British Columbia Premier David Eby’s decision to call a provincial election a full two years before the next scheduled vote is a strategic gamble.

In short, Eby has bet the future of his NDP government, gambling that it will be easier to win re-election in the current climate than it would be in 2028. Looking at the history of B.C.’s party system, it’s easy to see how Eby came to this conclusion. Whether the gamble will pay off on Oct. 24 is still an open question.

The recurrent theme in B.C. politics is polarization between the left and the right.

Since the 1930s, the left has been primarily represented first by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, known as the CCF, and then by the New Democratic Party.

The right has gone through several iterations over the decades, from a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives in the 1940s to Social Credit until the 1990s and the Liberals in the 2000s, with the Conservatives becoming the right’s standard-bearer in the 2020s.

By my own calculations, British Columbians have been governed by the various parties of the right for about six decades in the post-Second World War war period, while the NDP has........

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