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With only a handful of days left in Decision BC 2013, as most pundits had predicted, the campaign race has tightened some this week over last, with the BC Liberals gaining 3% in the polls, as the Green Party and Conservative vote begins to collapse. The NDP vote has remained steady at 44.2%, though, enough to catapult BC’s long out of government centre left political party to victory on May 14th, with a projected 56 seats in the British Columbia legislature, a gain of 21 seats, and 34 more seats than the floundering BC Liberals.
VanRamblings has told friends that we believe the NDP will garner 54 seats in the house come election night, May 14th, a perfect number for the BC NDP, and leader Adrian Dix — enough to appoint a cabinet of 24 – 26, with another 24 – 26 parliamentary secretary appointments, as well as an NDP house leader, party whip, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House, thereby keeping any idle NDP electeds from possible mischief that could hurt the party, and also affording increased salaries for each NDP member in the legislature, newly-elected and sustaining. We’ll see come May 14th.
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To throw a monkey wrench into the whole election prediction game, according to Chad Skelton, at the Vancouver Sun, if one takes into account the most recent Angus Reid poll, an online seat prediction tool created by The Sun newspaper “predicts the NDP winning a whopping 70 seats and the Liberals just 12, with another two for independent candidates and one for the Greens.” Again, we’ll just wait to see what occurs on May 14th.
Given the figures expressed in the polls above, in his latest column for the Vancouver Sun, longtime legislative reporter Vaughn Palmer writes that the B.C. Liberals are simply trying to keep their chins up, and hang on.
Looking to the current campaign, NDP leader Adrian Dix is fighting to win everywhere, though his party denies (not all that persuasively, in my view) that he means to crush, crush, crush the Liberals the way Campbell did the New Democrats in 2001.
The Liberals, in fighting against the odds to turn things around, are also serving the dual purpose of trying to save as much as they can of their seat complement to establish a sizable opposition beachhead for the next four years. Plan B, one might call it. And unless the gap between the two main parties drops to the single digits very soon, I expect it will become the operative one for the Liberals as election day approaches.
Has Palmer had a look at the Vancouver Sun poll above? Must be, cuz he seems to be writing off the Liberal’s chances with 12 days still to go.
BC Election 2013: News from Here, There & Everywhere
As is the case with the mainstream media, VanRamblings has pretty much ignored the travails of the BC Conservative campaign, and whatever machinations it’s deer-in-the-headlights leader, John Cummins, performs each day on the campaign trail. In an April 30th story, the Vancouver Sun’s Mike Hager reported that the Conservative party had failed to file the proper paperwork by last Friday’s nomination deadline for four of its candidates — Vancouver-Quilchena’s Bill Clarke, a former Progressive Conservative MP; Burnaby-Lougheed’s Christine Clarke; Burnaby North’s Wayne Marklund; and Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows’ Manuel (Mike) Pratas. As a consequence, the candidates will run unaffiliated. Oh sure, the four ‘quasi-semi-sorta-but-really’ non-Conservative candidates — who won’t have their affiliation made official on the ballots — will still campaign as Conservatives, using party paraphernalia like lawn signs and logos, and the like, but they won’t be - like, y’know - official Conservatives. Poor John Cummins, he’s running a provincial campaign where the wheels keep coming off the bus.
And then there’s this story about the …
… triumvirate of candidates dropped by the B.C. Conservative party in the past week over their controversial online comments, who have pledged to continue running as independents. Ian Tootill announced he will be running in Vancouver-False Creek after party leader John Cummins took offence to several of his comments made on Twitter. Two other Tory candidates dumped by the party for their controversial comments, Vancouver-West End’s Ron Herbert and Boundary-Similkameen’s Mischa Popoff, will also run as independents.
The wheels on the Conservative campaign bus go click, click, clack …
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We’re not sure why, but for some reason or other VanRamblings has quite consistently neglected to steer readers in the direction of The Tyee’s otherwise superior coverage of the 40th British Columbia provincial election, an oversight we’ll attempt to remedy, at least to some degree, now.
- In this Tyee story, one of the NDP’s most prominent candidates, labour opposition critic and caucus chair Shane Simpson, said he’s “not 100 percent sure” his party will achieve B.C.’s 2020 climate target if elected to lead the province.
- Tyee reporter Pieta Woolley wonders why it is that during the course of Monday’s debate, no party leader made a peep about fixing British Columbia’s clearly broken foster care and child protection system.
- Then there’s The Tyee’s “scroll in and find your riding, or information on any other riding in the province” BC Election 2013 Map and Guide.
- There’s a great deal more to learn about the issues of concern respecting Decision BC 2013 that may be found on The Tyee’s front page, as well, if you care to take a gander.
Well, that’s it for VanRamblings May 2nd coverage of the BC Election.
For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013.
