The Conservative Party of B.C.’s stunning surge culminated in a dead-heat election that on Saturday night left them just short of the 47-seat majority.
The NDP and Conservatives were trading a one or two seat leads into the night, and the Green Party’s two wins could prove crucial. If another minority situation develops as it did in 2017, an NDP government is the more likely outcome, as Greens are unlikely to back Conservatives.
But Conservatives were the story of the night. From 1.9 per cent of the vote four years ago, they rocketed to about 44 per cent on Saturday.
The results mark the fastest climb from obscurity since the Social Credit Party came out of nowhere to win the 1952 election. Saturday was a win for Conservatives, regardless of how the final seat count works out.
If they eke out a scant majority it will make for a radical reset of a host of provincial policies. If they come up short, they will be a much bigger and harder-edged official opposition.
The NDP faced a B.C. Liberal-BC United opposition for its seven previous years in office. The 2024 campaign established that the government-opposition differences now will be far more divergent than in the past.
The growth was initially discounted by some as just a carryover arising from confusion with the federal Conservatives, who have also been gaining ground. But Saturday’s results show it is genuine. The party now represents the right side of the spectrum.
The results were a blow to NDP Premier David Eby, even if not a knockout.
His reassurances that his government was “turning the corner” on the assorted crises facing B.C. didn’t wash with nearly the number of voters he was hoping to maintain.
B.C. appears to have lost patience with the numerous expensive promises on housing, health care, the opioid crisis and public safety that didn’t produce the kind of tangible results he was looking for.
For people who measured him against his predecessor, John Horgan, Eby came up short. He doesn’t have the friendly neighbour, regular-guy demeanour of Horgan and Conservatives made some headway painting him as a leftist ideologue.
The NDP retaliated by dwelling on the Conservatives’ haphazard candidate selection process that allowed an array of cranks, conspiracists and oddballs onto the team, even though the party started looking like a real contender almost a year ago.
That blizzard of attention on their weird social media posts makes their performance Saturday even more remarkable.
The 2017 dead heat resulted in a two month delay in swearing in a new government. This one could take a while to sort out as well. Or even a rerun in the not too distant future.
