A historic B.C. election is moving further into the rearview as we look ahead to what’s next for a Conservative majority government, and we touched base with former MLA Ravi Kahlon to get his take on the results and where the province is headed.
Prior to the snap B.C. election call, Kahlon was a BC NDP MLA for Delta North and served as the minister of health. Before that, he was the housing minister and contributed to some significant changes in local housing regulations, like introducing the short-term rental regulations in a move to try to lower rent across the province.
Kahlon, a member of the Delta Sports Hall of Fame and Olympic field hockey player, first ran for office in 2017 with the BC NDP. He was parliamentary secretary for sport and multiculturalism with former premier John Horgan. He won re-election in 2020. In 2022, after Horgan retired, he joined David Eby’s campaign as co-chair. He was re-elected in 2024.
Reflecting on snap election results and former leader David Eby
BCGov/Flickr
Kahlon announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election just hours after Former Premier and BC NDP Leader David Eby called a controversial and highly unpopular snap election.
“The result is the result. It was clearly not the right call. The mood wasn’t there from the public,” Kahlon told Daily Hive Urbanized.
Still, he said it was a disappointing and challenging result, and based on the people he’s spoken with, the reaction ranges from sadness to anger.
In our conversation, Kahlon reflected on a tweet he shared on election night.
Thank you @DavidEby and his family for the sacrifices of public life. The demands of leadership extend far beyond the job itself, and your family has shared in that commitment.
Congrats to @LDoerkson on this next chapter of serving the people of BC.
— Ravi Kahlon (@KahlonRav) October 25, 2026
He said he meant it, acknowledging this most recent B.C. election experience was a tough one for Eby.
“Having three little ones demanding your time, but you need to be there for the province, that’s a hard thing,” he said, noting the impact the B.C. election had on Eby’s family.
Kahlon said he wasn’t going to weigh in on conversations about whether or not Eby should have called the election, vowing not to be an armchair quarterback.
He did say that when the idea of a snap election came up with the possibility of seeking re-election, for him it was a question of whether or not he wanted to miss critical moments in his son’s life — especially after losing his father six years ago, a man who was always working.
“I did not want that for my kid.”
He didn’t want that for his partner either, who has essentially been raising a child on her own for 10 years.
Adjusting back to family life
Ravi Khalon. (Government of B.C.)
Kahlon reflected on his own experience spending more time with his family since stepping away from politics, and he shared that he’s getting used to his new life.
“It’s killing me,” he said, mostly joking.
“I always joke with my sister; you always hide your trauma in work.”
Kahlon said he’s always been “go, go, go,” and then it all stopped cold turkey, which has been a challenge.
He recalled a heartbreaking thing he heard, likely something that many in politics can relate to, when his son said, “I don’t know what it would be like to have you around all the time.”
Kahlon said he needed to step away and have a break.
Questions about the Conservative housing policy
Lorne Doerkson. (Conservative Party of British Columbia)
Following his massive B.C. election win, Conservative Party Leader Lorne Doerkson won’t be sworn in until mid-November, but there could be some major shifts in policy, including Bill 44.
Bill 44 is something that the new Conservative majority government has intended to either repeal or overhaul. The bill essentially shifts power away from local governments and requires cities with over 5,000 residents to allow small-scale, multi-unit housing in neighbourhoods that were restricted to single-family homes.
As the former housing minister, we asked Kahlon for his thoughts.
“I think we have to ask a fundamental question, which is: what are we trying to do on housing, and who are we trying to do it for?”
For Kahlon, he shared that he wanted to make sure young people felt like they had an opportunity to live and stay in our communities, have families, and not just live in a condo.
He suggested the Conservatives seem to be going a different route.
“Rents can go back up if you start opening up the market to investors. If you don’t unlock opportunities for new types of housing to be built in neighbourhoods that people want to live in, you’re going to have the same problem, which is young people are going to leave the province because they can’t afford to live here,” Kahlon said.
While Kahlon acknowledges the critiques of small-scale multi-units, he’s heard many positives from the community, like families being able to stay with their kids in a fourplex, for example. Kahlon suggests it has made a difference in our community.
“I think the question for the Conservatives will be, what is their housing policy trying to solve, and how does repealing this actually help young people be able to stay in our communities?
What the next four years may look like, and the future BC NDP leader
Since Kahlon didn’t want to be an armchair analyst, and since he, for the time being, is just a regular B.C. resident and not currently an MLA, we asked him if he has any concerns about the next four years under a Conservative majority.
He said he wanted to give Doerkson some time before coming to any criticisms about his leadership. But he still shared a few reflections, including making comparisons to when Gordon Campbell was in charge in the 2000s as premier and leader of the BC Liberals.
Campbell cut corporate taxes, and there were some major infrastructure expansions during his reign. Campbell also famously brought in the controversial Harmonized Sales Tax. That tax led to a series of events that ultimately resulted in his resignation.
“Looking at kind of how they structure themselves, it looks exactly like the Premier Campbell government,” he said.
Kahlon suspects that we’re going to hear the same thing we heard from the Campbell government, which is, “Oh, the economy is awful and the budget is worse, and so we have to make these cuts.”
“When in reality, they saw the budget, they knew the challenge, they made $5 billion of commitments, and said, ‘We’re not going to raise taxes.’ I think that’s going to be a tough one to square, and so I’ll be watching that,” he said.
Aside from some of his housing concerns, he’s also got worries when it comes to how the Conservatives will deal with First Nations.
“I think that this idea that they sold the public, or a lot of the public, that somehow if we get rid of DRIPA, that it’s going to solve all of the issues people have around private property. When the truth is that it was never that, and now they’re going to have to deal with that commitment that they’ve made to the public, and I don’t think it’s good for outcomes for Indigenous people,” Kahlon said, adding he doesn’t see it as a good thing for economic development.
“But again, we’ll see. It’s a lot easier to critique. It’s much harder to actually do.”
He added that he wants to give Doerkson some space to show that he can do it.
Finally, we asked Kahlon if it’s too soon to wonder what his next move is going to be.
“I would just say that there’s a lot of good leaders within our movement,” he replied.
He mentioned potential future leaders like Niki Sharma, Josie Osborne, and Ravi Parmar. He also mentioned people on the outside, like popular Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, and the possibility of Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley.
“I’m not worried about having a strong person that will lead this movement into the next election. I’m confident that we’ll be there. And as for me, it’s something I’ll have to explore.”
He added that exploration would occur “down the road,” as his main focus now is giving his family the time that he hadn’t been able to in the past.