David Eby called a snap election two years early and told British Columbians the enemy was Donald Trump. He did not lead with housing, health care, or the mills closing in the Interior. He led with Trump.

Voters are not buying it.

An Angus Reid poll released in the first days of the campaign put cost of living first, health care second, and the economy third. Trump, tariffs, and the liquor ban landed seventh, at 15 percent. Sixty-two percent said the vote came too soon. That is not an existential crisis. That is a campaign slogan looking for a problem.

I sat down with Mo Amir, host of This is VANCOLOUR on CHEK, to talk through the week that blew up the province.

“I think it is safe to say that British Columbians did not buy the reasoning for this election,” Amir said. He argued that Eby planned the race against Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who would have been easier to paint as MAGA-lite. By the time the writ dropped, Findlay was gone and Lorne Doerkson was the Conservative leader. “The overreliance on this Trump argument is not landing, because people can see through it,” Amir said. “It doesn’t look like he believes it, and he looks weak.”

Findlay’s culture-war aesthetics had already turned a ten-point Conservative lead into a gift for the NDP. Doerkson arrived with almost no name recognition, kept his head down, brought the caucus home, and came off as boring and serious at the same time. Amir said that may now be the bigger problem for Eby. “Canadians are looking for someone maybe a little boring, but who comes off as serious and thoughtful,” he said. “They just don’t want to be gaslit.” To the general public, he added, Doerkson “is just a blank slate.”

Eby’s first two days were spent talking about liquor on the shelves. “This is a big existential crisis, and the only response you have is liquor on the shelves,” Amir said. Attorney General Niki Sharma used a Zoom briefing to seed doubt about whether Doerkson would even be premier if the Conservatives win. Amir’s warning was strategic. To make that argument, he said, you almost have to admit Doerkson looks like the leader people want. “You think you’re getting this great guy, but they’re going to switch him out later.”

The rest of the conversation stayed on the files the Trump speech is supposed to cover for. Forestry mills are going dark. Mine permits can take fifteen years in British Columbia and two years in Sweden. DRIPA still has no clean plan for the morning after repeal. A building in Vancouver can take a decade during a housing crisis. The Conservative Party, for once, has stopped handing the NDP free ammunition.

The ballot is October 24. The argument is the kitchen table, not MAGA theatre.

Mo Amir hosts This is VANCOLOUR, Thursday nights at 9pm on CHEK-TV.

Website: https://www.thisisvancolour.com/

X: Mo Amir (@vancolour)

British Columbia is on fire again. Summerland emptied. Thousands displaced. At least one dead. And once more the official story leans on climate while soft-pedaling the decisions that left the landscape ready to burn.

I sat down with John Rustad this week — MLA for Nechako Lakes, former Forests Minister, former Minister of Aboriginal Relations. He has mapped historical fire regimes in the Interior and watched the policy failures pile up for decades.

His assessment was blunt: more than half of the current wildfire problem comes from management decisions, not just the weather.

In the 1990s the pine beetle was still manageable. The ministry wanted a large prescribed burn in Tweedsmuir under ideal conditions. Politicians delayed it. The burn failed. Harvesting never fully shifted to the dying pine. Fuel loads kept building. At the same time, aggressive fire suppression since the 1950s allowed forests to grow far older and denser than nature intended. Pine and Douglas-fir evolved with fire. We interrupted that cycle for decades, then acted surprised when the accumulated fuel finally lit. Current old-growth rules have made proper fuel management even harder.

Even after a fire starts, the system slows itself down. Experienced private crews and equipment often sit idle for days waiting for ministry plans. One example: 122 firefighters held on the roadside for hours over a porta-potty. The best time to fight many of these fires is early morning. The system still often puts crews out later. “It’s all about the process,” Rustad said. “As long as the process is being followed, nobody is held accountable.” Follow the rules and you are protected. Take initiative and something goes wrong, and you become the problem.

The same pattern shows up in the treaty file. Roughly 135,000 hectares of Crown land have been committed for transfer. No detailed public maps. The government treats these as pure government-to-government deals. The public is only informed after the fact. If backlash is loud they pause, wait, then continue. When Rustad was minister he signed Section 35 agreements that protected the public interest. He says DRIPA was never required for those deals — it has mostly raised expectations and made resolution harder.

Industry is responding the same way. Interfor is shifting corporate functions to Georgia. Nutrien is building export capacity in Washington instead of Prince Rupert. British Columbia has become a high-cost, high-uncertainty jurisdiction. Companies go where they are wanted. Putting critical minerals on the table as leverage against U.S. tariffs only adds more risk and uncertainty at the exact moment the province claims it wants investment.

On energy, Rustad keeps coming back to diesel. BC refines only about 35 percent of what it uses. A real share still comes from the United States. Diesel moves food, timber, and goods. He argues for more refining capacity outside the Lower Mainland and a northern pipeline route that stays clear of major salmon systems — practical steps toward less vulnerability and more value kept in the province.

The thread running through all of it is the same. Process has replaced results. Ideology has replaced judgment. Whether it is a fire running up a valley, a land deal done in the dark, or a company deciding BC is no longer worth the risk, the pattern holds.

The public is not imagining the frustration. They are living the consequences.

Yuri Fulmer, entrepreneur and BC Conservative leadership candidate, joins The Opposition with Dan Knight for a long-form, unscripted conversation about the direction of the party and the province.

In this interview, Fulmer leans into his role as “the disrupter,” arguing that British Columbia’s systems are fundamentally broken and require more than incremental change. He outlines his business-first approach to politics, emphasizing execution, accountability, and a willingness to challenge both government and internal party dynamics.

The conversation centres on his controversial “Unite the Right” agreement with Dallas Brodie and One BC — a deal that would see One BC stand down in 88 ridings, while a Fulmer-led Conservative Party would step aside in five, backed by a confidence-and-supply agreement. Fulmer argues the move is rooted in math, not ideology, warning that vote-splitting on the right will cost Conservatives the next election if left unaddressed.

We also cover internal party divisions, candidate accountability, shifting political positions, and why Fulmer believes a leadership race should be about contrast — not consensus. He challenges rivals on their records, questions where they stood when the party was struggling, and argues that members deserve clear distinctions before they vote.

Beyond strategy, the interview explores affordability, housing costs driven by government fees and delays, immigration pressures, and the broader economic frustration facing British Columbians.

This is part of The BC Conservative Leadership Interview Series — long-form conversations with the candidates asking to lead the party and the province.

No filters. No talking points. Just the candidate, the record, and the question that matters: who can actually win and govern?

Watch, listen, and decide for yourself.

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