Good morning.
British Columbians face weeks of process and political manoeuvring before they will learn who their government will be, after Saturday’s election results revealed an intractably divided province.
But the process of finding consensus in a province in which the popular vote was divided by the two main parties by only one percentage point will take much, much longer.
So far, the NDP hold only one seat more than the Conservatives – 46 to 45 – with two seats going to the Green Party. But two ridings held by the NDP will go to an automatic recount because they were won with 100 votes or less. At least one other, held by the Conservatives, could be subject to a judicial review if the NDP asks for one because of the riding’s tight margins.
But amid the nail-biting drama is the normally mundane process of finalizing results.
Between this coming Saturday and Monday, Elections BC will come up with a final, official tally of votes and for the first time, that will include 49,000 mail-in and absentee ballots. That’s a small fraction of the two million votes cast, but with the results in so many individual ridings so close, theoretically, those ballots could make a difference.
The agency is currently figuring out to which ridings those ballots belong.
After the final count is done, the parties have six days to apply to a judge for a recount on ridings where the votes are within 0.002 per cent of votes cast.
British Columbians have been here before.
In 2017, Christy Clark’s Liberals were reduced to 43 seats − one seat short of a majority. The NDP under John Horgan won 41 seats, leaving three Green MLAs holding the balance of power.
One riding in particular was too close to call. Initially, the NDP candidate in Courtenay-Comox held her seat by only nine votes. But a recount and the addition of absentee and mail-in ballots solidified her lead to 185.
After six weeks of negotiations, the Greens agreed to a power-sharing arrangement with the NDP. But a challenge remained: Someone needed to be Speaker. Speakers usually come from the government’s benches, but an NDP Speaker would have resulted in routine tied votes that the Speaker would be called upon to break.
That problem was resolved when Liberal MLA Darryl Plecas, who reneged on an earlier commitment not to break ranks with his colleagues, agreed to take on the job, giving the NDP 44 votes and leaving the Liberals with 42. The minority government held for three years.
The situation is similar in 2024. If the two Green members decide to back the NDP, that will give the NDP three votes more than the Conservatives. But someone still needs to be Speaker, so that could reduce the NDP’s majority to just two seats.
Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau, who lost her seat in this election, was among the three that negotiated the 2017 agreement with then-premier Horgan. She was especially furious when the NDP ended that arrangement and headed to the polls early. Despite not having a seat, she will play a hugely influential role in what the Greens do now: The two who won seats are both new to the legislature.
BC NDP Leader David Eby was solicitous of her party in his speech on election night.
“There are many values that we share in common with the Green Party and I am committed to working with them,” he said.
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad – who has said while he believes in climate change, he questions whether it is a human-caused crisis – didn’t appear to hold out much hope that his party would gain the Greens’ favour.
“Despite the fact that the Green Party, for example, and us obviously don’t have a lot in common, in terms of our agenda, there are some things that we can work on together, so I’m looking forward to being able to have those conversations,” he told The Globe and Mail in an interview.
A spokesperson for the Greens said Monday the party would not be entertaining any negotiations on power sharing until after the final votes are tallied.
This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.