South Island election results—including some that could decide BC's direction

The people of BC voted yesterday during heavy rainfall that came with a Category 3 atmospheric river—perhaps a fitting final backdrop to a race that was partly defined by one leader's climate-science skepticism and another's retreat from a signature climate policy.

As of midnight, ​​Elections BC said it was unable to finish counting votes in Cariboo-Chilcotin, Surrey-Newton and North Coast-Haida Gwaii due to “weather related disruptions” and a lack of available election officials. Elections in BC are also still counting absentee ballots in 16 other ridings.

Meanwhile, a clear verdict was prevented by extremely close NDP-Conservative races in South Island riding Juan de Fuca – Malahat (a redrawn Westshore riding thought to be fairly safe for the NDP), a few Surrey-area ridings, and possibly even the East Island's Courtenay-Comox.

The shorthand? After a very soggy election day, the NDP are neck and neck with the Conservatives and the final election outcome will remain unclear for a number of days.

Final hand-counts, distance votes made from another riding’s stations (some due to the storm), and recounts may push a final verdict to next weekend and beyond. For now, it looks like the two large parties will be in a near-tie with the Greens likely holding the power to prop up the government—while demanding some favours, of course.

The BC Greens maintained the two seats they needed to not only tip the election but simply keep official party status—but they did it without either of their incumbent South Island MLAs. Adam Olsen did not run, but successor Rob Bottrell came in and held his Saanich North riding. Leader Sonia Furstenau fell short in her bid to unseat the NDP from their stronghold of Victoria – Beacon Hill, which she pursued rather than running in the redrawn version of her Cowichan-area riding. Replacing her will be mainlander Jeremy Valeriote, who broke through in his third attempt to win Vancouver – Sea to Sky.

The NDP and Conservatives are each looking for a 47-seat threshold to form a majority government; overnight counts had them at 46 and 45 respectively. Beyond the election itself, the next question that arises is who will become speaker, since a majority party giving an MLA up to that role would only narrow the voting margin further.

Election analysis

It was a heck of a ride. Recounts in three ridings with razor thin margins will determine whether the NDP or Conservatives form the next government and the balance of power in the Legislature may rest with two green Green party winners.

The election was a far tighter race than was initially expected before BC United’s Kevin Falcon “pulled the rug out” from under its candidates and supporters when he suspended the campaign and threw his support behind B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad.

The upheaval also meant that Sonia Furstenau was the only party leader on the ballot who was democratically elected in a contested race (Rustad was acclaimed in spring 2023 as the only candidate, and Eby was acclaimed in fall 2022 after the disqualification of climate activist Anjali Appadurai).

The move pushed many right leaning Liberal voters into the arms of the Conservatives and forced some sitting UBC MLAs to either run for the Conservatives or as independents. The Conservatives had their hands full in trying to build a party at the same time as they were trying to win an election but their efforts seemed to have paid off, as they ran away with an estimated 45 seats. Not bad for a party BC voters hardly knew anything about only two short months ago and that hadn't won a riding since 1975.

Their scramble was evident in their failure to generate a cohesive platform, leader John Rustad’s lack of debate preparation and their running of poorly vetted candidates. Their campaign's closing days were dogged by scrutiny of candidates such as Brent Chapman, whose anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian, and mass-shooting-skeptic comments recently prompted widespread demand he step down as candidate—demands that he and Rustad brushed aside in the key Surrey riding. Despite it all, they nearly took the whole enchilada.

Robert Fleming, former NDP MLA for Victoria-Swan Lake who MC’d the night at NDP headquarters at the Parkside Hotel gave Capital Daily his take on his party’s results. He acknowledged voter frustration with key issues like cost of living and the housing crisis, and acknowledged that the party's progress on those may be too slow. But Fleming also blamed the Greens for the night’s tight margins, which he says ended up favouring the Conservatives.

“I think it was one of those elections where people acknowledge there was frustration about slow progress, the NDP was on the right issues, doing the right things, hitting credibility exactly, building 1000s of units of affordable housing, making investments in healthcare, hiring more doctors, all those things. Did it come a little bit too late to show enough progress for voters? I'm not sure.”

“David Eby ran a good campaign on the issues that matter. I don't think he missed anything that people were talking about. He’ll probably win the popular vote quite handily, but the consolidated right might be a factor, and we'll find out whether the Ggreens are a bunch of spoilers in certain writings where they really had no chance, and those that are Green, that consider themselves progressive, whether they reevaluate whether they helped, what many of them called a Trump style far right”

(Fleming's NDP, of course, could have worked out a deal with the Greens to prevent vote-splitting as the United and Conservative leaders did.)

New Democrats had to push hard after a number of long-serving cabinet ministers, including locals such as Murray Rankin (Oak Bay-Gordon Head) and Rob Fleming (Victoria Swan-Lake), left office ahead of the election.

This time around, Eby didn’t take Vancouver Island for granted. He left his own riding in battleground Vancouver on election day to come to Victoria to help pull the vote, particularly in Vancouver- Beacon Hill where incumbent Grace Lore won against Green party leader Sonia Furstenau.

Steve Mossop Executive VP at Leger (polling) reported last night that roughly two-thirds of Liberal (BC United) voters went to the Conservatives and, while the New Democrats retained 75% of their loyal voters, they lost about 19% to the Conservatives—something the Greens,who only took of 9% of the entire vote, cannot be blamed for. The Greens had polled as high as 15% in recent years, indicating they may have lost ground due to strategic voting (and the simple numerical limitations that result from not contesting 24 ridings).

Election results by riding, with candidate reactions:

New automated technology for Elections BC meant the results began to come in within an hour of polls closing and here is how it shook out:

Esquimalt-Colwood NDP Darlene Rotchford

Esquimalt councillor Darlene Rotchford delivered a win that entrenched the riding’s status as a safe NDP seat, securing more votes than challengers John Wilson and Camille Currie combined. Rotchford was subbed in as a candidate just six weeks ago after the decision not to run was made by incumbent MLA Mitzi Dean. Dean's troubled time as Minister of Children & Family Development ended with her removal, but she had intended to continue as MLA until health issues sparked her late-hour withdrawal.

“It’s been a wild ride,” Rotchford said, “It’s been a short run. Women can do it all quite frankly (Rotchford has a 10 month old child). I want to thank the other candidates in the riding. This is democracy and this is how it works.”

Rotchford told Capital Daily “Unfortunately, Mitzi was ill and unable to run and so we just hit the ground running to tell the people of Esquimalt why the NDP is the best option. We’re going to continue to work on affordability and the housing crisis and we’re going to fix health care. I come from health care so I can tell you we’re going to do it.”

Cowichan Valley NDP Debra Toporowski

In what was initially considered very much a three-horse race, Debra Toporowski eventually won a see-saw election night  battle with the Conservative's John Koury. The Greens’ chances there declined considerably after incumbent party leader Sonia Furstenau left for Victoria-Beacon Hill. Cowichan also had two independent candidates, Eden Haythornthwaite (Independent Socialist) and Jon Coleman (unaffiliated).

From a watch party in Cobble Hill, where some 50 people were gathered, Toporowsky told her NDP colleagues at the Parkside Hotel "The campaign overall has just been a phenomenal experience, especially working with all the group of volunteers who came forward out of the woodwork. It's truly touching, and amazing to see how much people care about the environment, and to see how much they want to see change, and how much this earth and these policies mean to them. This campaign was certainly not run alone."

Oak-Bay Gordon Head  NDP Diana Gibson

Diana Gibson, known for leading local research nonprofit the Community Social Planning Council, maintained the NDP's hold on the riding formerly represented by the outgoing Murray Rankin and before him then-Green-leader Andrew Weaver. Gibson defeated Conservative Stephen Andrew, the former Victoria councillor who lost his 2022 effort to become mayor, and Green deputy leader Lisa Gunderson.

“Oak Bay-Gordon Bay has stood up and said we are not going to have negative divisiveness. We’re going to have positivity, hope. We really said not today to Trump-style politics, not on our watch.”

Gibson said the results of the night really represented a disconnect between what the polls were saying and what she was seeing on the doorsteps. “People are really stepping up to say these are the values we share.”

“The connections that I have built as a community organizer and in my work, both volunteer and professional, are the things that make a good MLA. I think it's really important as MLA to really know the riding and to know the community.”

While her colleagues were out pulling votes in the downpour under their umbrellas, deputy Green leader Lisa Gunderson was sitting calmly at their campaign HQ on Fort Street. She did not win her riding (Oak-Bay Gordon Head). And she’s ok with that.

“We always knew it was going to be close and with the collapse of the Liberal Party and what's been going on throughout this election, it’s been very affirming that people really are stepping up to say these are the values we share, and that we want to see that defended.”

“There's a difference when you need to be an MLA versus seeing it as a pathway to continue the work that you've been doing for your communities and for people,” Gunderson told Capital Daily. “I would rather lose fighting for the values that I believe in and for the pathway that we are continuing.”

Juan de Fuca Malahat NDP Dana Lajeunesse (tentatively)

Juan de Fuca Maalaht was another riding that teetered between the NDP and Conservatives, but as the night wore on, the count had the NDP retaining the riding. As of 11 p.m., BC NDP’s Dana Lajeunesse had 8,941 votes and the BC Conservatives’ Marina Sapozhnikov, 8,916. This was one of other razor-thin wins that may be slated for a recount before Nov 5.

Over social media, Green candidate David Evans (who drew an estimated 5,345 votes) said “While the results weren’t what we hoped for, this campaign was about more than one election, it was about creating lasting change and that work continues.”

Langford-Highlands NDP Ravi Parmar

Ravi Parmar easily held the seat he won in last summer's byelection, maintaining a vote share above 50% in the new riding created from the urban heart of the oversized riding John Horgan had long held. Capital Daily spoke with Parmar  just before the polls closed. When he was asked about his election journey he said it was very similar to the last one:

“I knocked on a lot of doors and I get choked up because I've been to so many doors multiple times because, you know, I ran for school board in 2022 ran for MLA in 2023 and so if you have conversations you also build relationships with people, and I appreciate that.”

“We've shown John Rustad that no matter what will happen tonight with the Conservative Party or what I refer to as a conspiracy party in the legislature,  that's something that we all should be concerned about.”

Saanich South NDP Lana Popham ‍

Current Tourism and former Agriculture minister Lana Popham held her seat easily. This is her fifth election win, and the last year of this new term would be Popham's 20th year representing the area.

Saanich North and Gulf Islands Green Rob Bottrell ‍

The Greens have held the peninsula despite the loss of popular MLA Adam Olsen, who chose this summer not to run for office but did chair the party's provincial campaign. Former Ministry of Finance worker Rob Botterell now takes over after winning a fairly close three-way race.

From the watch party at the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea in Sidney, Bottrell told his supporters “I want to thank the other candidates and to recognise all the hard work they and their teams did. Democracy is the foundation we use to build a better world and a better way and tonight we saw democracy work. It’s very fragile. I am going to focus on building consensus, not division. I am going to work with the amazing forward looking platform of the Green party which puts people, nature and wellness at its centre to guide me in making sure we achieve some really great things over the next four years.”

In comments to Capital Daily about the dynamics of what was looking like a minority government Olsen told Capital Daily, “This is a value-for-dollars legislative assembly. This is the kind of legislative assembly that's really working on the absolute British Columbians. They got to hold it together. You have to be responsible. You can't just parade around the province making all these promises, and then when it comes down to it, you got to govern and so this is one of those legislative assemblies that is going to have to, they're going to have to find ways to work across and to build relationships.”

Victoria-Beacon Hill NDP Grace Lore

Grace Lore, the incumbent NDP Minister of Children & Family Development held off Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau in what has typically been a safe NDP riding but became a real contest in the final week leading to the election Some recent polling had projected Furstenau flipping the seat, but Lore won by 3,688 votes.

“This is what happens when we come together in the belief that community matters, that investing in community matters, that our neighbors are absolutely our responsibility every single day and to make sure that people are at the center of everything we do. My commitment to you, as a member of this caucus and as a member of this community, is to make sure that my neighbors who need it most are at the front of my mind and to do justice to the work that everyone did for the last 28 days. I cannot wait to get to work with my new colleagues.”

When she was asked to comment on the women power of the NDP in the south island she told Capital Daily “Representation matters. It matters who is representing communities, women moms representing communities doing the work. I know both my kids see their mom working for the community and no one has given up more for this work than my kids.”

Speaking about her ouster of Sonia Fursteneau Lore said “I reached out this morning to Sonia to tell her how much I appreciate her voice and what she brings to the legislature and this wasn’t the fight I wanted to have, but I wasn’t going to be outworked, so I went hard at it every day.”

In her moving concession speech, Sonia Furstenau told the crowd gathered at the Delta Hotel, "It's not the outcome that we hoped for in Victoria Beacon Hill tonight, but I'm so proud of the campaign that we ran. We knew we were up against a steep hill. We were trying something bold and new, but the challenge was a little more than we could do."

“We put a forward a vision for this province and for this riding I was very excited about. The vision centered on the well-being of people and communities, on nature and on our public institutions.”

Furstenau’s role as party leader often took her away from the riding and while she came out the clear winner of the televised leadership debate, she acknowledged her campaign manager “had an incredibly challenging task to run a campaign where the candidate was almost never there.”

She told Capital Daily “I am going to sleep tonight knowing my integrity is intact.” Furstenau suggested in her speech that she would be there to mentor the two new MLAs.

Victoria Swan-Lake  Nina Krieger NDP

Nina Krieger held onto outgoing four-term MLA Rob Fleming's riding, considered one of the NDP's safest seats. Krieger, a newcomer to politics, walked away with 55% of the vote.

“On a personal level, this is really about stepping up at this time of such great polarization and division, and working for all British Columbians, ensuring that we build a province where the dignity and wellbeing of all people is championed, and we can ensure that nobody is left behind.”

Speaking about the importance of keeping the Conservative blue tide at bay, Krieger told Capital Daily “I feel like it's critical in a time of great polarization. I think what we've seen that in terms of their circulation of conspiracy theories that really sow distrust in government and between communities and neighbours, and I think it’s time to bring people together.”

In a pushback to what she perceived as Conservative peddling in the political currency of fear she said “I think people are longing for hope, and they're longing for compassionate, courageous leaders that work foir r all and truly bring people together.”

Other Island results:

NDP won both Nanaimo ridings and Pacific Rim.

The NDP won Ladysmith-Oceanside, despite concerns of vote-splitting with both the Greens and ousted former MLA Adam Walker, as well as a riding border that included some of the Island's more conservative-leaning communities.

The BC Conservatives won the North Island, flipping a long-standing NDP seat that the BC Liberals had often been competitive in but had not won since 2001.

Courtenay-Comox went down to the wire

As of 1am, Conservative challenger Brennan Day was up by fewer than 300 votes on NDP incumbent Ronna-Rae Leonard, while Green Arzeena Hamir held about 21% of the vote. This riding, like JDF–M, will help decide the election.

General mainland regional trends:

A near-deadlocked election emerged as the NDP lost not only the Fraser Valley (where it had made some inroads in 2020) but much of Surrey—in several cases by just a few hundred votes. The incumbent party offset this somewhat by claiming a few ridings in the Southern Interior and ceding little ground in Metro Vancouver. The Conservatives strengthened an expected hold on the North and most of the Interior.

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This article was updated around noon to clean up the transcription of some quotes.