EDITORIAL – Wait, what? You mean there’s still another election coming?

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

JUST IN CASE you hadn’t noticed, there’s another election campaign going on. We’ve all been so focused on the now-concluded civic campaign that it feels as though nobody was paying much attention to the B.C. election set for this coming Saturday (Oct. 24, 2026).

When David Eby called the provincial election to overlap the municipal vote, there was much disgust at the confusion it would cause. There have been calls for legislation to forbid it happening again.

Indeed, the dueling elections have caused a certain amount of head scratching. Those who aren’t much tuned into politics have been uncertain who was or is running for what or whom.

It hasn’t been helped by the co-mingling of campaign signs. In Kamloops, Milobar and Stamer signs — and a few from other parties as well — began popping up like uninvited guests among the plethora of signs planted by candidates for mayor, council and school board. They looked lonely sitting there, and maybe some people thought Milobar was running for mayor again.

Would it have killed the provincial candidates to hold off on their signage until the day after the civic vote? It still would have given them a week to get their stuff in order before Saturday’s vote.

The main problem caused by Eby’s really bad timing may well be a lack of knowledge about what the various provincial parties stand for. They’ve all been firing off press releases every day, few of which make the news. People know in a general sense that the NDP and Greens are on the left and the Conservatives and OneBC are on the right. They may or may not know that CentreBC (you remember, it’s the one Peter Milobar was the leader of for a couple of days) positions itself somewhere in the middle.

A very few issues have popped up to separate them in the minds of voters. Eby has had a prat fall or two, and the Conservatives have shown an Achilles heel by not revealing a fully costed estimate of their promises.

All in all, the provincial campaign has been a non-event. People just aren’t interested.

Nowhere in the discussion is Donald Trump, even though he was cited by Eby as the main reason for calling this election. When it’s all over, we’ll be asking ourselves the same question we did when Eby dropped the writ — why?

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.