What Now? How the Next BC Government Will Be Decided

It may be Oct. 28 before the final counting of votes in British Columbia’s extremely tight general election is complete and it’s known which party will be invited to form a government.

With the initial count completed, the BC NDP led by David Eby had won 46 seats and the Conservative Party of BC had 45. If the results hold, the BC Green Party with two seats will control the balance of power in the 93-seat legislature.

“This has been a very, very hard-fought campaign,” Eby said in a speech to supporters late Saturday. “We knew that every vote would matter, and that’s certainly been the case.... It looks like we’re going to have to wait just a little bit longer.”

Rustad celebrated the Conservative breakthrough and expressed hope that his party could still come out on top. “This election is not over,” he said onstage in Vancouver on election night. “We have not given up this fight yet. We are going to keep pushing hard.”

On Sunday afternoon Elections BC announced it had finished the initial count and was preparing for the final count, which can’t start before the fourth day after final voting day.

The final count, scheduled to start Saturday and finish by Oct. 28, also includes vote-by-mail ballots that came in after advance voting had closed or that were dropped off in person at a district electoral office or voting place. About 49,000 previously uncounted ballots will be included, Elections BC estimated.

There will also be at least two recounts, done automatically during the final count whenever the margin between the top two candidates is within fewer than 100 votes. As of Sunday afternoon, the NDP led by 23 votes in Juan de Fuca-Malahat and 96 in Surrey City Centre.

After the final count is completed, there may still be judicial recounts. One is required if the difference between the top two candidates is less than 1/500 of the total number of ballots cast, or one can be requested by a candidate within six days of the completion of the final count.

As things stood on election night, the BC NDP won the popular vote, taking 44.6 per cent with the Conservatives close behind at 43.6 per cent. The Greens trailed with just over eight per cent.

That share of the vote was among the NDP’s better results, but short of what it received in the 2020 election held in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic when John Horgan led the party to a large majority. Eby replaced Horgan as leader almost two years ago.

The NDP slide translated into losses in several ridings the party had hoped to win and for 16 NDP incumbents. They included cabinet ministers Nathan Cullen in Bulkley Valley-Stikine, Pam Alexis in Abbotsford-Mission and Rachna Singh in Surrey North.

NDP incumbents also lost in three other seats in Surrey, two in Chilliwack, two in Richmond, two on northern Vancouver Island, two in Langley, one in Maple Ridge and one in the southern Interior.

All of those seats went to the Conservatives, who over the last 18 months built a movement from nothing that overtook the official Opposition, BC United, which responded by suspending its campaign in August.

“This is a Cinderella story,” the BC Conservatives’ executive director, Angelo Isidorou, told The Tyee on election night. “To go from zero to 45 seats, potentially government, is unheard of.”

Isidorou got involved three years ago when what was then the BC Liberal Party disqualified conservative activist Aaron Gunn from its leadership race. “I was his manager and we had this wild idea to take over this little party that had 100 members,” he said. “We did it. We rebranded it — my wife built the brand — and we made it our own in three years.”

Rustad joining the party and becoming leader was key to giving it legitimacy, Isidorou said.

The election result was “overwhelming,” he said. “I mean, to take a ragtag group of people and bring them together to do something they’ve never done before. I’ve never done this before. I’m 27 years old. To manage a provincial campaign and all our team, most of us, being under the age of 30. It’s crazy, right?”

If not for former BC United candidates who ran as Independents, particularly in Vernon and Richmond, the Conservatives could have won the election, he said.

There are also at least 10 constituencies — including Courtenay-Comox, Columbia River-Revelstoke, Kelowna Centre and Surrey-Guildford — where NDP supporters may feel that vote splitting with Green candidates made a significant difference.

BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau lost in Victoria-Beacon Hill to NDP cabinet minister Grace Lore, but the party held on to Saanich North and the Islands with Rob Botterell running in the seat that had been Adam Olsen’s. The Greens also picked up West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, where Jeremy Valeriote won.

“It does appear the Greens are still going to play a pretty pivotal role in the B.C. legislature,” Furstenau said Saturday night.

Until the final results of the election are clear, Eby remains the premier.

Once the results are confirmed, Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin will invite the leader of the party with the most seats to form a government.

Whoever that is will appoint a cabinet and nominate a Speaker.

To remain in power, they will then need to maintain the confidence of the legislature, meaning they need enough votes in the house to pass a budget and other measures.

The B.C. legislature has often skipped fall sittings, especially in election years, and would normally be recalled in February.

With files from Michelle Gamage.