Reflections on Vancouver, British Columbia and other topics, related or not

 

Desperate, desperate
David Eby

B.C.’s NDP government hires a Vancouver-quality
“comedian” to torque his image

Greg Klein | September 18, 2025

 

A cliche in every other respect,
Demers strangely lacks a nose ring.

 

It’s like they’re gonna have to come up with, like, new words and stuff to describe this guy’s awesomeness. And, like, the fascist opposition party (The fascists, eh! They’re just a buncha Nazi fascists!!!) are like so Neanderthal to, like, crucify him?

Whether or not that accurately expresses Vancouver vernacular, it’s no more stupid. Vancouver’s the stupid little world that produces aspiring sub-mediocrities like Charles Demers, the “joke writer” hired as an NDP writer.

The jokes are obvious. Just one example is his 2018 book called Property Values, a worse-than-terrible novel that’s among the most badly written published efforts I’ve seen.

The others came from Pseud City too. But this guy’s celebrated. He reaps accolades from awesomely august sources spanning Vancouver’s Enlightened and Creative communities. They even include the B.C. General Employees Union, which complements public service with keen insight into gender, Jews and jokes; and the British Columbia Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts, the institutions that most certainly will one day, surely, finally, definitely put Canada on the map.

Thanks no doubt to those last two institutions, this Demers character has a published oeuvre of novels, books of essays and other stuff. He’s also considered a stand-up comedian, a CBC Radio comedian, a speechwriter, a political commentator and (of course) an intellectual. He very well might be all of that, by Vancouver standards.

He’s probably a slam poet too.

 

Demers’ work does reflect Vancouver,
although not as intended.

 

Yet anyone who’d not only write, but consent to publication of anything like Property Values can’t function beyond Vancouver’s Revenge of the Inadequate—although, at the money he’s getting from B.C. taxpayers, it’s a vindictively lucrative revenge.

Contributing to his shit writing are stereotypical expressions of SJW sentiments. That might be what got him previous NDP government work paying $100,000 over three years and a new NDP government contract potentially worth $450,000 over three years. That’s at $165 an hour, just for being trite. And trite is exactly what to expect from an ultra-orthodox regime conformist.

So the best this guy could do for his paymasters is preach the ideological gospel to the ideologically obedient. That can’t persuade voters to change parties but it might appeal to NDP insiders. They could be David Eby’s greatest threat and therefore Demers’ intended audience.

John Rustad and his Slightly Different Party might not win the next election even if the “Conservatives” survive that long. But unless Eby gets a clear majority, or is considered capable of doing so prior to the next election, his own party might turn on him.

Certainly he’s made a mess of everything. Leading the NDP into election for his first time, Eby dragged the party down from a powerful majority to a feeble minority. Also squandered was the surprisingly strong budget surplus, now at a record deficit, with record debt and interest charges high enough to alarm people who previously considered government debt a harmless abstraction.

The NDP even pleads debt servicing costs in contract negotiations with the party’s favourite special interest group, the BCGEU. Sometimes called the province’s most powerful union, these people could add muscle to any Eby-ending endeavour.

Nothing else goes well for the guy. His neglect of mental illness has been implicated in the Lapu Lapu atrocity; other crime gets more brazenly and dangerously outrageous; B.C. drug policies are gaining international notoriety; “un-met housing needs” has gone from an excuse for underclass dysfunction to an indictment of Eby; the province shares blame for an economy that’s destroying the middle class, especially for young people, normally an NDP demographic; the “Canada is broken” refrain probably fits B.C. better than anywhere.

 

Can a substandard joke writer restore Eby’s self-confidence?

 

Eby was never prepared for such adversity. From his earliest days as a social justice poseur he expected popularity simply by professing fashionable convictions. That continued throughout his career, as he came to admire Trudeau II’s platitudinous rhetoric and moral preening. Eby even imitated Justine’s style, like the cringe-inducing Trudeau grope. The Turd’s downfall hit Eby hard.

His blame-Trump excuses (for example on breaking a $1,000-per-family/$500-per-individual election promise) seem to have worn out, even among the you-know-who-derangement-syndrome media. In fact Eby has tried to steal some neocon thunder by tentatively approaching positions that the Enlightened consider extreme right wing. That’s more likely to lose past supporters than gain new adherents.

Eby’s sole example of political acumen, cynical as it was, came right after his 2024 election debacle. He forestalled a caucus rebellion by creating enough new cabinet positions to bestow a profitable ministry appointment on almost every NDP MLA. The remaining few got also-remunerative parliamentary-secretary jobs.

Now that they’ve got it, though, no future leader will take it away. So past appeasement won’t discourage a determined leadership challenge as Eby continues to flounder through another B.C. era of shitty NDP government.

With or without that $165-an-hour joke of a writer, the really, really awesomely funneeeee stuff is all on us.