B.C. voting begins as Conservatives’ costed platform remains unreleased

British Columbians have begun voting in the provincial election without a costed platform from the B.C. Conservatives. Interim leader Lorne Doerkson says it will be released “imminently.” At a campaign stop in Port Moody on Friday, he said he had seen the platform but wanted to ensure the party would not promise anything it could not deliver. “We’re working on it, but I want it to be right,” he said. “I want the numbers to be right, and I want to know with an absolute clear conscience that the things that we are promising British Columbians in that platform, we will be able to achieve.”

Earlier this week, Doerkson said voters would see a “fulsome plan” before going to the polls. Advance voting opened Friday and runs through Wednesday, ahead of election day on Oct. 24. The provincial New Democrats, led by David Eby, and the BC Greens, led by Emily Lowan, both released costed platforms earlier this week.

Doerkson said he wants to avoid what he described as the New Democrats breaking promises after the last election, including providing a doctor for every resident who wants one and giving people a $1,000 rebate. Explaining the delay in his party’s costed platform, he said: “None of those things happened, and our deficit is now $14 billion.”

The campaign is entering its last full weekend before election day. On Friday, leaders of all three major parties made pitches to voters in key swing ridings. In Port Moody, Doerkson reiterated his party’s plans to build a women’s and children’s hospital in Surrey and scrap the Massey Tunnel replacement between Delta and Richmond in favour of a bridge.

Doerkson also said the Conservatives have pledged to cut income taxes by up to $1,000 a year “for nearly every working British Columbian.” He criticized the former NDP government over emergency department wait times and affordability, and said small businesses were being “strangled by taxes and red tape.” He told the gathering: “It doesn’t have to be this way, you guys. David Eby has a record of devastating this province. We have a plan to build British Columbia, and we have a plan to build it back so that people can afford to make life in this place where we are so lucky to call home.”

Eby made an NDP campaign stop Friday in nearby Coquitlam, in Metro Vancouver. He said the Conservatives’ failure to release a costed platform showed they were unwilling to share their plans for cuts. Eby said the party’s promises would cost $5 billion and that it had not explained how it would pay for them. Referring to Doerkson, he said: “Now, you might think to yourself, ‘Well, that’s weird, why wouldn’t he explain it?’ It’s not that he doesn’t know the answer. He knows the answer of how he’s going to pay for that $5 billion. He is going to pay for it the same way that conservative parties in B.C. have always paid for these promises, by cutting the services that you and your family depend on.”

The New Democrats announced a series of measures Friday for a re-elected Eby government: urgent primary care centres in Greater Victoria and Port Hardy, expanded involuntary care at the Okanagan Correctional Centre in Oliver, and a new middle school in Coquitlam’s Burke Mountain neighbourhood.

Eby also criticized Mike Hicks, a Conservative candidate in the swing riding of Juan de Fuca-Malahat, over comments about B.C.’s treaties with First Nations. Video appeared to show Hicks saying, “in law, we have to conquer or sign a treaty with the First Nations.” He also appeared to say: “We just arrived, we settled in, and we didn’t do any of it,” while explaining the need for treaties. Hicks said his comments were being taken “out of context.” Eby said they showed Conservative extremism. Hicks responded that, as time ran out on his answer, he had “inartfully” explained B.C.’s need “for developing modern treaties.”

Green Party Leader Emily Lowan received a major endorsement Friday when Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said he supported her in the Saanich North and the Islands riding. His wife, Joan, was elected and served as an NDP member of the legislature before she died this summer. Stewart Phillip was a strong New Democrat supporter during the 2024 provincial campaign.

The NDP later issued a statement saying Phillip had endorsed Eby as premier and calling him “the best choice as leader of this province.” The statement quoted Stewart as saying: “David Eby has a good heart, and true genuine friends and allies are forever.” It added: “I supported Emily Lowan in her candidacy in Saanich North and the Islands, a riding that the Greens have held for the past three elections, because she has earned my full respect and admiration and is part of our future.”

Lowan was the first major-party leader to vote in the race, casting her ballot Friday in Saanichton on Vancouver Island.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026. Wolfgang Depner contributed to the report.