From carbon tax to involuntary care: B.C. NDP shifts positions

His rivals are calling him Flip-Flop Eby. 

B.C. Premier David Eby's opponents are slamming him for capitulating on issues where he once stood firm, including harm reduction, mental health treatment and now a key pillar of the province's climate change fight — the carbon tax.

Eby has spent the last 22 months defending the carbon tax, saying on Nov. 29, 2023: "Let me be clear. We will not back down. God forbid, if the rest of the country abandons the fight against climate change, B.C. will stand strong."

In March, when federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote a letter to Eby asking him to help stop the planned federal carbon price hikes, Eby dismissed it as a "baloney factory" political tactic.

But the levy has become increasingly unpopular with British Columbians struggling to afford gas, groceries and other costs. According to an Angus Reid poll in March, 75 per cent of Canadians supported removing the carbon tax entirely.

Eby was the lone Canadian premier standing behind it.

That changed this week.

During a campaign-style rally in Vancouver with Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew that was supposed to be about women's reproductive rights, Eby made the unexpected announcement on the carbon tax.

"I think it's critical to also recognize that the context and the challenge for British Columbians has changed. A lot of British Columbians are struggling with affordability," Eby told the crowd. 

"If the federal government decides to remove the legal backstop requiring us to have a consumer carbon tax in British Columbia, we will end the consumer carbon tax in British Columbia."

Eby blamed the federal government's meddling with the carbon tax — which last year exempted the tax on home heating oil in the Atlantic provinces — for the erosion in public support for it.

"The political consensus we had in British Columbia has been badly damaged by the approach of the federal government to this issue," Eby said.

What he didn't say is that Poilievre has been relentless in his calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to "Axe the Tax," a slogan adopted by Rustad's B.C. Conservatives.

Rustad claimed victory, saying it's evident Eby's positions — on the carbon tax and on the approach to the mental health and addictions crisis — are changing because of the pressure he and his candidates are putting on the government.