NDP leader says it’s important to try bold policies

NDP Leader David Eby’s pre-election campaign stop in a Victoria record shop seemed like a novel way to showcase the former indie-rock front-man turned human rights lawyer turned B.C.’s 37th premier.

Except the talk quickly turned from lighthearted topics like music to the heavier territory of affordable housing.

Sean Sullivan, who manages The Turntable in Fan Tan Alley, pulled Eby aside to ask for help because his low-rent five-storey apartment complex in Esquimalt is slated for demolition to accommodate a 355-unit, 21-storey rental tower.

The province’s push to see affordable housing built as quickly as possible means some longtime affordable rentals like Sullivan’s are lost in the transition. It’s what prompted the province to create a rental protection fund that helps non-profits buy older rental buildings to safeguard them.

It’s the kind of tangible change Eby promised when he was sworn in as premier on Nov. 18, 2022 — replacing John Horgan, who stepped down for health reasons — with just under two years to go before the next scheduled election.

“When I was sworn in, I said the challenges that we face are big and serious and profound challenges,” said Eby, 48. “So my goal during this time is not to have all these problems solved, but to have clear indications of where we’re going and what the solutions are and to show that we can solve the problems.”

Sitting at the window of a small bakery and cafe across from the vinyl shop, he shifts uncomfortably on his stool.

Yoga classes that used to realign his body and reset his mind have fallen by the wayside with the arrival of his third child, Gwendolyn Kay Eby, born on June 27 — a sister to Iva, 5, and Ezra, 10.

With a reputation as a tireless worker, Eby said his life has been pared down to the “bare essentials” of running government, daily campaigning and family.

He met wife Cailey Lynch in 2011, when he was a lawyer and she was a registered nurse. Two years later, the couple’s vow to support each other’s ambitions was put to the test when Eby was elected as NDP MLA for Vancouver-Point Grey — bouncing BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark from her seat. The next day, Lynch got into medical school.

In 2014, with Lynch pregnant with Ezra, Eby abandoned his leadership hopes, putting them aside again in 2017, maintaining he could not at that time be both the father and the leader he wanted to be.

Eby’s own father, Brian, was a personal injury lawyer while his mother, Laura, was a Catholic school teacher and principal. They raised four children in Kitchener, Ontario. There was a lot of teasing among the siblings — Eby, the eldest, says that’s how he developed his “very long fuse” — and memorable road trips to the soundtrack of dad’s Springsteen music.

Eby was an athlete who worked at Sam The Record Man, studied piano, played guitar and became a vegetarian as a teen in part over his concern for the treatment of animals. In his final year at St. Mary’s High School, he was student council president.

The Eby children attended church and Catholic schools, but Eby said “there would be a lot of very surprised priests” if he were to describe himself as Catholic today, “though my mom would be thrilled.”

Still, he said, that “sort of explicit teaching of compassion and concern about people who are vulnerable in one way or another is very much part of who I am.”

“It had a big impact on what I ended up doing for work, what I saw as issues that were important growing up.”

Eby abandoned the study of biology at Guelph University, graduated with a BA in English from the University of Waterloo instead. The idea of following in his father’s footsteps was “absolutely not something that was on my radar.”

A different path

A fierce advocate for the environment and human rights, he said he changed his view of the profession when he started seeing the law as a way to hold politicians and police to account.

Eby ended up earning a law degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax. “It was to sue politicians — it wasn’t to become one,” he quipped. He was called to the bar in 2005, met a woman, moved to B.C., and articled.

Recruited by Pivot Legal Society, Eby advocated for the human and housing rights of people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for three years until 2008, when he became executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which he led until 2012. He was also an adjunct law professor at the University of British Columbia, and president of the HIV/AIDS Legal Network. On the side, he led the indie bands World of Science and Ladner.

Working around the clock for little pay, he burned out, got divorced and hit reset — starting a new chapter when he was elected as Vancouver-Point Grey MLA in 2013.

He quickly rose through the ranks as a high-profile critic. When the NDP formed a minority government, Eby was made attorney general and minister responsible for housing, cracking down on money laundering, driving housing reforms, and cleaning up the “financial dumpster fire” at ICBC by introducing no-fault insurance, reducing insurance rates for all drivers.

Once sworn in as premier in 2022, Eby immediately brought in sweeping housing changes in a style of leadership Royal Roads University Prof. David Black has called “go big or go home.”

Eby introduced a standalone housing ministry, outlawed short-term rentals in major cities as well as single-family-home zoning in most of urban B.C. to allow up to four units on most lots, increased housing density around transit stations, and offered a tax break for first-time home buyers and rental assistance.

On Thursday in Surrey, Eby announced the NDP’s full platform, promising everything from household grocery rebates to free transit for seniors in off-peak hours, and low-interest government loans to help ease more first-time buyers into the housing market

Eby experienced the province’s housing crunch himself when his family moved to Port McNeill in 2019 so Lynch could complete her rural medicine residency. They almost had to cancel the residency when they were unable to find a rental. He acknowledges the province is still facing high rents and high entry housing prices but says progress is being made.

In health care, Eby says a province-wide online Health Connect registry created just over a year ago has matched about 250,000 patients to family doctor practices.

Yet ER shutdowns, long emergency wait times and specialist shortages have almost become commonplace in the province, and the solutions — from a new hospital in Surrey to a new SFU medical school to open in 2026 — can’t come fast enough to meet the demand.

Prickly issues

Eby has also had to tackle thorny issues like what to do about repeat offenders committing violent random street attacks. He said the province has worked with prosecutors, probation officers and police to reduce those incidents, which he says have dropped 75 per cent in Vancouver.

Most recently, the NDP government introduced secure care for those dealing with mental illness, addiction and brain injury who can’t live independently and are a harm to themselves and others. Two sites in the Lower Mainland have been identified.

While it’s going to take multiple initiatives, Eby insists “we can resolve these issues in a way that is both compassionate and responds to the very real feeling that people get that their community is not safe.”

To help reduce the monthly death toll from the toxic drug crisis, Eby has announced more detox and treatment facilities, among other changes, although a three-year pilot decriminalizing use of small amounts of illicit drugs, which began in January 2023, was significantly rolled back after rampant use of drugs in public spaces proved a step too far for many British Columbians. There were other unintended consequences. Nobody, for example, anticipated people would use illicit drugs in hospital beds, said Eby.

Whether it’s decriminalization, ICBC reforms or short-term rental bans, Eby maintains bold policies need to be tried to solve entrenched, complex issues. If there are unintended consequences, he said, government needs to “pull it back and fix it.”

“There’s a school of thought in modern politics that you never acknowledge an error and I think that that really erodes trust in government,” said Eby. “We’re going all in on trying to solve these problems.”

Some of those solutions will take several iterations, said Eby, citing changes to ICBC.

The BC Conservatives think the NDP still has it wrong and are promising to end ICBC’s monopoly and adjust the no-fault insurance plan, which caps payments for soft-tissue injuries, to allow people with life-altering injuries to sue.

As for Eby, he says what fuels him is “actually being able to solve problems with people” — the only reason he would take that amount of time away from his family. He maintains the challenges the province is facing right now are “solvable” and “B.C. can be that jurisdiction that shows how it’s done.”

He just needs one more spin as premier to finish the hard work underway.