Opinion: Irony was heavy in the room when the NDP leader trotted out new promises on groceries this week

VICTORIA — NDP leader David Eby was deep into a news conference on a promise of relief from high gasoline prices when he got hit with the toughest question of the campaign so far.

“In the last election, you promised British Columbians up to $1,000 in a grocery rebate,” a reporter asked. “That never ended up happening. How can voters be sure that whatever you’re promising now will come to fruition?”

Eby’s rebate of $1,000 for households, or $500 for individuals, was one of the most expensive promises ever made in a B.C. election campaign, being costed at $1.8 billion.

It is also one of the most expensive promises ever broken, since Eby never delivered the money.

It was a stunning betrayal, considering Eby’s paper-thin margin of victory. He held his legislative majority by 22 votes in one seat. The promised rebate might have made the difference with enough voters to make him premier.

Eby initially blamed the reversal of the promise on affordability concerns and the emerging threat of a tariff war with the U.S. This week he claimed that the New Democrats had decided to offset the promised grocery rebate by eliminating the carbon tax.

“We made a difficult decision in changing circumstances to eliminate the carbon tax,” the premier told reporters Thursday. “That $2 billion was passed on directly to British Columbians.”

Actually, Eby abandoned support for the carbon tax 10 days before the start of the 2024 election campaign.

“We don’t want people to have to choose between taking climate action and being able to feed their family and make the rent,” he said. ”People need the support right now.”

Yet he also promised the grocery rebate in his election platform, never mentioning that it was conditional on the carbon tax, leaving voters to conclude that both would proceed.

The backtracking began only after the votes were counted.

Later in his week’s news conference, Eby got asked a second time about the missing $1,000 rebate and he again cited the elimination of the carbon tax.

“That was a significant decision — significant for the provincial treasury,” said Eby, professing more concern about the state of the treasury than he has done while piling up record deficits.

He then linked the carbon tax relief to this week’s announcement on gasoline.

“That was the decision that we made to support British Columbians with the cost of fuel and the cost of heating. Today, it’s the same thing,” said the NDP leader.

Eby says the full value of the reduction in carbon taxes wasn’t passed on to consumers because of profit taking and price gouging by the oil companies. The NDP response will be twofold: a “temporary” 10-cent reduction in the tax on a litre of gasoline, costed at $250 million, and a cap on pricing, patterned after one in place in the Maritime provinces.

“Consumers out there, they don’t see the long weekend gas gouge that we’re very used to here in B.C. because they have regulated gas prices,” said Eby.

The new regulatory regime would be enforced by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

It has been seven years since NDP premier John Horgan directed the commission to conduct an inquiry into gasoline prices. The New Democrats later claimed it had found evidence of “gouging” and promised to do something about it.

The Horgan government also considered adopting the Maritime provinces’ model of price capping. But I gather it decided not to proceed out of a concern that B.C. is too dependent on gasoline imports from the U.S. A price cap would lead to shortages and lineups, as U.S. producers withheld supplies until the market corrected itself.

Eby’s price-fixing scheme, like the reduction in the gas tax, would require legislation, meaning the relief will be no more immediate than the grocery rebate he touted in 2024.

“We’re going to have to set out the law that requires them (the oil companies) to fully disclose all their costs and ensure that they are not gouging British Columbians,” said Eby. We’re going to cut the tax, and we’re going to make sure that that tax cut actually reaches the pockets of British Columbians.”

Eby would be well-positioned to introduce those changes if the legislature were sitting, as it was scheduled to do starting Monday. Instead he called an unnecessary election, which forced the cancellation of the fall session.

Then, on Friday, the premier announced he would have another go at grocery prices, this time with a vow to crackdown on gouging and impose a cap on profits.

“Families are being squeezed every time they go to the grocery store,” declared Eby, oblivious to the irony of those words being uttered by a politician who promised to do something about the problem last election — then didn’t.