David Eby

David Robert Patrick Eby (; born July 21, 1976) is a Canadian politician and lawyer who has served as the 37th premier of British Columbia since November 18, 2022. Eby is a member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) and has served as party leader since October 21, 2022. He has represented Vancouver-Point Grey in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia since 2013. Eby began his...

David Robert Patrick Eby (; born July 21, 1976) is a Canadian politician and lawyer who has served as the 37th premier of British Columbia since November 18, 2022. Eby is a member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) and has served as party leader since October 21, 2022. He has represented Vancouver-Point Grey in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia since 2013. Eby began his legal career with a focus on civil rights and social justice issues, working at the Pivot Legal Society from 2005 to 2008. He then became the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), serving from 2008 to 2012. During this period, Eby gained recognition for his advocacy on civil liberties and legal reforms, establishing himself as a prominent figure in British Columbia's legal community. He was also an adjunct professor of law at the University of British Columbia from 2009 to 2013 and served as president of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. In 2013, Eby was elected to the provincial legislature, representing Vancouver-Point Grey, unseating Christy Clark, who was the incumbent premier at the time. His legislative career has been marked by his work on housing affordability, public safety, and legal reforms. In 2017, he was appointed attorney general in Premier John Horgan's cabinet, where he contributed to policies aimed at addressing housing affordability, money laundering, and electoral reform. In 2022, Eby became leader of the NDP following the resignation of Premier Horgan, who stepped down due to health concerns. Eby was subsequently elected party leader by acclamation and was sworn in as premier on November 18, 2022. In the 2024 provincial election, he led the NDP as they held on to a narrow majority, securing 47 seats—the smallest possible majority in the legislature. Early life and career David Robert Patrick Eby was born in 1976 in Kitchener, Ontario. His father, Brian, was a personal injury lawyer and his mother, Laura, was a teacher, and later an elementary school principal. The eldest of four children, he has a sister, Meaghan, and two brothers named Matthew and Patrick. As a teenager, he took his brother to protest against the treatment of circus elephants. He was president of the student council at St. Mary's High School in his final year. He studied English at the University of Waterloo and worked for a communications firm after graduation. In 2004, he graduated from the Schulich School of Law in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He articled for the Department of Justice Canada and was called to the bar in June 2005. He worked at Pivot Legal Society from 2005 to 2008 in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before becoming the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) from 2008 until 2012. He is the author of The Arrest Handbook: A Guide to Your Rights, published by the BCCLA. He was an adjunct professor of law at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from 2009 to 2013, and also served as president of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and as a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Early political career (2008–2017) In 2008, Eby sought a Vancouver city council nomination from Vision Vancouver, but was unsuccessful. In 2011, Eby stood as the NDP candidate in the by-election for Vancouver-Point Grey. The riding had been vacated by former premier Gordon Campbell and was being contested by newly sworn in premier Christy Clark, of the BC Liberal Party, who did not hold a seat in the legislature. Eby placed a close second, only 595 votes behind Clark. Two years later, ahead of the 2013 general election, he again sought the NDP nomination in Vancouver-Point Grey for a rematch against Clark. On election day, Eby defeated Clark in a rare instance of a premier being unseated despite their party winning re-election. After his election as MLA, Eby was named to the NDP shadow cabinet as critic for advanced education. Eby strongly considered standing in the 2014 British Columbia New Democratic Party leadership election, but declined after learning his then-fiancée was pregnant. He then served as campaign co-chair of John Horgan's successful leadership bid. Later that year, Eby was named the critic for tourism, housing, gaming and liquor policy. As housing critic, he called for an inquiry into Vancouver's real estate market over a practice called "shadow flipping", suggesting it was being done as part of tax avoidance and money laundering. He also uncovered several instances of high-value property being purchased by buyers listed as students and homemakers, and called for an investigation into whether banks were enabling speculation by not verifying income. In 2016, former NDP premier Glen Clark described Eby as "the future of the NDP". Attorney General of British Columbia (2017–2022) Following the 2017 British Columbia election, which saw the NDP form government with the support of the Green Party, Eby was appointed to the cabinet of John Horgan as attorney general. He additionally became minister responsible for liquor, gaming and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC). During Eby's tenure, British Columbia passed anti-SLAPP legislation. BC briefly had similar legislation in 2001, enacted by the then-incumbent NDP government that year before being repealed by the subsequent Liberal government. The new law was stronger than the previous version, removing the requirement to prove the person suing had bad intentions and needing only to show that being sued negatively impacted their ability to express an opinions a matter of public interest. Josh Paterson, the executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, said the law should be "the model that other provinces should seek to copy." In 2018, Maclean's described Eby's workload as "handl[ing] every live grenade in BC politics." On July 19, 2022, Eby stepped down from cabinet in order to stand in the 2022 British Columbia New Democratic Party leadership election. ICBC reform On July 24, 2017, Eby released a report by accounting firm Ernst & Young that concluded that ICBC was in a poor financial situation. The report found the problem to lie in "the rising number and size of claims, larger cash settlements for minor injuries, and more claims costs going towards legal representation than to claimants", and that without significant reform, premiums for drivers would have to rise by almost 30% in two years to avoid significant losses. Over the next few months, Eby enacted measures to help tackle the issue, including a 6.4% rate increase, red light cameras at high-collision intersections, and a pilot program to eliminate distracted driving. In January 2018, ICBC projected a net loss of $1.3 billion by the end of the current fiscal year. The following day, Eby described ICBC as a "financial dumpster fire" due to the "reckless decisions" and negligence of the previous Liberal government. Eby promised "major reforms to make ICBC financially viable again" would be announced shortly, but ruled out a switch to a no-fault insurance system. In February 2018, the government announced several major changes to accident coverage. Payments for soft-injury claims were capped, medical benefits and wage loss payments were doubled, common treatments became pre-approved, and payouts changed from a lump-sum to a "care-based model" to cover costs on an as-needed basis. ICBC also changed its dispute resolution mechanism to a new civil resolution system to reduce legal costs. The changes were estimated to save $1 billion a year, though Eby did not rule out a future rate increase. In September 2018, a new method of calculating insurance premiums came into effect that was more heavily weighted towards driving experience and crash history, and overall determined more by driver than vehicle. The change was expected to be revenue neutral, with two-thirds of drivers seeing their rates reduced but the remaining third of riskier drivers paying substantially more. In February 2019, ICBC reported a net loss of $860 million in the first nine months of the fiscal year. The corporation blamed the loss on the escalating cost of insurance claims, and Eby said that reports from expert witnesses – some files including as much as six medical experts – were driving the costs. Later in February, Eby announced a cap on expert witnesses, to a maximum of three. On October 24, 2019, the Supreme Court of British Columbia struck down the cap, finding it "infringe[d] on the court's core jurisdiction to control its process". The province did not appeal and instead pursued new legislation to limit the number of expert reports while allowing for judicial discretion on whether additional experts are needed. In February 2020, Eby announced that ICBC would be moving to a no-fault system. The change limited the types of collision where an ICBC customer can go to court for damage, with disputes instead being handled through the Civil Resolution Tribunal. The change to a no-fault system was justified as dramatically reducing the legal costs of ICBC, quickening payment of benefits, and lowering premiums. The announcement was criticized by the Trial Lawyers Association of BC. The introduction of no-fault insurance came despite Eby having previously ruled it out; Eby justified his change of mind by saying he previously "had too much confidence that the legal system could change more quickly than it actually can." After having been told by ICBC officials that a cap on injury costs would save $1 billion annually but still wasn't enough to prevent a 36% rate increase over the next five years, Eby was convinced the existing set-up was unsustainable. Premier Horgan had given his approval in December 2019. The government's 2020 budget projected an $86 million surplus for ICBC in the 2020/21 fiscal year, growing to $191 million by 2022/2023. It was the first posted surplus for the corporation since 2015/16. In March 2020, Eby announced plans to introduce legislation to ensure ICBC's profits would remain in the corporation, used to reduce premiums or increase benefits, and prevent governments using it to cover other expenses – a practice Eby had previously criticized the Liberal government for, and that he said had contributed to ICBC's poor financial state. Later in March 2020, the government announced that the maximum payout for serious disabling injuries would rise from $300,000 to $7.5 million. The move was to be financed by further moving disputes from court to the civil resolution tribunal, expected to save $1.5 billion in legal fees. The legislation was challenged by the Trial Lawyers Association of BC, and on March 3, 2021, the BC Supreme Court struck down the rules. It found that the government's decision to move the determination of accident claims out of the court system to its own tribunals was unconstitutional, and rejected the government's argument that injury cases were clogging the court system. The government appealed the decision, and on May 17, 2022, the BC Court of Appeal reversed the lower court's decision and sided with the government. Investigation into money laundering Upon being appointed minister, Eby was surprised to discover that the scale of money laundering in the province was much larger than he had believed. He found it "incomprehensible that the previous government had not done more to reduce the risk of money laundering and criminal activity in BC gambling facilities". On September 28, 2017, the government officially launched an investigation into the breadth of money laundering being done in the province's casinos. Eby hired Peter German, a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP and Correctional Service Canada and the author of Canada's leading anti-money-laundering law textbook, to lead the investigation. German's 2018 report found that over $100 million of dirty money had been cleaned in BC due to "a collective system failure". On May 8, 2019, a re