Stewart Prest

Although the gap is narrowed, voters right now are focusing on the basics, cost of living, health care, housing.

And with the campaign continuing and many voters still very much open to changing their minds, let's talk about this with Stewart Prest, political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia.

Stuart, welcome back to the program.

Good to be with you, Rob.

He has the ability to claim an affinity with more moderate versions of conservatives, while still he can point to the fact he was one of the first MLAs to jump from B.C. United to the B.C. Conservative Project back in 2024.

So I think he has something to offer to the different factions of conservatism that allows him to pull this kind of shaggy political coalition back together again and so far have the inside track on forming government after this election.

Stewart Prest is a political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia, joining us here on the Jazz Joe Hall Show.

I'm Rob Fay filling in for Jazz today.

Political scientists are now asking whether David Eby's snap election call may backfire.

University of British Columbia lecturer Stuart Prest calls it a potentially significant miscalculation.

Jordan Bateman of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, an organization with deep ties to the province's right, said the week could not have gone better from the Conservatives' point of view.

Timothy Vandenbrink, formerly of Simon Fraser University, thinks most voters will see through the argument that an election was needed to build a mandate against American tariffs.

Now, calling an election with an interim opposition leader has occurred before elsewhere, though it is unusual, said Lagasse, adding that this is still not a valid reason under the Constitution to prevent a dissolution of the legislature.

Now, UBC political scientist Stuart Prest also described the situation as a bit dodgy and unusual, but notes that the Conservatives have had ample time to organize themselves under a leader and failed to do so.

And Prest said that, quote, "...the norm in our politics is for a kind of sportsmanship around letting the leader emerge for the opposition party, and that's a little different here because it's the second leadership vacuum the Conservatives have had in the space of less than six months." But it does feed into the impression even more so that the NDP are playing politics here.

Now, yet another political quandary may emerge from this election that should his party be able to form government after October 24th, Dorkson would become premier but not necessarily retain that role because the party's own constitution bylaws as of today.

I can continue going on but it's only an hour-long show.

UBC political scientist Stuart Prest says overlapping campaigns could also make it harder for voters to focus on either race.

This runs the risk of muddying waters above all I think and making it harder than it needs to be for voters to make these important decisions.

The province not adding any certainty to the speculation.

We are in what you might call an evolutionary moment in BC politics.

UBC political scientist Stewart Prest says all of this highlights a gap in the middle, and that he says is really not a surprise because what's dividing the right is more significant than what's uniting them.

There is a portion of conservatives that really identify with themes that we hear expressed in the MAGA universe in the United States, and then we have this other version of conservatism that is more middle of the road.

Tanya Fletcher, CBC News, Vancouver.