Although post-debate polls are not in as of this writing, John Horgan’s New Democratic Party still seems destined to form a majority government once the last vote is counted following the closure of the polls at 8pm Saturday, October 24th. The question is: how big a majority government will it be?
Coming out of the 2017 provincial election, the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. New Democrats were virtually tied in the popular vote, and exactly tied in the number of seats: 41. There was then, and there remains today, 87 seats in the British Columbia legislature. In order to form government, a party needs 44 seats. Should the New Democrats hold on to their current seats, and gain just three more seats, John Horgan will return as B.C.’s 36th Premier, with a minimum of 44 seats. Chances are he’ll get a lot more.
Polling for the New Democratic Party is strongest on Vancouver Island and across the Lower Mainland. Vancouver-False Creek candidate Brenda Bailey is expected to find herself in the win column once all the votes are counted. When the B.C. legislature was dissolved back in September, the New Democrats held 16 of 20 seats across the Metro Vancouver region.
Rumour has it, too, that environmentalist NDP candidate in Vancouver-Langara, Tesicca Truong, could very well take incumbent BC Liberal Mike Lee’s seat away from him, with Mr. Lee already preparing for a bid to run as Mayor in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election, or so VanRamblings was told earlier in the week by a highly-placed B.C. Liberal apparatchik.
As Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith wrote last evening, “There’s a reasonable chance that after the October 24 election, the NDP will hold 18 of the 20 seats in the Burrard Peninsula.” The other seat the BC NDP are almost assured of winning: ex-federal MP Fin Donnelly, running in the provincial riding of Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, a seat won by B.C. Liberal MLA Joan Isaacs in a squeaker, with a bare margin of only 87 votes.
Polling is so strong for John Horgan and the New Democratic Party across the Metro Vancouver region that the NDP is expected to take away three more seats from the BC Liberals, once all the votes have been counted. In 2017, BC Liberal Jas Johal barely won the Richmond-Queensborough riding, taking only 116 more votes than his NDP opponent. One can see why both Mr. Horgan and BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson are spending an inordinate amount of time in Richmond this election cycle — with Mr. Horgan recently announcing “a far larger, far grander, far more ambitious” Richmond Hospital expansion than had been announced in 2018.
Over on Vancouver Island, long time Oak Bay resident and former Victoria MP, Murray Rankin, is the sure-to-win Oak Bay-Gordon Head NDP candidate in the current provincial election, given that former BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver — who held the seat from 2013 through the dropping of the writ in September — is on the campaign trail for the affable and accomplished Mr. Rankin, making his win a New Democratic Party gimme.
Given her debate performance on Tuesday evening, VanRamblings is giving newly-elected BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau even odds of retaining her Cowichan Valley riding — although the BC NDP have poured massive resources into the traditionally strong NDP riding these past three years, the least of which includes the construction of a new Cowichan District Hospital, announced on July 6th, 2018. Not to mention which, popular two-term North Cowichan municipal Councillor, Rob Douglas, has proven to be a much more formidable challenger than was Ms. Furstenau’s NDP opponent in 2017, Lori Lynn Iannidinardo, in what turned out to be a neck-and-neck race, where Ms. Furstenau just eked out a win. Note should be made, too, that much of Ms. Furstenau’s vote came from disaffected BC Liberals — a prospect unlikely to be the case in the 2020 provincial election.
VanRamblings is being kind to Andrew Wilkinson’s BC Liberals, by predicting that Michelle Stilwell will hold onto her Parksville-Qualicum seat, although that’s far from a certainty. Otherwise, Vancouver Island will be awash in a sea of orange save, perhaps, Ms. Furstenau in the Cowichan Valley, and Adam Olsen, Green Party incumbent in Saanich North and the Islands.
Nicole Halbauer, British Columbia New Democratic Party 2020 candidate, Skeena riding
According to insider major political party polling, in the North, recent Chair of the Board of Directors at Coast Mountain College, Nicole Halbauer, a longtime, passionate advocate for increased health services in the North, is expected to put the Skeena riding into the win column for the BC NDP, by handily defeating one term B.C. Liberal, Ellis Ross, once all the votes are counted, taking back a seat for the NDP, a traditional stronghold riding for the New Democratic Party, dating back to the early nineteen seventies.
First Nations lawyer Aaron Sumexheltza, the BC NDP candidate in Fraser-Nicola.
In the riding of Fraser-Nicola, the BC NDP’s Aaron Sumexheltza is not only expected to win his south central Okanagan seat — a take away from BC Liberal incumbent Jackie Tegart — but be appointed to a Horgan Cabinet.
Meanwhile, in Columbia River-Revelstoke, BC NDP candidate Nicole Cherlet, a popular, activist Revelstoke City Councillor since 2018, who has also served as the president of the Revelstoke Chamber of Commerce, is widely expected to regain the traditional NDP seat from BC Liberal incumbent Doug Clovechok, first elected in 2017, who took the Columbia-Shuswap seat by the slimmest of margins.
In Boundary-Similkameen, Roly Russell, Regional District of Kootenay-Boundary director for rural Grand Forks is widely expected to reclaim the southeast BC riding for the NDP, from BC Liberal newcomer Petra Veintimilla, on leave as an Oliver councillor, following the retirement of BC Liberal incumbent (who could read the writing on the wall), Linda Larson.
The foofaraw directly above aside, John Horgan’s BC New Democratic Party are all but assured a win once all the mail-in ballots are counted somewhere around November 10th.
For Andrew Wilkinson’s BC Liberals, it’s been one bozo eruption after another, from North Vancouver-Seymour’s Jane Thornthwaite’s sexist rant about North Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP incumbent Bowinn Ma, to Abbotsford candidate Bruce Banman when Mayor ordering chicken manure to be thrown onto a homeless encampment, to Langley East candidate and Langley Township Councillor Margaret Kunst voting against the painting of a rainbow crosswalk, to Chilliwack-Kent incumbent candidate Laurie Throness’ “perceived homophobic and transphobic views” (Update: as of 2pm this afternoon, BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson accepted the resignation of controversial Chilliwack-Kent candidate Laurie Throness). The list goes on and on for poor Mr. Wilkinson, whose once thriving B.C. Liberal party could very well find their seat count in the British Columbia Legislature reduced to as few as 17 seats. No, these are not happy times for the BC Liberals.
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VanRamblings is back on Monday with a report on why the 2020 British Columbia provincial election is so much different than the 2013 B.C. election, when Christy Clark scored a come from behind victory on May 9th. Ain’t gonna happen in 2020 lemme tell ya. Read why on Monday.
