B.C. NDP convention highlights leadership vote, policy divisions

The B.C. NDP convention wrapped up this weekend with Premier David Eby securing a lukewarm endorsement from delegates, even as his government faces massive crises over housing and drug deaths.

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The B.C. NDP convention wrapped up this weekend with Premier David Eby securing a lukewarm endorsement from delegates, even as his government faces massive crises over housing, drug deaths, stalled resource projects, and a brewing fight over private property rights.

The gathering, held at the Victoria Conference Centre from Friday to Sunday, allowed delegates to vote on key issues, including leadership, in an environment emphasizing accessibility with features like a “scent-reduced” space and “gender-neutral” washrooms.

“We work hard to make BC NDP events accessible. Some of the accessible initiatives you can expect at our Convention include a scent-reduced environment, gender-neutral washrooms and digital documents that can be parsed by screen readers. In the main plenary, we will offer an accessible seating section, along with captioning services,” the convention’s website promised ahead of the event.

Attendees were encouraged to include preferred pronouns on name tags, though some, like former Premier Glen Clark, opted to leave the section blank, as noted in an X post by journalist Bob Mackin.

Delegates arriving at the B.C. NDP’s 2025 convention in Victoria was mostly greeted with a familiar party ritual: a land acknowledgement.

“Convention 2025 is taking place on the territory of the Lekwungen-speaking people of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations,” the event’s webpage states — and this “acknowledgement” was repeated multiple times throughout the multi-day event.

A detailed anti-harassment policy was also prominent on the convention’s website.

Under the system, five “Year-Round Anti-Harassment Officers” act as the party’s in-house referees on conduct, supported at the convention by at least two additional on-site officers. All officers must complete procedural training that may rival any policy workshop for endurance.

The officers are empowered to document complaints, interview witnesses and, when necessary, ask a respondent to leave the event.

B.C. Premier David Eby entered the main convention hall to the song “Golden” from the South Korean hit movie “KPop Demon Hunters.” The walk-in music was “released by the Republic Records subsidiary of Dutch-American Universal Music, whose minority shareholders include WeChat owner Tencent,” as noted by Mackin.

The premier and party leader spoke for about 30 minutes. In his speech, Eby called the B.C. NDP “a broad church.” The convention, however, revealed tension in the “church.”

Some delegates raised concerns about the NDP government’s willingness to fast-track resource projects, its support for public sector unions, and its ability to reach young people.

“Young people have been lost by the NDP,” said Jäger Rosenberg, who is running for party president, according to a CBC reporter who endured the event.

Rosenberg, who joined the party at age 13, worries that young people frustrated by the affordability crisis are turning to the B.C. Greens, who are newly energized under a new leader, and the B.C. Conservatives.

To get them back, he said, the party must offer an “alternative to the maple MAGA fascists who are trying to take over this province. We need to be offering a vision and we need to be offering hope.”

Several delegates raised concerns about taxpayer dollars subsidizing the fossil fuel industry.

Jordan Crawford, a delegate who lives in Courtenay, says he’s “past concerned” when it comes to Eby’s promise to fast-track resource projects.

Crawford says the NDP under Eby has “abandoned” climate change goals and risks losing support to the B.C. Greens under Emily Lowan, the climate activist who was recently elected party leader.

Delegates at the event passed a resolution that calls on the federal government to maintain the federal ban on oil tankers off B.C.’s northern coast.

Eby noted that lifting the tanker ban would threaten the “coalition of support” among First Nations and northern communities for various resource projects in the province.

The issue of First Nations reconciliation does not offer Eby a clean “safe space,” however, with the lingering issue of the B.C. Supreme Court’s decision on the Cowichan Tribes v. Canada weighing heavily on him and his ability to protect private property rights in the province.

As previously reported by True North, homeowners in Richmond have voiced concerns about renewing their mortgages since the decision, and a majority of British Columbia residents believe the decision has done more harm than good when it comes to the issue of “reconciliation” according to one Angus Reid survey.

Conservative MLA Trevor Halford, who attended the convention as an observer, noted that Eby’s speech did not address the Cowichan Tribes case, public safety and extortion, long waiting times at hospitals, and cuts to senior care.

“I think it is great that this is an NDP government that is claiming to have found religion on resource development in our province,” he told reporters from the convention. While Halford said he fully supports this direction, he said the current government is “late to the game.”

Over the weekend, meanwhile, B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad accused the governing New Democrats of “abandoning common sense” after delegates at the party’s weekend convention voted to repeal the Name Amendment Act, a 2023 law designed to prevent dangerous offenders from legally changing their identities.

Rustad said the vote was “shocking and reckless,” arguing the NDP was effectively scrapping its own legislation while offering no public defence of it — a silence he suggested spoke volumes about the party’s priorities.

The law, introduced by then–attorney general Adrian Dix and passed unanimously two years ago, restricts name changes for people convicted of serious offences. Rustad says removing it would make it easier for violent offenders to “wipe their names clean” and avoid victims.

The Conservative leader tied the vote to broader anxieties over public safety, pointing to this year’s extortion wave in Surrey and the Lower Mainland — a crisis that has seen businesses shot at, families threatened and police scrambling to keep pace.

Eby and the New Democrats have not yet responded to the criticism, but the vote marks a rare instance of party delegates explicitly rejecting a law drafted and passed by their own government — a move sure to fuel further political sparring in the run-up to next year’s election.

Instead, Eby said during his speech that B.C. finds itself in a “perilous moment in history” with authoritarianism on rise and Canada’s sovereignty and economy under direct attack from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Just over 82 per cent of the 743 NDP delegates voted against having a leadership race, effectively accepting the status quo of Eby at the helm.

That number is down markedly from the 97 per cent approval given to then-Premier and B.C. NDP party leader John Horgan back in 2017.

Former Richmond MLA Aman Singh, who lost his seat to B.C. Conservative Steve Kooner in 2024, was elected as NDP president with 71 per cent of the vote.