The BC New Democrats and the BC Conservative Party are engaging in increasingly fierce attacks on social issues that some say are reminiscent of American-style culture wars.

Premier David Eby has attacked British Columbia’s Conservatives over the issues of abortion, race and gender identity, while the Conservatives have criticized Eby and the “radical NDP,” claiming the government is trying to distract from its own failed policies on public safety and affordability.

Meanwhile, a British Columbia Green Party MP says the attacks distract attention from the complex issues affecting the lives of British Columbians.

Eby held a press conference in Victoria on Tuesday to tout the NDP’s progress on women’s reproductive issues, including free contraception and financial assistance for in vitro fertilization.

Although the Conservatives in British Columbia did not mention the issue of abortion in their platform, Eby accused party leader John Rustad of trying to undermine these rights.

“It’s pretty safe to say that even though he’s ambivalent about reproductive freedom at best and hostile at worst, women’s access to abortion and women’s access to free contraception will be up for debate in this election, just as it is in the United States,” Eby said Tuesday.

Rustad declined to speak to CBC News but wrote on social media that “under a conservative British Columbia government, access to abortion, contraception and other things will remain exactly as they are now.”

NDP accuses some Conservatives of having a “hateful agenda”

Eby accused the Conservatives in British Columbia of welcoming candidates who oppose abortion and hold offensive views toward the 2SLGBTQ+ community and Indigenous peoples.

“The candidates fielded by the Conservatives in British Columbia are pursuing a hateful agenda,” he said.

Bryan Breguet, the Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Langara, is one of the candidates under scrutiny for his social media activity.

“The fact that indigenous peoples are incarcerated more often does not necessarily mean that there is systematic bias against them in the justice system. They might simply commit more crimes. Like black people in the US,” he wrote in a social media post in 2020.

Breguet said he could not give an interview to CBC News.

However, he did speak out in a video posted on social media in which he spoke to Chris Sankey, the Conservative candidate for North Coast-Haida Gwaii, who is an aboriginal man and says he is from the Tsimshian community.

“This tweet is about four years old… it was not my intention to be racist or offensive,” Breguet said in the video, adding that the “woke left” does not care about the underlying issues facing Black and Indigenous people.

Another conservative candidate from British Columbia, Tim Thielmann in the Victoria-Beacon Hill constituency, was accused of a bigoted attack on racially discriminated NDP MPs.

Thielmann criticized the NDP’s equality mandate, which requires that a retiring male MP be replaced by a member of a group seeking equality, such as a woman or an indigenous person.

“Unlike the NDP, our candidates are nominated based on their individual merits, not the colour of their skin or identity characteristics,” Thielmann said in a social media post.

According to Aman Singh, an NDP MP, the comments are an example of Trump’s policies aimed at dividing people.

Thielmann argues that the NDP is exploiting a divisive issue to distract from its poor record on affordability and public safety.

“If you point out that they have policies that favor people based on their gender, race or other group identity characteristics, you call them a racist,” he said.

Polarization is a growing concern, says BC Green MLA

In a statement announcing BC United leader Kevin Falcon’s decision to suspend his party’s election campaign and throw his support behind the Conservatives, Rustad said the two shared a common goal of “defeating David Eby and the radical NDP.”

Adam Olsen, BC Green MP for Saanich North and the Islands, expresses concern about the increasingly polarized political discourse between the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives, who seek to portray their opponent as standing at the extreme end of the political spectrum.

“I certainly wouldn’t call the BC NDP radical left or socialist, especially not by their pure definition,” Olsen said. “But that’s the narrative coming out of the United States and the desire to really create this dramatic distinction between left and right.”

Olsen says such polarization only distracts from the major problems facing British Columbians, such as health care and housing, which require complex solutions.

“I think they have always tried to create a dichotomy in this province,” he said of the NDP and the Conservatives.

“I think simplifying complexity is a really dangerous thing.”