Drilling Down: What Can We Learn from BC’s Flipped Ridings?

The BC NDP was able to eke out a majority government this provincial election.

But what about the seats they lost? And where did the BC Greens and BC Conservatives gain ground?

Let’s have a look, with a little help from some graphs.

How the legislature shifted

The BC NDP lost 10 seats. The BC Conservatives hung on to ridings previously held by BC United and won even more, totalling a right-wing gain of 16 seats.

Who won new ridings

Every 10 years, the BC Electoral Boundaries Commission adjusts the province’s ridings for population.

While most ridings had their boundaries adjusted and names changed, six are considered new seats due to significant differences. They were added to areas with population growth.

Urban areas tend to vote more progressive, though local experts were cautious about making predictions due to a number of unusual factors at play this election.

The BC NDP ended up winning four out of six of the new ridings in fast-growing areas.

“Basically, you see the struggles of the Conservatives getting any dense ridings above 2,800 people per square kilometre,” said Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University.

The level of density applies to the new ridings of Vancouver-Yaletown and Burnaby South-Metrotown. They are the downtowns of their respective cities and are among the densest communities in the province. Both ridings were won by the BC NDP.

Which ridings flipped

The BC Greens managed to flip one riding in their favour, West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

Back in 2020, the party’s Jeremy Valeriote was 40 votes away from unseating the BC Liberal candidate. This year, both the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives ran strong candidates in an attempt to fend off Valeriote. But he ended up winning the seat for the BC Greens for the first time.

The BC NDP managed to flip two seats.

Cowichan Valley was one. BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau had won the riding twice. But this election, she ran in Victoria-Beacon Hill instead. Without Furstenau, voters elected Debra Toporowski, the BC NDP candidate, over one from the BC Greens.

Vancouver-Langara was the other. It had previously been held by Michael Lee, a two-time MLA who had made unsuccessful bids for the BC Liberal leadership. Lee did not run this year.

In Vancouver-Langara, the BC Conservatives ran Bryan Breguet, a candidate who had come under fire for his social media comments. In one post from 2020, he wrote, “Indigenous people having a higher incarceration rate doesn’t necessarily mean there are systemic biases against them in the justice system. They could just, you know, commit more crimes. Like Black people in the U.S.”

Breguet said that he would “apologize” to anyone who “perceived” his “sarcastic or outright jokes” for being offensive, adding that he would do better. He was ultimately defeated by BC NDP candidate Sunita Dhir. It was the party’s first win in this riding.

The BC Conservatives flipped 15 seats that the BC NDP had won in the 2020 election.

“We did better in areas where the BC Liberals did horrible, like Vancouver Island,” Angelo Isidorou, the party’s executive director and campaign manager, told The Tyee post-election.

While his party did pick up BC Liberal supporters, he says that they represent a new coalition of voters.

How the Lower Mainland voted

Many of the ridings that the BC Conservatives flipped were in the Lower Mainland, south of the Fraser River.

All eyes were on Surrey during the long ballot count, where the BC NDP dropped from seven out of nine seats in 2020 to four out of 10 seats this election.

Isidorou said the party successfully connected with South Asian residents in Surrey. More specifically, the city is known for its large population of Punjabi locals.

But looking at the census data, Yan found that ridings with the province’s highest percentages of people with South Asian backgrounds voted evenly between the two top parties.

Rather than because of the presence of an “ethnic vote,” Yan says, the BC Conservatives’ success in Surrey lay in their ability to speak to the issues: “It shows you the frustration south of the Fraser at: ‘We’ve seen a lot of growth, but where are the amenities? Where are the schools? Where’s the transportation? And I also have concerns about public safety.’”