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IN OUR VIEW: Premier is in the hot seat

David Eby has a lot of work to do and two years to get going on it
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B.C. Premier David Eby. (Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito)

No premier of B.C. has ever had an easy job, but the freshly sworn in David Eby has a particularly hard set of challenges.

Eby has hit the ground running, with major announcements on tackling street crime, mental health, and the housing affordability crisis.

No problem, those are simple issues easily solved with a little common sense, right?

(This is sarcasm.)

Then he’s just got to keep the provincial economy ticking along, find a pile of new doctors and nurses, keep unemployment low, avoid running up the provincial debt, protect the environment while ensuring forestry, mining, and fisheries can continue to create jobs, build a vast array of new infrastructure, finish rebuilding all that stuff the floods and fires have damaged (including an entire town), build a whole bunch of new schools and, oh yeah, make sure we’re prepared for whatever the next COVID variant has in store for us this winter.

No premier, of any party, can actually solve every problem facing the province simultaneously.

But it seems Eby has the energy to try to tackle a number of them at once, at least.

It’s always a peculiar situation when a new premier takes over mid-stream. British Columbians voted two years ago for a government headed by John Horgan. They rejected a Liberal opposition headed by Andrew Wilkinson.

Now we have two years for Eby to prove himself, against Kevin Falcon of soon-to-be-BC United, before we go to the polls again.

It’s a good length of time.

None of the significant issues facing this province are amenable to quick fixes. But two years should be enough time to see if we’re moving in the right direction, or if change at the top is warranted.

In the meantime, we can only wish Eby success. It’s better for all of us if our premier actually fixes a few things, after all.

– M.C.

READ ALSO: IN OUR VIEW: Flood’s lesson is to prepare for tomorrow