On Saturday night, Premier John Horgan and British Columbia’s New Democratic Party became the first BC NDP government to win back-to-back elections with the same Premier. John Horgan made history Saturday night.
At present, there are some 500,000 outstanding mail-in ballots yet to be counted, but no matter the outcome of the final ballot count, a re-elected Premier John Horgan will remain in place, with a majority government.
Although soon-to-be outgoing B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson failed to concede defeat election night, he did so on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, B.C. Green Party leader, Sonia Furstenau — whose party, at last count, had managed to maintain three seats in the B.C. Legislature — was somewhat less sanguine than her B.C. Liberal counterpart, as she continued to berate re-elected Premier John Horgan for calling a “needless election in the middle of a pandemic,” failing to recognize that the election is over, that a winner has been declared, and such circumstance most generally is best served by a good measure of graciousness and humility.
Of course, the good folks who represent the proportional representation movement — whose numbers include a good portion of B.C. Green party supporters — were quick to point out that Mr. Horgan had not won a plurality of the votes, and as such, his was an “illegitimate” government.
All of which whinging has no effect — at least for now, when incumbent governments seem loathe to change a voting system which, more often than not rewards them with government — and won’t buy you a coffee.
VanRamblings has no great insight, nor any particular reflection on Decision 2020 that we’re prepared to publish today — that’ll come tomorrow.
On Wednesday, we plan to write about the B.C. Green Party fortunes going forward — and lest you be concerned, we intend to be generous.
Suffice to say for now that the B.C. NDP got the majority they wanted, the B.C. Liberal party did as badly as the polls — and their godawful, off-the-rails campaign — had predicted they would, that against expectation both incumbent B.C. Greens, Ms. Furstenau and Adam Olsen, won re-election and although, as expected, the B.C. Greens lost former B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver’s old riding of Oak Bay-Gordon (to former federal NDP MP Murray Rankin, likely to become British Columbia’s next Minister of Justice and Attorney General), B.C. Green candidate Jeremy Valeriote appears on track, at this writing, to win the seat of West Vancouver – Sea to Sky.
VanRamblings supposes, as well, that it is incumbent on us to comment on the B.C. NDP wins in Surrey, Langley and the Fraser Valley.
Former Surrey City Councillor, Mike Starchuk, became the winning British Columbia New Democratic Party candidate in the Surrey-Cloverdale riding on Saturday night.
Who’da thunk in a million years that the once invincible B.C. Liberal seat of Surrey-Cloverdale, held for many years by the all powerful Kevin Falcon, and most recently by popular former Surrey City Councillor, Marvin Hunt, would turn orange, and become an NDP seat, won by former Surrey City Councillor Mike Starchuk — in a walk, with 50.14% of the vote?
Liberal MLA Mary Polak soundly defeated as her party runs an anti-LGBTQ campaign
Langley. Former right-of-centre, “ain’t gonna allow no ‘two dads’ books in our school system, no sirree‘ Surrey School Board Chairperson, and for four consecutive terms winner of her in-the-heart of Langley riding, recent B.C. Liberal house leader and, in various terms in government dating back to 2005, Minister of the Environment, Transportation and Infrastructure, Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, Children and Family Development and Minister Responsible for Child Care, and Minister of Healthy Living and Sport, the indefatigable Mary Polak, lost her seat. That’s a shocker.
The people who live out Langley way are supposed to be troglodytes, and aren’t supposed to be voting for those damnable socialists in the New Democratic Party, and turning over not one but both of the Langley seats, including Rich Coleman’s Langley East seat, where the NDP’s Megan Dykeman — a Langley farmer, Managing Director of a small business, 10 year Trustee and current Chair of the Langley Board of Education — continues to hold onto the riding by the thinnest of electoral margins, as she awaits the results of the final vote count next month. But still …
At this writing it appears the New Democrats have taken both Chilliwack ridings, long-held BC Liberal seats, long thought to be ultra-conservative.
Incumbent BC Liberals John Martin in Chilliwack and Laurie Throness in Chilliwack-Kent were challenged not just by the NDP but from a right-of-centre vote-splitting problem in the form of a surging and popular BC Conservative candidate, Diane Janzen. With the results of this election, it would seem the political landscape of the Fraser Valley is changing.
Final note for today.
All and all, John Horgan was “lucky” to win the size of majority he did.
Why?
Had the B.C. Liberal campaign collapsed as badly as many were predicting, and John Horgan had to deal with an outsized caucus of, say, 69 elected Members of the Legislature — a goodly number of whom would be in the climate action camp, and likely to be shut out from Cabinet, Parliamentary Secretary or Committee Chair positions — he would have had a problem on his hands responding to a discontented, disenfranchised, yet inspired Green New Deal brigade of climate change activists deep within his NDP caucus, giving rise to the age old proverb, “idle hands are the devil’s playthings”, or in plainer English, when one is unoccupied or has nothing to do, one is more likely to cause or get into trouble — and insist on climate justice. Fortunate for Mr. Horgan, for now at least he’s avoided such an ill fate.
