David Eby

David Eby brings a level of policy seriousness to the Premier's office that is genuinely refreshing. He is clearly engaged, works hard, and has made housing affordability a central priority at a time when BC desperately needs that focus. The ambition is real. The drug decriminalization experiment, however, was a significant misstep. The policy was introduced with good intentions — addressing addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal one — but the execution failed to account for the real-world impact on communities, public safety, and public confidence. That it was ultimately reversed under public pressure raises fair questions about how thoroughly the outcomes were thought through before implementation. On housing, the legislation has been bold but results remain mixed. Affordability in BC continues to be out of reach for too many families, and ambition alone does not pay rent. Eby is not a cynical politician. He appears to genuinely want better outcomes for British Columbians. But good intentions must be matched with sound judgment, and not every bold idea is the right one. The measure of leadership is not just in the policies proposed — it is in the wisdom to know which ones will actually work.

I'm in BC and I genuinely cannot afford to stay here long-term. Rent is insane, groceries are brutal, and everything just keeps going up. Eby promised to fix housing and we're still waiting. The announcements keep coming but my rent isn't going down. Families are making impossible choices every month. When is it actually going to get better for regular people here, not just in the press releases?

David Eby came in promising to fix BC's housing disaster and frankly things haven't improved enough. Vancouver and the surrounding region are still completely unaffordable for regular working families. Young people can't buy a home, renters are being renovicted, and the cost of everything has exploded. I appreciate that he's trying but the results on the ground tell a different story. BC families are suffering and need real relief, not more announcements.

David Eby has governed British Columbia since November 2022 and won re-election in October 2024, making him one of the more secure NDP premiers in recent BC history. He came to office with a specific mandate to address housing affordability in one of the world's most expensive real estate markets, and his government has produced the most ambitious suite of provincial housing legislation in Canadian history. Bills 44 and 47 — passed in 2023 — overrode municipal single-family zoning to permit multi-family housing across BC and required density near transit corridors. The BC Builds program committed $2 billion in financing for affordable middle-class rental construction. These are real policy interventions, not incremental adjustments. The results are contested. BC's housing starts fell in 2025, a troubling signal given the scale of the legislative change. A group of 27 urban planning experts signed an open letter arguing that blanket upzoning without affordability conditions is inflating land values and driving displacement, producing small expensive units rather than genuinely affordable homes. Eby himself acknowledged worry about declining starts — which suggests the legislation, however bold, has not yet solved the supply problem it targeted. On other files, Eby has maintained BC's carbon pricing commitment, navigated a complex decriminalization policy under significant political pressure, and engaged seriously on trade issues during the 2025 US tariff dispute. He is a premier who governs with evident purpose and a clear ideological direction, which creates both a policy record worth examining and a standard against which to measure results. Reviewed as a citizen who believes housing affordability is a matter of basic dignity — and who is watching whether the premier's bold legislation delivers the homes people actually need, at prices they can actually afford.