Do we like David Eby?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A solid record on trans people and a rights-lawyer past, held back by a paused Indigenous-rights law plan and a turn towards LNG.
Eby was born in Kitchener, Ontario, studied rhetoric at Waterloo and went to law school in Halifax. He ran the BC Civil Liberties Association from 2008 to 2012 and worked with the Pivot Legal Society in the Downtown Eastside, helping low-income tenants fight illegal evictions. That's a rights-lawyer background, not a career-politician one.
On LGBTQ+ issues his public record is the good kind. His May 2026 Pride statement said queer and trans communities face “growing challenges and harmful policies”. It also called for support for those fighting for “dignity, safety and human rights”. We found nothing from him that demeans trans people, which is a clean pass on the thing this page cares about most.
The asterisk is Indigenous rights. After a B.C. court ruling made the province's UN Declaration law enforceable, Eby proposed pausing parts of it in April 2026, and First Nations leaders were furious. He backed down within weeks and went looking for a joint path. Where you land depends on whether you read it as legal caution or as a retreat from reconciliation.
On the planet, an August Tyee column described splits inside his cabinet over LNG and a new pipeline, which suggests the climate side is contested rather than clean. On drugs, his government let the decriminalisation pilot lapse in January 2026, saying it hadn't delivered the results it wanted, while advocates and critics read that differently. That one is policy argument, not harm in the sense this page means.
The election is the main story now. He gave up a government that didn't have to face voters until 2028 for a gamble, and the NDP fell from 47 seats to 27. One analyst said he spent public trust like a renewable resource. He conceded within about ninety minutes of the polls closing and said he accepted full responsibility, which is a decent way to go.
For the good stuff, he spent years on the civil-liberties and anti-poverty side before politics, including co-publishing a guide to people's rights when arrested. His advocacy there helped push the province to invest in social housing. He's a rights lawyer who got elected, flaws and all.