BC NDP Leader David Eby tried to use the looming shadow of the U.S. presidential debate Tuesday to link Donald Trump and BC Conservative Leader John Rustad as threats to women’s reproductive rights. But it didn’t quite land with the impact New Democrats had hoped.
Eby made the move at a campaign event in Victoria, where he contrasted his government’s decision to fund in vitro fertilization for couples, with social media posts from Conservative candidates opposed to abortion and free birth control.
“It’s safe to say that if he is at best ambivalent about reproductive freedom, and at worst hostile to it, that women’s access to abortion, women’s access to free birth control, is on the ballot this election just like it is in the United States,” he said, just hours before the American political event.
“And we can’t have that happen.”
Rustad had on Saturday tried to address the issue of abortion when asked by a member of the audience at a town hall in Cobble Hill.
“When it comes to the issue of abortion, this issue is settled in terms of it and as the Conservative Party of British Columbia we’re not going to reopen this debate,” Rustad said.
Not good enough, Eby complained Tuesday.
“When I hear a leadership candidate say it's a federal issue, what he's really saying is I don't want to tell you what my position is, and I'm going to be the premier and making decisions about where those health-care dollars go,” Eby said, flanked by two couples who had used IVF to conceive.
“Will that leader fund free birth control? Probably not. Will that leader fund the morning after pill for free? Probably not. Will that leader ensure that access to abortion is provided across the province where women need that service? Probably not.
“And that's why the question is on the ballot, because he provides that evasive answer again and again and again. And he's been given multiple opportunities to say that he would provide that basic health-care service for women, and he repeatedly dodges it.”
New Democrats clearly hoped they could drag this angle of attack out for weeks, if not the entire election campaign.
The party assumed Rustad would flounder through vague, high-level statements about reproductive rights, so as to appease the far-right social elements of his party. Meanwhile, the NDP would try to convince the public that a Conservative government would drag the province back to the stone age.
But Rustad proved too nimble to be boxed in by the obvious effort.
Within three hours, he’d taken to social media to address Eby’s comments head-on.
“Under a BC Conservative government, access to abortion, contraception and other items will remain exactly as it is now,” Rustad posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“There will be no changes.”
Not done, he threw the efforts back in the face of the NDP.
“David Eby insists on using the oldest, dirtiest campaign tricks in the book,” Rustad wrote.
For most of the public, the leader’s comments are clear enough to defuse the issue.
But New Democrats insist they’ll keep at it by questioning whether Rustad is sincere when he at the same time refuses to fire candidates who have expressed extreme views about women’s rights, abortion and LGBTQ+ issues.
“I want to sound the alarm bell,” said Eby. “We are seeing John Rustad advancing American-style culture war themes here in British Columbia.”
Yet it was the NDP, not Rustad, that chose to build a campaign event around an American presidential debate day.
It was the NDP that tried to whip up fear based on the rhetoric around the American abortion debate.
And, ultimately, it was the NDP that deliberately mischaracterized the BC Conservative position, attempting to tie it to U.S. Republicans and Donald Trump.
It’s true, that sounds an awful lot like “American-style culture war themes.”
Just, in this case, not from the BC Conservatives.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
