Although the B.C. election remains too close to call, one thing is clear: the B.C. Conservatives, under the leadership of John Rustad, have made historic gains with the help of minority voters.
By late Saturday night, the B.C. Conservatives found themselves elected, or leading, in 45 ridings. Meanwhile, the B.C. NDP were expected to win 46 seats (down from 55 before the election) and the Greens remained stagnant at two seats, despite their leader, Sonia Furstenau, failing to get re-elected.
While these preliminary results suggest a slim NDP victory, the election remains in limbo because a handful of ridings, which are included in these counts, have razor-thin margins and will likely necessitate recounts.
Further complicating things, mail-in votes were only counted on election night if they were received by Oct. 16 (the close of advance voting), while those that arrived after will not be tallied until the final count, which will occur between Oct. 26 and 28.
Only 0.3 per cent of votes were submitted by mail in the province’s 2017 election, but, due to the pandemic, that number skyrocketed to 31.4 per cent in 2020. While it’s unclear whether mail-in voting has fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, even a small number of these belated ballots could potentially upend this year’s overall results.
Realistically, though, the B.C. Conservatives probably only have a chance of eking out one or two extra seats, which would grant them either a minority or majority government (47 seats are required for a majority).
Yet if Rustad were to form a minority government, there is a good chance that it would immediately be toppled by the NDP and Greens — either through the two progressive parties forming a coalition or by them signing a supply and confidence agreement. That is precisely what happened in 2017, after all, when the Greens used their handful of seats to overthrow the B.C. Liberals, who had just won a slim minority.
Even if it is unlikely (but not impossible) that Rustad will become premier, the election has already been a resounding success for him. Four years ago, the B.C. Conservatives subsisted in the political fringes and commanded less than two per cent of the vote. Now, the party enjoys near-equal support with the NDP and has just had its most successful election in nearly a century.
Even Premier David Eby recognized this in his speech on Saturday night, when he acknowledged that Rustad “spoke to the frustrations of a lot of British Columbians” and admitted that the B.C. NDP has to “do better.”
Much of Rustad’s success seemed rooted in his ability to connect with socially conservative ethnic voters — particularly with respect to drugs, crime and parental rights — which allowed him to build a diverse coalition of supporters.
Polling data gathered throughout the election by Mainstreet Research suggests that, while white British Columbians were pretty evenly split between the NDP and Conservatives, many non-white voters preferred the B.C. Conservatives. East Asian voters seemed particularly enthusiastic about swinging the province rightward.
This data is consistent with what I heard from grassroots Conservative organizers who, after extensive door-knocking, claimed that their most ardent supporters seemed to be East Asian and South Asian.
Saturday night’s election map showed that this bubbling ethnic support is real and significant. The B.C. Conservatives were able to win an astonishing number of seats in Richmond and Surrey — two Vancouver suburbs with large East Asian and South Asian communities.
This breakthrough suggests that concerns about whether some of the party’s candidates were racist — a narrative that was zealously covered by many media outlets in the lead-up to the election — were not overly concerning to many ethnic voters.
Even Brent Chapman, the controversial Conservative candidate whose old social media posts were widely criticized as racist and Islamophobic, managed to win a decisive victory in Surrey South — a riding that is roughly 40 per cent non-white.
This raises questions about whether the province’s media elites have a strong grasp of the priorities of ethnic voters, and whether coverage of these issues was disproportionate and politically biased.
Ultimately, it appears that what actually cost the B.C. Conservatives an easy victory was not ill-advised social media posts, but vote splitting.
When B.C. United abruptly collapsed in late August, some of its candidates decided to run as independents rather than bow out of the election. While this did not change the results of most ridings, it clearly handed the B.C. NDP two critical seats.
Independent candidates Jackie Lee and Kevin Acton, who both positioned themselves as conservative-leaning figures, siphoned away thousands of right-wing voters in their respective ridings of Richmond-Steveston and Vernon-Lumby. In doing so, they sabotaged what would have otherwise been easy victories for the B.C. Conservatives and potentially handed Eby four more years of government.
But on a deeper level, maybe the blame really lies with former B.C. United leader Kevin Falcon. Had he been more open to merging his party with Rustad’s, and had he dissolved his party earlier and more gracefully, no vote splitting would have occurred and Eby would not have stood a chance.
National Post