.

Breguet said he was not able to do an interview with CBC News. 

However, he explained himself in a video posted to social media where he spoke with Conservative candidate for North Coast-Haida Gwaii Chris Sankey, who is Indigenous and says he is from the Tsimshian community.

“This tweet is, like, four years old … my intention wasn’t to be racist or offensive,” Breguet said in the video, adding that the “woke left” doesn’t care about the underlying issues affecting Black and Indigenous people.

Another B.C. Conservative candidate, Tim Thielmann in the Victoria-Beacon Hill riding, has been accused of a bigoted attack on racialized NDP MLAs.

Thielmann criticized the NDP’s equity mandate, which states that when a male MLA retires, he has to be replaced by a member of an equity-seeking group, such as a woman or an Indigenous person.

“Unlike the NDP, our candidates secure their nominations on the basis of their individual merits, not their skin colour or identity markers,” Thielmann said in a social media post. 

NDP MLA Aman Singh says the comments are an example of Trump-style politics meant to divide people.

Thielmann argues the NDP is exploiting a wedge issue to distract from its poor record on affordability and public safety 

“If you point out that they have a policy that promotes people based on sex and race and other group identity markers, then they call you a racist,” he said.    

Polarization a growing concern, says B.C. Green MLA

In a statement announcing B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision to suspend his party’s election campaign and throw his support behind the Conservatives, Rustad said the two had a shared goal of “defeating David Eby and the radical NDP.”

Adam Olsen, the B.C. Green MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, says he’s concerned by the increasingly polarized political discourse between the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Conservatives that tries to paint their opponent as being on the extreme end of the political spectrum. 

“I would in no way characterize the B.C. NDP as radical left or as socialist, just by their pure definition,” Olsen said. “But that is the narrative that’s coming up from the United States and the desire to really create this dramatic distinction between the left and the right.”

Olsen says such polarization only serves to distract from major issues facing British Columbians, such as health care and housing, that require complex solutions. 

“I think that what they’ve always been trying to do is create a binary in this province,” he said of the NDP and Conservatives.

“I think that the oversimplification of complexity is a really dangerous thing.” 

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