NDP and Conservatives Could Wait a Week to Learn Who Will Govern

[Editor’s note: This story was originally published on Oct. 18 and then updated as election results came in on Oct. 19.]

Late Saturday night the results of the British Columbia election remained too close to call with the BC NDP and the Conservative Party of BC locked in a dead heat.

By 10:30 p.m. the BC NDP’s candidates were leading or elected in 46 seats to 45 for the BC Conservatives. Some 96 per cent of ballot boxes had been reported.

The NDP had a narrow lead over the Conservatives in the popular vote, with 44.55 per cent to 43.49 per cent.

The Conservatives won a large number of seats previously held by BC United, plus several they wrested from the NDP, including in Surrey, Richmond and the Fraser Valley.

They were the first wins for BC Conservative candidates in the province since 1975.

The BC Green Party was leading or elected in two seats, with Jeremy Valeriote in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky and Rob Botterell in Saanich North and the Islands.

Both BC NDP Leader David Eby and BC Conservative Leader John Rustad were on track to win their own seats, but the NDP’s Grace Lore came out ahead of BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau in Victoria-Beacon Hill.

A record number of independents ran, but none won election.

By publication time neither Eby nor Rustad had spoken publicly about the results.

Fustenau sounded hoarse addressing supporters in Victoria not long after polls closed. “It’s not just my voice I lost tonight,” she said. “It’s not the outcome we hoped for in Victoria-Beacon Hill tonight.”

Referring to the Conservatives, she said it was strange to see a party of climate deniers do so well in an election held during the heavy rains of an atmospheric river. On the bright side, with the close seat count the Greens appeared poised to play a pivotal role in the legislature, she added.

Nathan Cullen, an NDP cabinet minister and former federal member of parliament, lost his seat in Bulkley Valley-Stikine to Conservative Sharon Hartwell.

“There was an underlying tension and grievance and anger at times that I don’t think reflected the best of the Northwest,” Cullen said. “I don’t have resentment to people who voted Conservative in this election. I don’t have any resentment for people who are feeling the pressures of the cost of living or waiting for a doctor or any of the strains that our families were facing.”

Late in the evening many constituencies remained close with totals within a few hundred votes. They included Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey Centre where the NDP had narrow leads, and Courtenay-Comox and Surrey-Guildford where the Conservatives were ahead.

There are some 3.5 million voters registered in the province’s 93 constituencies. More than two million people voted, about half of whom took advantage of advance voting to cast a ballot.

The record early turnout was an indication that the election was likely to be tight. Publicly available surveys of opinion had consistently shown the NDP and the Conservatives in a close race that either could win.

The defining moment in the campaign came early, when BC United suspended its campaign in August and withdrew its candidates. Formerly BC Liberals, the party that had formed government four times before getting voted out in 2017 had struggled to find support after its re-branding.

BCU leader Kevin Falcon encouraged supporters to consolidate the anti-NDP vote behind the BC Conservatives, a party that hadn’t formed government in the province since 1949.

Ironically, the Conservative resurrection was in large part thanks to BCU and Falcon, who had booted Rustad from his party over a dispute around climate change and party discipline.

Within months Rustad, a former BC Liberal cabinet minister, became leader of the Conservatives and over the next year attracted MLAs, donors and public support away from his former party despite Falcon’s repeated warnings about the low quality of Conservative candidates and the party’s unfitness to govern.

NDP leader Eby spent much of the campaign on similar themes, saying the election would be about values and drawing attention to questionable and controversial past statements from Rustad and other Conservatives on climate, vaccines, human rights and other topics.

Rustad stood by his candidates and dismissed those concerns as a distraction from the government’s record, pointing to the lack of progress on key issues like health care, the addictions crisis and affordability despite large budget deficits.

By late Saturday it was clear many voters were looking for a change of government, but they were divided on whether the change on offer was the one they wanted.

With files from Amanda Follett Hosgood.