Before he starts a near 12-hour Saturday of campaign events, Premier David Eby sits at his dining room table and watches his two-month-old daughter Gwen kick her legs around on the playmat below. He’s always seemed a man of limitless political energy, ever since he out-hustled Christy Clark in 2013 to upset the then-premier in her riding of Vancouver-Point Grey.
But now, a decade later in political life, two years into holding the top office, with his third child squiggling away on the floor, you begin to see the edges of his ambition.
“It’s definitely harder to leave,” he says, lingering in the family living room.
It’s just a moment, and then the 48-year-old BC NDP leader is up and out the door — whisked into the vortex of political life, tour schedules, aides, security escorts, candidates, crowds, handshakes and selfies.
It’s like watching someone pulled away by an enormous riptide. But if you look very closely, you can see Eby quietly kicking against the current. It’s as if he knows his political life depends upon it.
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Born in Kingston, Ont., Eby emerged the natural politician of four children born to a school teacher mother and personal injury lawyer father. He was student council president in high school, an early activist against the treatment of elephants in the circus, a skilled debater in law school and, eventually, an outspoken advocate for the poor and vulnerable in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Eby got into law, he jokes, to sue politicians. Now he’s the one getting sued — first as attorney general, from 2017 to 2022, then as premier.
His critics say his major reforms to permit decriminalization of drugs, restrict short-term rentals, override municipalities on housing and introduce no-fault vehicle insurance have been too radical.
Eby argues bold policies were needed to tackle the major crises. His promise upon being sworn in 21 months ago was to show voters “real, concrete things that they can see, that they can touch, that show them the direction that we're going.”
Eby says he’s honoured the spirit.
“On the vast majority of issues, yes,” he says. “There have been some where we’ve had to reset course, particularly around decriminalization.”
The BC Conservatives have turned Eby’s promise into an attack ad, contrasting it with the reality of addictions, homelessness and street disorder. Despite a record deficit and a 20 per cent increase in government spending since becoming premier, the Conservatives say Eby has failed to actually show improvements to key areas like health care, child care and housing.
“The bottom line you can see in his approach he’s very much a control freak and doesn’t respect governance and process,” says BC Conservative Leader John Rustad. “He’s desperate to find answers, but doesn’t understand the way he’s going doesn’t work.”
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As a politician, Eby has always been a bit of a lone wolf.
He ran his 2013 grassroots campaign to unseat the premier almost entirely by himself. After he became Opposition housing critic, he made his name with inventive attacks on BC Liberal government cash-for-access fundraisers and foreign buyer housing policies — organizing his own media events and crafting his own political campaigns, much to the frustration of the BC NDP leader’s office.
Eby carried that through into attorney general and housing minister, pushing major reforms to ICBC, housing policy and money laundering on his own terms. He ignored the all-controlling premier’s office. He broke with fellow cabinet ministers, like then-finance minister Selina Robinson.
Eventually, Horgan removed Eby from the powerful cabinet committee that approves major spending, called treasury board. When Horgan went to retire in 2022, Eby was not his preferred successor.
Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, Eby’s political career has flourished.
He’s been adept at identifying areas of public anger and proposing bold solutions. To him, the political ends of achieving the right policy have justified the isolated and at times controlling means. Along the way, his opponents have either stepped aside, or been steamrolled by his focus and work ethic.
Since becoming premier, he’s centralized power in his office and deployed handpicked “special advisors” in areas of health care, Indigenous reconciliation and housing. Their sole purpose, Eby says, has been to keep pushing the civil service, so reforms don’t get stalled out by risk-averse bureaucrats.
He doesn’t believe one man can make all the decisions. Government would cease to operate.
“It’s impossible,” he says.
But Eby also doesn’t much care that it’s the prevailing point of view, because he’s empowered his ministers to use the threatening spectre of the premier’s office to fast-track reforms.
“The public service knows if it gets stalled out, somebody will notice that and the premier’s office will notice what’s happening,” he says.
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When he became premier in late 2022, Eby quickly expressed concerns about being trapped in a bubble, surrounded by yes people, confined by security, unable to interact with ordinary folks or read the public mood.
“The further you move in politics, one of the things I've noticed is the more insulated you can be from the people that are actually delivering the services or the people who are actually having the experience of what the policies look like on the ground,” Eby says.
“And that is a very dangerous position to be in as a politician. You need to know what's happening.”
Eby has tried to kick back on the ever-encroaching bubble in several ways.
One way has been to hold town halls, where he invites community leaders and members of the public to ask him questions. His office insists the events are unscripted, the guest list apolitical and questions unfiltered — which, if true, would put the premier at a high risk for confrontation and negative moments.
“I like the unvarnished feedback,” says Eby. “I really struggle with the parts of politics that are fake and contrived.
“The more authentic and sincere I am … the more it’s worth the risk of an unscripted moment.”
Another move has been to rewrite most of his speeches, despite a team dedicated to this task that includes a Vancouver comedian Eby hired to help craft jokes.
“It’s very, very difficult to capture that specific tone I want and how I like to communicate things,” he says. “And so I rewrite a significant portion of it. Which is not sustainable, probably.”
He removes “political phrases” and “secret coding,” particularly progressive phrasing that appeals to people he says are already prone to support him.
In keeping with his high-risk approach, he often flies without a speech and tries to ad lib humour into public events.
Although he appears at first glance to be a stuffy, ultra-serious, awkward 6’7” lawyer — he’s worked hard to be more relaxed, approachable and funny while campaigning.
When asked to don the head of a traditional Chinese lion costume at an event in Vancouver’s Chinatown in late August, he produces an on-the-fly joke about being Canada’s tallest lion.
Later, at the monument for Vietnamese refugees from communism, he delivers an entirely unrehearsed address to the crowd about the sacrifices of Vietnamese boat people, while also managing to poke fun at Vancouver-Kingsway MLA Adrian Dix, who is for some reason wearing a blue karate uniform with yellow belt at the event.
“I’m a bit of a stand-up fan,” Eby says later when asked about his approach. “I have a huge respect for that, and I think it's an art form, that ability to deliver an effective joke.”
Over two years, Eby says he’s improved his ability to read a room.
“I’m a better public speaker,” he says. “I’m more relaxed.”
But have his efforts to push back on the isolation of being the premier given him a clearer read on the public mood?
His opponents say top-down decision-making from the premier’s office has contributed to major misreads in public opinion — most notably the public backlash over decriminalization of possession of illicit drugs like cocaine, heroin and fentanyl. Eby reversed course in April, but the political damage was done.
A better example, though, would be involuntary care.
Eby strongly supports the idea of hospitalising people who repeatedly overdose, to get them addictions and mental health help when they aren’t able to make their own health decisions.
He proposed this policy in his mid-2020 leadership campaign, but after becoming premier he was convinced to back off by Indigenous leaders, civil liberties groups, the coroner, provincial public health officer and some addictions experts.
His political opponents have better read the public fatigue over people with addictions passed out on sidewalks, filling hospital beds, shoehorned into long term care homes, and in the grips of psychosis on city streets.
The Conservative party promises to enact involuntary care as a compassionate measure. Eby is now playing catchup, after not following his instincts. He’s expected to resurrect the measure as part of the fall election campaign.
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Eby’s 21 months as premier have been defined by an incredibly ambitious pace. He’s accelerated government decision-making to the point that major policy announcements occur almost daily. As schedules go, his administration is orders of magnitude more active than that of predecessor John Horgan — a reflection, perhaps, also of how badly the Horgan administration drifted in the latter half of its term.
There’s no shortage of changes to point to, from massive overhauls to remove municipal roadblocks from housing development, new affordability benefits, a doctors compensation deal, health-care recruitment and new schools and hospitals.
It can all be a bit of a number salad of budgetary figures, units and FTEs. Eby says he’s cognizant the challenge now is to stitch it all into some sort of cohesive narrative that voters can understand.
“This is my evolution of what people are expecting from me — my old approach was to make a list of policies,” he says, citing the start of his premiership where he’d put out detailed action plans to the public.
“I’ve realized … the vast majority of people are looking for someone who has the same values as them, and aren’t going to go up and lecture them on the 30-point policy intentions.”
Crafting that narrative, for a government in its seventh term, accused of being too radical in some areas and too lax in others, will be the NDP’s campaign challenge.
Months of polling suggest people aren’t happy with how his government has performed on big issues, but are willing to vote New Democrat. But a change narrative, in the form of the BC Conservatives, has been rising.
“I think things are fluid right now in a way they haven’t been in a long time,” says Eby.
“And people feel willing to look at all parties because … people are looking for solutions to these problems more than to party affiliations.”
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Inside the Eby house, near the University of British Columbia, Eby has carved out what little free time he has to play in the house or backyard with his three kids.
He rises early to make pancakes on this Saturday. His son Ezra, 10, wants to download a new game to his iPad, which requires a quick check from dad for violence. Five-year-old daughter Iva is demonstrating her ability to do the splits while still in her pyjamas.
Occasionally, Eby still gets to dabble in one of his favourite hobbies — looking for bargains at auctions. He checks online catalogues and, where possible, shows up in person to try and find good deals.
Inside the house, this includes a large wooden lion with an antelope in its mouth, on a shelf by the stairway to the top floor. His wife Cailey admits she has no idea why it’s there. “It spoke to me,” says Eby.
Cailey focuses on sports and active living for the family, while Eby is responsible for arts and culture.
He recently returned home with an antique wooden wall decoration depicting Joan of Arc being burned as a heretic. It came with an accompanying decoration of a man with a spear, whom Eby has nicknamed “Steve of Arc, Joan’s lesser-known husband.”
He’s also active on Facebook Marketplace, taking advantage of one person’s offer to deliver an item anywhere in the Lower Mainland by directing him to the downtown Vancouver cabinet office.
“If you are looking for a bargain, you should be looking somewhere else,” Eby says of auction-hunting.
“It’s about the thrill of the hunt.”
Eby also enjoys a good streaming show in the evening — but his choice may surprise you.
Sometimes, he’s into marquee material, like Severance and Silo.
But when he wants to turn his brain off, he prefers reality romance television. Recently, it was Below Deck where eight single crew members sail aboard a luxury yacht in the Caribbean.
“I like how the stakes are low and the angst is high,” he says. “The biggest stakes are some rich person on the boat got a cold dinner. But if you watch the show, you also know crew romances never last.”
It’s a bit of a surprising admission, because you’d probably expect Eby to be up late at night in bed pursuing dry legal tomes. But most recently, he was bingeing Love is Blind UK, where British singles get engaged before even meeting in person.
“There’s a formula to these shows,” says Eby. “It’s calming.”
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Not that he gets a lot of free time anymore to even watch TV.
The job keeps squeezing tighter, and the grounding mechanisms Eby has built to counteract the pressure are faltering.
He had been a devout morning yoga practitioner to centre himself as attorney general. But Yoga Dad has fallen by the wayside, as mornings become either a brief window to see his kids or get booked up by early travel.
He tried for years to keep all his work documents in a box in the kitchen; when the lid went on, family time was prioritized. Even that has proved impossible to hold, as paper documents transitioned to incessant digital notifications to his phone and calls for his attention that keep growing in frequency.
“It’s a more consuming job for sure,” Eby says.
His wife, Cailey, a family doctor, has described Eby as a greyhound dog — a champion sprinter. The joy, she says, is in giving him the support needed to watch him run unfettered at a top speed faster than everyone else.
For a long time, it looked like Eby had no maximum. There was no schedule he couldn’t manage, no report he couldn’t read, no speech he couldn’t give, no file he couldn’t push.
But recently, he has found his limits.
In mid-August, Eby returned from two weeks of holidays to an avalanche of work. The province’s tree fruits sector was on the verge of collapse and his agriculture minister had duffed the file, forcing him to authorize an aid package and immediately launch out the gate into an Okanagan travel tour.
As his vacation ended, he checked his schedule.
“For the first time ever, we were at the table and he was speaking about how he’s got 12-hour days, six in a row, and he was like, ‘That’s ridiculous,’” says his wife Cailey.
“And my mouth fell open.”
Eby had never complained about too much work before.
He nods at the anecdote, as his wife feeds daughter Gwen a new bottle.
“I’ve bumped up against the ceiling a few times,” he admits.
How much harder can he work? How much more can he push back against the bubble?
He pauses.
“This is the max.”
After his tenure as premier concludes, which he hopes continues with a re-election Oct. 19 and well into the future, Eby says he’s done with elected politics.
The goal in the meantime remains to fully utilize the opportunity to work as hard as he can, to bump up against the limits of his family and his premiership, for as long as he can.
He’s a greyhound that launched out of the starting block at max speed, who has suddenly realized it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
“I’m here to get things done, not because there’s no other job available to me or I don’t want to spend time with my family,” he says.
“The reason I’m here is to get things done. And I’m happy to put my name on it.”
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.
