The BC election: a photo finish
Final count will be done by Monday October 28
I always enjoy Election Day. It’s inspiring to see so many people working together to run the election, to encourage people to vote, and to choose their government. (I was volunteering for Christine Boyle, the BC NDP candidate in Vancouver - Little Mountain.)
Housing in Metro Vancouver has been scarce and expensive for a long time, because we regulate new housing like it’s a nuclear power plant, and we tax it like it’s a gold mine. After Covid, with a lot more people suddenly working from home and needing more space, the housing shortage has gotten much worse, and it’s spilled over to the rest of the province.
For more than a year, David Eby and the BC NDP have been pushing hard for municipalities to allow more housing, while John Rustad and the BC Conservatives have promised to roll back all of the BC NDP’s housing reforms. Saturday’s provincial election was an opportunity for BC voters to weigh in: should the reforms continue, or not?
The outcome doesn’t just affect BC. If the BC NDP lost badly, politicians elsewhere could easily conclude that a strong push for more housing supply was a bad idea.
Conversely, after Covid and its accompanying disruptions, voters are in a punishing mood. Incumbent governments everywhere, whether left or right, have been voted out. So if Eby and the BC NDP are able to win re-election, they'll have overcome extremely strong headwinds.
What happened?
At the provincial level, it was a photo finish, with the race too close to call. We'll know the results on Monday October 28, when the final count is complete.
You need 47 seats for a majority. The BC NDP won 40 (margin > ballots remaining to be counted), and are leading in 6; the BC Conservatives won 40 and are leading in 5; the BC Greens won 2.
There's three possible outcomes:
The BC Conservatives win all the races where they're leading, plus at least two of the races where the BC NDP are leading, for 47 seats or more. BC Conservative majority.
The BC NDP win all the races where they're leading, plus at least one of the races where the BC Conservatives are leading, for 47 seats or more. BC NDP majority.
Neither of the above - the BC Conservatives win 45 or 46 seats, and the BC NDP win 46 or 45 seats. Then no party has a majority, but the BC NDP and BC Greens together have a majority, if they can work together.
The closest races:
Juan de Fuca-Malahat - BC NDP leading by 23 votes
Surrey City Centre - BC NDP leading by 96 votes
Surrey-Guildford - BC Conservatives leading by 102 votes
Kelowna Centre - BC Conservatives leading by 148 votes
The ballots still to be counted are mail-in ballots which arrived after the close of advance voting, and out-of-district ballots cast at voting places which didn't have electronic tabulators. There's an automatic recount for races where the final winning margin is 100 votes or less, which will be done as part of the final count from October 26 to 28.
Some random observations
Holding an election on a Saturday, with plenty of advance voting days, is a good idea.
In BC, voters can vote at any polling place, because Elections BC is now using electronic tabulation. (In federal elections, which are run using paper, you can only vote at your assigned polling place.)
More
Previous posts: the BC election, David Eby’s pragmatism.
Elections BC press release: Initial Count Complete, Final Count Scheduled for October 26 to 28. Election results by riding.
It’s a bit early for analysis, since we don’t know the results yet, but here’s some hot takes. Divisive B.C. election poured cold water on the NDP's majority (Chad Pawson, CBC). B.C. election produces another Big Bang political moment (Gary Mason, Globe and Mail). David Eby lost this election, even though the BC NDP won (Rob Shaw, Business in Vancouver).
Some pre-election commentary that I thought was particularly interesting. Kelly Cryderman in the Globe: David Eby has morphed into a Prairie pragmatist. Rahim Mohamed noted in the National Post that Poilievre hadn’t endorsed Rustad, despite the BC Conservatives benefiting from the popularity of the federal Conservatives, perhaps because of bigoted remarks from BC Conservative candidates: Poilievre's 'conspicuous' silence on the B.C. election is getting louder as the vote nears. A summary of the BC NDP’s housing policies by Christopher Cheung, in the Tyee: Reviewing the BC NDP’s Big Housing Hurry.
Good rundown as always, Russil!
My sincere hope is that Eby keeps his head about him and does not go into an explicit arrangement with the Greens. I worried when, in his election night speech, he proclaimed a "clear majority for progressive values."
Anecdata, yes, but: I know plenty of people who definitely do not consider themselves progressives — people who will, with certainty, vote for the federal Conservatives — who voted NDP in this election based almost entirely on the housing file. They *only* felt comfortable doing so because they gave Eby credit for landing on a more moderate approach on a number of issues, including highly-salient public safety issues. On some of those issues, such as involuntary commitment and drug criminalization, the Greens explicitly oppose his approach. On housing, too, the Greens question upzoning and the profit motive in delivering housing.
Eby should embrace the notion that he ran as a centrist in this election, not as a progressive — and even then he nearly lost the entire thing (or actually did, pending full results!) to an upstart, relatively disorganized, "extremist" Conservative Party. I do not think victory in the next election lies in tacking to the left.