Premier David Eby heads into this weekend’s BC NDP convention nervously eyeing a leadership review. It’s a political ritual that’s supposed to be symbolic, but might expose more unease than New Democrats would care to admit.

Delegates will gather in Victoria to decide, by secret ballot, whether to keep backing Eby as leader. It’s his first review since the 2024 election, in which the NDP lost eight seats and came within 22 votes of losing its majority.

Eby’s team seems to think the vote will be fine. But their sudden flurry of phone calls, delegate tracking and concessions to angry unions tells another story.

Unease within the party has slowly simmered for months. Critics point to a premier’s office run by a tight, insular circle of advisors, a disconnect with the labour movement (which Eby, admittedly, has never been a part of) and a government that’s unclear on what it stands for.

It’s less a single decision than a pattern, but it includes BC Ferries ships outsourced to China, the forestry sector left to wither brutal job losses, hard-ball bargaining in public sector contracts and party members sidelined from key debates.

There’s also growing unease about why hot-button issues like ER closures and health-care staffing shortages appear to be getting worse, not better.

Eby has tried recently to........

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