Kelowna–Mission MLA Renee Merrifield has fired a series of broadsides at the BC NDP, branding David Eby the most far-left premier in BC’s history.
The BC United representative – who announced she was stepping down in May – also accused the NDP of intentionally “dealing death blows” to the province’s forestry sector (a claim vehemently denied by the NDP).
But Merrifield, who was interviewed by NowMedia video host Jim Csek on Monday, didn’t have particularly favourable words for the BC Conservatives either, after John Rustad’s party supplanted BC United as the main opposition to the NDP.
She does, however, appear to want them to win the election on Oct. 19.
“This election is about whether or not you like the course that we are on,” she said. “A vote for the NDP is a vote for more of the same – and more of the same in hyperdrive, if they get a majority.
“If you want change, if you're not satisfied with where things are, the voter has to say, Hey, look, I need a different alternative, and that's really what we're being offered from the other side.”
Merrifield said she “can’t think of one thing that’s better” since the NDP came to power in 2017.
She also pushed back against a statement made by the NDP’s Kelowna Centre candidate, Kelowna councillor Loyal Wooldridge, in a separate interview with NowMedia.
Wooldridge said his party was working to “adjust course from 15 years” of rule by the BC Liberals.
Merrifield said that kind of argument might have worked during the NDP’s first term, but is dead in the water now.
“[The NDP] really called all the shots and made all the decisions and that's what we saw,” she said. “They changed the course and they changed the direction [of the province]. And then David Eby coming in has really taken that and moved it forward.”
Eby, meanwhile, has focused his political attacks on Rustad and, much like Kevin Falcon and even Merrifield herself, on the quality of the BC Conservatives’ candidates.
In a social media post on Monday, Eby said Rustad had “extreme views” that British Columbians “can’t afford” to indulge.
Speaking to Csek, Merrifield did not use the same sort of language as Eby, but did say BC United’s decision to suspend its election campaign had left many “orphaned voters.”
“There's this desperation to get the NDP out,” she said. But Eby’s dethronement is “not a fait accompli,” she added.
“John Rustad with the BC Conservative Party really is going to have to show the voter that he's willing to come to the centre and he has this amazing opportunity with all the candidates. He has an amazing opportunity with the Okanagan with candidates.”
Merrifield also said Rustad had benefited from having a similar name to the federal Conservatives, a claim made frequently by Falcon before BC United backed out of the race.
She said: “Is it luck? Abso-friggin-lutely. The BC Conservative Party changing their logo to look almost identical to the federal [one], and having Pierre Poilievre on a really massive wave right now, I think, has definitely boded very well for John Rustad.”
But Merrifield saved her strongest attacks for Eby, whom she said “doesn’t want to actually have to defend his record” or “bring forward new policy.”
Instead, he wants only to “run attack ads on the BC Conservatives and hope that people vote for him.”
She added: “David Eby is farther left than what the federal NDP are. He is far more on that activist realm of that far-left than what we've seen before in political history, really, in BC.”
In a 30-minute interview, Merrifield also discussed:
Adrian Dix’s claim that BC is “crushing Alberta” on health worker recruitment
BC raising more taxes from tobacco than forestry, which she called “horrific”
How BC should be an “LNG giant”
How BC has lost “billions, if not trillions of dollars” in natural resources investment
Her time as shadow minister for tech, when, she says, firms told her BC needed to fix housing and crime to lure skilled workers
How taxpayer cash is “abused” by the NDP
The “tumultuous” state of affairs in Kelowna–Mission after parties made “very strange choices” with candidates
To watch the full interview on YouTube, head here.
