B.C. NDP meeting to select new interim leader this week
Published 4:52 pm Tuesday, October 27, 2026
The B.C. NDP caucus is meeting this week to select an interim leader to replace David Eby, who announced he will step aside after leading his party to an ill-fated snap election.
Both outgoing and new members of the legislature plan to meet.
“Separately, the party will take a clear and honest look at the campaign and set the timing and process for a leadership race in the weeks and months ahead,” a caucus spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Outgoing Health minister Ravi Kahlon gave a few possible names for interim leader, including Mike Farnworth, who served as Eby’s NDP House leader; Josie Osborne, the outgoing Finance minister; Adrian Dix, a former party leader and outgoing Energy minister; and Niki Sharma, Eby’s attorney general.
He also mentioned Ravi Parmar, Spencer Chandra Herbert or Jennifer Whiteside as possibilities. All served as ministers in Eby’s government.
“There’s no shortage of very talented people,” said Kahlon, adding that he doesn’t expect the process to be divisive.
Kahlon, who chose not to run for re-election, says he planned to focus on his family and wouldn’t consider serving as interim leader.
But he didn’t rule out running for the permanent post.
“You never know what will happen in the future, but my focus medium-term is on my family,” he said.
Like Kahlon, Parmar didn’t rule out running for leadership.
“Too early to say,” Parmar said. “I would say that I learned from my mentor in politics, [former premier] John Horgan, that before one should act, they should do a lot of listening and learning.”
The NDP’s last leadership race was contentious. Eby ran against Anjali Appadurai, but was acclaimed after Appadurai was disqualified for allegedly breaking party electoral rules by working with outside organizations.
University of British Columbia political science lecturer Stewart Prest says Eby never really found his stride after that leadership race.
“I think it cast a pall over his leadership that he was never able to fully escape,” Prest said.
This time, Prest expects a “broad and thorough” leadership race, and for the party to take a hard look at itself to figure out how to tell its own story and better highlight its successes, such as the many infrastructure projects that will come to fruition over the coming years.
“The NDP needs to step back, take stock,” Prest said.
Besides himself, Kahlon floated Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West or Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley as possible candidates for permanent leader.
But Mario Canseco of the polling firm Research Co. says it may not be a “compelling or attractive proposition” to take over a party facing years in opposition.
“It’s probably a six- or eight-year proposition unless the government fails remarkably,” he said. “And it’s difficult for somebody who wants to make that commitment to be told the chances of you becoming premier in the next election when it happens are fairly slim.”