If elections are supposed to be about policies with a focus on the "economy, stupid," B.C.'s 2024 provincial election isn't playing to type.

Instead, the campaign that wraps up with election day tomorrow, has raised questions about what really motivates voters. 

A compelling piece of evidence comes from an Oct. 14 Angus Reid poll that found  neither the B.C. NDP, nor the Conservative Party of B.C. can claim what the poll calls the "high ground" when it comes to attracting support. 

New Democratic voters are evenly split between professing support for the party and disliking the other choices. Forty-nine per cent say they 'really like' the New Democrats and what they stand for, while 51 per cent say they 'really dislike' their other options. Conservative voters split exactly along the same lines. 

"These dynamics represent a significant factor of why both parties have focused a major amount of their campaign communications 'going negative' rather than focusing on their own platforms, policies and candidates," the poll's report reads. 

Both large parties have also sought out symbolic issues. Conservatives are promising to bring back plastic straws, demonizing paper straws as symbols of excessive, costly and ineffective government regulation. The B.C. NDP, meanwhile, have linked the Conservatives to uninformed musings about "communism" and "lazy voters" by Vancouver billionaire Chip Wilson. 

That is not to say voters are not paying attention to substantive issues; they have consistently identified housing, health care and cost of living as the top three concerns of this campaign. What might have been lacking is a deeper dive into their foundation: the state and  direction of the provincial economy. In the afore-mentioned Angus Reid poll, the issue of economy and jobs ranks seventh. 

Ken Peacock, chief economist and senior vice-president at the Business Council of British Columbia, said the leader's debate "probably" paid "insufficient attention" to economic issues. Government services and household incomes all depend on a healthy economy, he added.

"I think there was insufficient recognition of that reality in that debate," he said. 

Marc Lee, senior economist with the Centre for Policy Alternatives, B.C. Office, echoed Peacock.

"I don't know if any of them really jumped out at me in terms of offering a vision of what a better, more productive economy would look like," he said. "I felt for the most part, they were just attacking each other."

Peacock would have also liked to have found out more about the deficit.

"It's a very, very large concern and it overshadows the capacity for everything else," he said, adding that all election promises from tax cuts to additional spending depend on budgetary constraints. 

Peacock would have also liked a discussion of what could be done to spur job growth in the private sector and B.C.'s competitiveness relative to other jurisdictions.

Lee points to a lack of details around budgetary issues.

"It (the deficit) is pretty large," Lee said. "It's somewhat justifiable by the downturn in the economy, but all of the parties have put on the table platforms that don't really add up." 

Financing of the Conservative platform emerged as an issue during the final week of the campaign, when the party presented it Oct. 15, four days before voting day and after nearly 780,000 British Columbians had already cast their vote. (B.C. Greens had released their full platform on Oct. 1, the B.C. NDP on Oct. 3.)

"As far as fiscal responsibility goes, the grade would be an A for the (B.C. Greens), a C for the B.C NDP and a D for B.C. Conservatives," Ross Hickey, associate economics professor at the University of British Columbia, told CBC television. 

Ultimately, Lee disagrees with Peacock about the immediate importance of B.C.'s record-setting deficit of $9 billion, but broadly agrees with Peacock's observation that macroeconomic issues have not received the public scrutiny that they deserve.

But as the Angus Reid poll suggests, voters themselves might no longer care. 

Peacock said it is difficult to answer which party offers a better deal, "because there is so much uncertainty." He called for a course correction toward less government involvement and warned that throwing more money at some of these problems will ultimately produce better results. 

Lee agrees with Peacock on at least one point. 

"I find it hard to make a definitive decision one way or another based on the information available right now," he said. 

He said the Rustad Rebate of up $3,000 for mortgages and rent payments by 2029 comes with questions about its financing. Lower-income British Columbians also tend to pay fewer taxes anyway.

"So I don't know if that is super-well-targeted to the folks who really need it," he said.

But he also questioned the B.C. NDP's promise to co-finance 25,000 units over five years, paying 40 per cent.

"'Oh look, we did this new program,' but no one can access it," he said, adding that other rebate programs were only available to a fraction of British Columbians. 

"Overall, my inclination would be, we are better off, keeping money in the public sector, making sure that public services are full-funded and doing their job properly," Lee said.

But like Peacock, Lee also warned against unnecessarily expanding bureaucracy.

"I'm one that likes to keep bureaucracy to a minimum," he said. "So to the extent, that we can streamline these things and make them work better and more efficiently, then I'm all for that."