What will 2024 bring in B.C. politics?

Now that the legislative session in Victoria has come to an end for 2023, planning is in full force for the next.

The 2024 session will be the last before the next provincial election, meaning there’s even more pressure on all political parties.

For the NDP, political scientist Gerald Baier says the focus will be on results around legislation recently passed and not on introducing new bills.

“They’re seeking to, sort of, build on the things that they’ve made legislative headway on. So on housing, they’ve put in all kinds of new rules — now they want to demonstrate that it’s actually working,” he explained.

“Some of that is spending the money that they’re now free to or that they have the, kind of, infrastructure to spend it in, because they’ll want to point to those kinds of results when the election comes around, right? They’ll want to be able to say, ‘we’ve done this now.'”

For BC United, Baier says the party needs to work on name recognition, after they underwent the official change from the BC Liberal Party in April.

Additionally, he says BCU will want to work to set the agenda.

“They’re going to try to define the issues that they want the election to be run around. Safety, affordability, I think, will be key themes,” Baier said.

“It’s still a ‘Who are you?’ kind of a time.”

He says BC United needs to “solidify what they are and who they are, and who they relative to historical precedent.”

And while the BC Conservatives are seeing a bump in the polls thanks in part to the federal Conservative Party’s popularity, even though the two are not affiliated, Baier says they’re unlikely to have the organizational capacity to ride that bump very far.

The last legislative session of 2023 ended Nov. 30 and the spring session will start in February when the BC NDP tables its budget following the Throne Speech. The provincial election is scheduled for Oct. 19, 2024.