Rob Shaw: Hope you enjoyed the election, B.C. You'll get another one soon
While we wait for recounts, the province is in the grips of what’s been dubbed the “chaos” election model.
By: Rob Shaw
Pierre Poilievre wasn’t on the ballot in B.C.’s election, but he loomed large in the final results Saturday — helping spur a blue conservative wave that crashed through the province, battering the governing New Democrats, and bringing the provincial Conservative party to within a hair’s breadth of power.
Not a bad outcome for Poilievre, who didn’t endorse the B.C. Conservative party and didn’t lift a finger to help the unaffiliated provincial effort.
But such is the power of the federal Conservative leader’s brand, that folks from all parties reported confused voters thinking the Oct. 19 British Columbia election was actually about Poilievre ousting Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from office, and sticking it to NDP leader Jagmeet Singh in the process.
That wasn’t the whole story of the B.C. election by any means. But it was a small, important, subtext. Angry voters sought change. And they found it in a B.C. Conservative party that looked, sounded and felt comfortably like Poilievre’s federal movement.
The B.C. Conservatives ended election night with 45 seats, while the provincial NDP won 46. Neither got enough to form a 47-seat majority government, and the victorious party will need to appoint a speaker, reducing their ranks by one. The B.C. Greens, which won two ridings, will hold the balance of power.
The Conservatives saw a wave of support in rural British Columbia that swept through Metro Vancouver’s Fraser Valley and into suburbs of Langley, Maple Ridge and Richmond, while also dominating the NDP in riding-rich Surrey. While the NDP maintained a comfortable power base in Vancouver, Burnaby and mid-to-south Vancouver Island, the Conservatives painted the province blue almost everywhere else.
That’s how things stand now, anyway.
It’s possible a few seats could change after Oct. 26, when Elections B.C. automatically recounts the results in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, where the NDP won by only 23 votes, and Surrey City Centre, where the NDP won by 96.
Right now, nothing is locked in stone.
In the meantime, the province is in the grips of what’s been dubbed the “chaos” election model. A legislature with these numbers might work if the NDP and Greens partner up and designate one person as Speaker — but only barely. Their ability to command the confidence of the house would rest on a razor’s edge — assuming the tally remains unchanged after the recounts, the NDP and Greens combined, less a speaker, have a single-seat majority.
This is a familiar situation for British Columbia. The 2017 election produced a similar near-tie between the NDP and Liberals (the province’s then-centre-right party which was replaced by Conservatives earlier this year).
The Greens held the balance of power then too. They struck a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the NDP, written for four years. After three years, the NDP ripped it up, called a snap election, and turned on their junior partner to win a majority.
Now, the NDP are back, cap-in-hand, asking for the Green’s support, hoping bygones can be bygones and there’s no hard feelings. It’ll be a tough sell — not the least of which because the NDP defeated Green leader Sonia Fursteanu on election night, costing her a seat in the legislature. She remains party leader, and helps decide who to support.
The Greens’ only other option is the B.C. Conservatives, a party they, like the NDP, have publicly said is filled with racist, homophobic, science-denying candidates unfit to hold power.
NDP leader David Eby has professed early hope he can woo the spurned Greens back to his side. In his quasi-victory speech Saturday night, he said ”there was a clear majority for progressive values” while acknowledging Conservative leader John Rustad “spoke to the frustrations of a lot of British Columbians.”
“We will do better,” Eby told a crowd in a downtown Vancouver hotel ballroom. “I promise to be the premier that brings British Columbians back together.”
Rustad, who is still hoping for electoral movement in the recount, declared “this election is not over.”
“We are going to make it as difficult as possible for the NDP to do any more destruction in this province,” he said in his election-night address. Rustad promised to bring a motion of non-confidence forward on any NDP minority government as quickly as possible.
But that may take awhile. After the late-October recounts, Eby could take his time swearing in a new cabinet, break for Christmas, and not have to seriously consider reconvening the legislature and testing his command of the house until February.
By then, he and the Greens are expected to have sorted out some sort of arrangement to cooperate against any Conservative challenges. The Greens will have demands, of course. And the NDP won’t be able to execute all the things Eby wants.
It’s a partnership unlikely to last long, so British Columbians will likely soon end up back to the polls to do it all over again in another election.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics. He now reports for CHEK News and writes for Glacier Media, as well as the website Northern Beat. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast and YouTube show Political Capital, and the weekly political correspondent for CBC Radio’s All Points West and Radio West programs. You can reach him at rob@robshawnews.com.
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The third paragraph has me alternating between rolling my eyes and weeping for Canadian elections. I don't live BC, so I suppose that I shouldn't comment, but really. How can people confuse a provincial election with a federal election?
Always amazed at the scurrilous mud the NDP and those of its ilk are able to hurl at anybody who opposes them or their viewpoints. I assume they’re all pure of thought and mind which seems unlikely based upon the accusations they make about the character of their opponents.