B.C. election season is here. What issues will your votes impact?

B.C. election season is upon us, with both the local and provincial elections just weeks away.

The municipal election is on Oct. 17, and the provincial snap election is just one week later on Oct. 24.

Municipal and provincial responsibilities tend to overlap and get muddied, with both levels of government often campaigning on the same issues, such as housing.

Daily Hive Urbanized interviewed two political science professors to break down exactly what vote will impact when you head to the ballot box for each B.C. election next month.

How does each level of government work?

Canada’s powers are split in two: between the federal government and the provincial governments.

The federal government is responsible for things like national defence, banking, citizenship, criminal law, and unemployment insurance.

The provincial government is responsible for things like hospitals, education, property rights, and natural resources. It is also responsible for municipalities.

“But the province has, through legislation, delegated important powers to cities,” said Stewart Prest, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia.

Because of this, cities are responsible for zoning bylaws (which regulate land use and buildings), development, and provision of core utilities like water, sewage, garbage pickup, and transportation.

“Effectively, the things that matter most to people in their daily lives tend to be the responsibility of the municipal government,” said Prest. “They’re the kinds of things that you really only notice when they’re going wrong, but then they become extraordinarily important.”

Municipalities are often responsible for arranging policing, though it varies from community to community, depending on its size and complexity. Vancouver, for example, has the Vancouver Police Department.

Most municipalities in the Lower Mainland are members of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, which is “a kind of federated structure,” where each city comes together to agree on how to manage large-scale utility projects, like water and sewage.

Sanjay Jeram, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University (SFU), said that health and education take up a big portion of the Province’s budget.

He added that people tend to see “fiscal management” as a separate issue, in terms of how the provincial government manages the programs and raises revenues.

Further, the provincial government has the capacity to manage strategic investments in the local economy, as it has its own tax-raising power.

He said another responsibility Canada’s provincial leaders have had in recent years has been to lobby not only the federal government for changes to make their economy stronger, but also to liaise with state governors.

“There’s almost like an international relations component to being the premier that wasn’t there before,” Jeram said.

How do both the provincial and municipal governments work together?

B.C.’s Ministry of Health is responsible for health care in the province, working with a provincial health authority, five regional health authorities (including Vancouver Coastal Health), and a First Nations health authority.

However, municipal governments tend to advocate to the province for various health services, and a number of municipal parties have included healthcare in their platforms.

For example, Surrey mayoral candidate Doug McCallum promised to build a new, full-service hospital in Surrey on municipal-owned land. He said his municipal government would fast-track the application and issue all City permits, then go to both the provincial and federal governments for construction funding.

Another instance is Mayor Ken Sim, who is currently seeking re-election. As part of his election platform, he’s promised to push for at least 100 involuntary care beds in Vancouver.

Professor Jeram said this is a “tried and tested strategy of cities.”

But he added that to some extent, it isn’t unreasonable, given that cities don’t have much capacity to raise their own revenues compared to senior levels of government.

“If you don’t have money, there’s not a lot you can do,” he said.

What B.C. election has the most influence on housing?

Given how expensive housing has become, it is no surprise that it is a major campaign pillar in each B.C. election.

Premier David Eby and the BC NDP have promised in their campaign that they would bring in an “unsold condo tax” and increase the speculation and vacancy tax. They said this would encourage developers to lower their asking prices and push owners of vacant properties to find long-term tenants.

Lorne Doerkson, the leader of the Conservative Party, criticized this plan, saying that NDP taxes and red tape “are the reason homes are too expensive, and every new tax on housing ends up in the price a family pays.” He said they would bring down the cost of building so more homes get built.

Meanwhile, nearly all of the major municipal parties running in Vancouver have housing promises in their campaign, including approving homes faster, building permanently affordable homes, and protecting affordable rental housing.

Professor Prest said that the Province is responsible for all areas related to the management of the economy and private affairs, which includes housing.

However, this power has been delegated to cities, so they control their development plans and create zoning for various neighbourhoods.

But the provincial government still does have the right to step in and require a city to change its zoning. It’s done this in recent years, requiring a number of cities to change zoning to allow for more housing density in certain neighbourhoods, something that many communities have opposed.

And while there is no obligation, both the federal and provincial governments often provide funding to cities for housing.

How is education managed?

The Province sets the enabling legislation for the overall curriculum, as well as funding and building schools.

But individual school districts (which are voted through the municipal process) administer the programming within their districts, and have some flexibility in influencing the specifics of the curriculum taught.

In the municipal election, voters cast votes for the School Board, which is why municipal parties are campaigning on various education promises, like bringing swimming lessons into the school day.

What are the central ballot questions?

As we approach each B.C. election, there are a couple of key issues that parties seem to be campaigning on.

For the municipal election, Professor Prest said that there’s a division between people who are worried about their city’s stability and are focusing on law and order, and those who feel like there is a “sense of declining services from government at a time when we actually need more.”

Another “axis of debate” is around housing, specifically the question of whether cities need greater densification to try to bring down the cost, or “whether the whole idea of trying to meet unmet need in housing is misguided,” given its effects on housing prices and that it allows poor people to live in communities.

Meanwhile, Prest said the debate on the provincial election is currently one of framing.

The BC NDP want voters to see the divisions within the Conservative Party. While there are more moderate Conservatives — and it seems like Lorne Doerkson is one of them — there is also a “more radical populist wing,” which former Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findley was “tapping into,” Prest said.

“[This] tends to resonate more broadly with a wide range of themes that we associate with MAGA politics. And the NDP wants people to think about that and be concerned with that.”

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party wants voters to focus on the BC NDP’s governance, pointing to the unmet need in health care and education, a multibillion-dollar deficit, and the party’s handling of DRIPA.

As B.C. residents vote, Prest said that the framing will determine their ballot box question.

“Is it conservative instability and radicalism? Is it NDP’s baggage from office? That will go a long way to decide who’s going to win,” he said.

With files from Kenneth Chan