There’s a message people hear again and again from get-out-the-vote advocates: every vote counts.
No kidding.
British Columbia has once again earned its reputation for being the Wild West of politics. The province won’t know the final results of Saturday’s election until at least this upcoming weekend. As it stands now, recounts will automatically be triggered in two ridings where fewer than 100 votes separate the NDP and Conservative candidates. There are nine additional ridings where judicial recounts may be requested, with fewer than 500 votes separating the two parties.
With an aggrieved electorate, change was in the air. The previously fringe Conservative Party is elected or leading in 45 ridings, one fewer than the incumbent NDP, with 46. A party needs 47 seats for a majority. The Greens won two seats, but their leader, Sonia Furstenau, lost hers to the NDP incumbent (Ms. Furstenau had switched ridings).
Jinny Sims, a former NDP MP who lost the provincial seat in Surrey-Panorama she had held since 2017, observed in her concession speech that “the voters are always right,” to cheers from the crowd. “Even when they are wrong.”
Voters can be wrong – very. In the riding of Surrey South, Conservative candidate Brent Chapman defeated New Democrat Haroon Ghaffar, despite despicable comments Mr. Chapman had made on social media a few years ago.
In a November, 2015, Facebook post – recently unearthed and shared by Jas Johal, a former BC Liberal MLA and current CKNW radio host – Mr. Chapman referred to Palestinian children as “little inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs.”
Then, in a 2017 Facebook post, also recently shared by Mr. Johal, Mr. Chapman seemed to cast doubt on “mass shooting” events (quotation marks his) in the U.S. and Canada, including the Quebec City mosque shooting, which had happened days earlier. The shootings had “sketchy stories,” Mr. Chapman wrote.
But wait, there’s more.
In an interview last month – also shared by Mr. Johal – Mr. Chapman was asked about “the residential school business” by a fringe podcast host who described the residential schools tragedy as possibly looking like a massive fraud.
“You’re absolutely right,” Mr. Chapman replied, after joking about two historical mass-death events in the U.S. “But … you’re not allowed to say.”
Mr. Chapman apologized for the 2015 comments once they came to light. He says the 2017 post was misconstrued and that the mass shootings he had referenced “were all very real.” He says the residential school comments were taken out of context.
After the anti-Palestinian comments came to light in the later days of the election campaign, Conservative Leader John Rustad refused to dump Mr. Chapman, saying his fate was up to the voters.
This was all about power. Surrey South was considered a safe Conservative riding and it was too late to replace Mr. Chapman. With results as tight as they turned out to be, the Conservatives not getting that seat would indeed have had a significant impact.
It seems that power is more important to some of these politicians than governing, and certainly more important than governing with integrity. Win or lose, how do you keep a guy around who says such things? It’s not as though he made these comments when he was young and immature and didn’t know better (not that this would make it okay); the man is in his 60s.
And, people of Surrey South: how did you vote for him? Preliminary results show 12,465 people cast their ballot for Mr. Chapman. They either didn’t hear about these comments or voted for him anyway. Were they holding their noses and choosing him because they so despise the NDP? Or perhaps they agree with what Mr. Chapman said. In any case, it’s enough to depress the heck out of even the most faithful believer in the electorate, and the system.
If the current situation holds, the party with the most potential power right now is the one that received the fewest votes. The Greens, which earned only two seats (both rookie MLAs), could align with either the NDP or the Conservatives, allowing for a minority government.
It seems unlikely that the Greens would partner with the Conservatives, given the party’s position on the environment and with someone like Mr. Chapman in the group. But it’s still astounding.
Also astounding: British Columbians might be heading back to the polls. Mr. Rustad has told The Globe and Mail that he is open to forcing another election.
As Winston Churchill once famously said, democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others.