B.C. Election Analysis
Result was closer than seat count suggests
By John Twigg
The British Columbia election of May 12, 2009 was a lot closer than most people realize: only a few thousand votes different in a handful of constituencies could have produced a different outcome.
Even as this is being written a week after the event the final seat numbers are still unknown because there are recounts pending in about a dozen constituencies and the number of uncounted absentee ballots substantially exceeds the margins of victory in several contests.
The preliminary result from Elections B.C. shows 49 seats for the B.C. Liberal Party of incumbent Premier Gordon Campbell and 36 seats for the Opposition New Democrats led by Carole James but the final results won't be out until May 27 and even then there could be judicial recounts.
That's especially so in Delta South where it appears Vicki Huntington, an Independent candidate, has defeated Liberal Attorney General Wally Oppal by 55 votes, 9,675 to 9,620, but in another listing it was 9,617 for Huntington to 9,620 for Oppal.
Similarly the two Cariboo ridings appeared split on election night but now both appear to be NDP wins.
In a Parliament with 85 seats, that 49 seats reportedly won by the Liberals seems like a comfortable win but after the final count and any judicial recounts it could become closer, maybe something like 45 to 40 with 1 Independent.
The popular vote of 46 per cent for the Liberals to 42 per cent for the NDP shows it was indeed quite close.
Anyway, there is lots more to say about what actually happened in the election but it can't really be written yet because the outcome is not known yet.
Interestingly while a lot of contests were very close there also were lots of ridings that were lopsided wins for one party or the other, which makes it all the more hazardous to try to draw province-wide conclusions.
Though the results appear to be little net change, there was a high turnover of MLAs with something like 25 per cent newcomers, so clearly there was some kind of change going on, but not a major shift in ideologies.
What happened to the Green Party? Its support once again shrank despite their production of an excellent platform. While a lot can be debated about the respective merits and drawbacks of energy and environment policies propounded by all three parties, my own conclusion is that quite a few former Green supporters went NDP this time in order to try to "stop Campbell" from inflicting even more deconstruction onto B.C.'s public assets and services.
There understandably has been lots of second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking about the respective campaigns, about what worked and didn't and what could have been done differently, and perhaps we'll pursue that in more detail later on this newly-revived blog.
One thing though is that the debate about the role of the mainstream media deserves some time too because there were some interesting shifts, such as the dominant Canwest outlets (Vancouver Sun and Province, and Global TV) covering the campaign with a lot less intensity than before. That sparked complaints from B.C. Reform Party leader David Hawkins that debt-burdened Canwest was pressured into passivity by its global-capitalist creditors.
While some outlets such as CKNW, CBC-TV and CTV-BC covered the campaign as usual, others did change their tone, and why that was and what it caused remain to be determined.
Regarding the STV referendum, again there has been a lot of hot air about what went right or wrong with the respective campaigns but really from the statistical outcome - about 61% "No" - the problem was with its susbtance, namely too few ridings, ridings that were too large and a lock-in for 12 years.
Bill Tieleman, David Schreck and other "no" side activists do deserve credit for running a much better campaign than the "yes" side did but it helped that they had the best substance to work with.
Yes people do want electoral reform but they want a system that would be better than the status quo, not worse.
But in any case the STV debate did perform a useful purpose for the Campbell Liberals, namely providing a distraction from their own checkered record.
The notion that the election was a ho-hum affair no doubt contributed to the unusually low turnout by voters but some of the blame for that also can be worn by Carole James and her colleagues who evidently failed to convince enough people that the matters at stake were highly significant and urgent.
In fact quite a few important issues went virtually untouched in the campaign, such as the dramatic declines in the asset values of pension plans managed by British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (which raise a number of further questions why), and the surprising deal between the federal government and the Ontario government to harmonize the federal GST with the provincial sales tax, which appeared so favourable to Ontario (thanks to a huge federal subsidy) that Quebec immediately demanded equal treatment. But what did the B.C. government do? It stayed silent, not daring to rock any boats.
While many people appeared pleased with the election outcome, and many more assumed it won't make much difference, I'm one who fears it could be disastrous for the B.C. public interest, especially if Campbell takes it as a mandate to slash spending and cut services in order to address a deficit that - what a surprise - will turn out to be a lot worse than predicted shortly before the election.
In fact that's one example among many in which the Campbell Liberals engaged in deceitful tactics in order to advance their political interests.
In other words, the Liberals won in part by cheating. They bent more than a few rules, their third-party supporters stretched the truth even further, and they misrepresented germane facts in many situations.
But in any case we have to wait another week or so for the final results and then after that it will be another week or two before we get a new cabinet and a new swearing-in process.
For further data see
http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/stats/2009-ge-ref/GE-2009-05-12_Party.html
By John Twigg
The British Columbia election of May 12, 2009 was a lot closer than most people realize: only a few thousand votes different in a handful of constituencies could have produced a different outcome.
Even as this is being written a week after the event the final seat numbers are still unknown because there are recounts pending in about a dozen constituencies and the number of uncounted absentee ballots substantially exceeds the margins of victory in several contests.
The preliminary result from Elections B.C. shows 49 seats for the B.C. Liberal Party of incumbent Premier Gordon Campbell and 36 seats for the Opposition New Democrats led by Carole James but the final results won't be out until May 27 and even then there could be judicial recounts.
That's especially so in Delta South where it appears Vicki Huntington, an Independent candidate, has defeated Liberal Attorney General Wally Oppal by 55 votes, 9,675 to 9,620, but in another listing it was 9,617 for Huntington to 9,620 for Oppal.
Similarly the two Cariboo ridings appeared split on election night but now both appear to be NDP wins.
In a Parliament with 85 seats, that 49 seats reportedly won by the Liberals seems like a comfortable win but after the final count and any judicial recounts it could become closer, maybe something like 45 to 40 with 1 Independent.
The popular vote of 46 per cent for the Liberals to 42 per cent for the NDP shows it was indeed quite close.
Anyway, there is lots more to say about what actually happened in the election but it can't really be written yet because the outcome is not known yet.
Interestingly while a lot of contests were very close there also were lots of ridings that were lopsided wins for one party or the other, which makes it all the more hazardous to try to draw province-wide conclusions.
Though the results appear to be little net change, there was a high turnover of MLAs with something like 25 per cent newcomers, so clearly there was some kind of change going on, but not a major shift in ideologies.
What happened to the Green Party? Its support once again shrank despite their production of an excellent platform. While a lot can be debated about the respective merits and drawbacks of energy and environment policies propounded by all three parties, my own conclusion is that quite a few former Green supporters went NDP this time in order to try to "stop Campbell" from inflicting even more deconstruction onto B.C.'s public assets and services.
There understandably has been lots of second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking about the respective campaigns, about what worked and didn't and what could have been done differently, and perhaps we'll pursue that in more detail later on this newly-revived blog.
One thing though is that the debate about the role of the mainstream media deserves some time too because there were some interesting shifts, such as the dominant Canwest outlets (Vancouver Sun and Province, and Global TV) covering the campaign with a lot less intensity than before. That sparked complaints from B.C. Reform Party leader David Hawkins that debt-burdened Canwest was pressured into passivity by its global-capitalist creditors.
While some outlets such as CKNW, CBC-TV and CTV-BC covered the campaign as usual, others did change their tone, and why that was and what it caused remain to be determined.
Regarding the STV referendum, again there has been a lot of hot air about what went right or wrong with the respective campaigns but really from the statistical outcome - about 61% "No" - the problem was with its susbtance, namely too few ridings, ridings that were too large and a lock-in for 12 years.
Bill Tieleman, David Schreck and other "no" side activists do deserve credit for running a much better campaign than the "yes" side did but it helped that they had the best substance to work with.
Yes people do want electoral reform but they want a system that would be better than the status quo, not worse.
But in any case the STV debate did perform a useful purpose for the Campbell Liberals, namely providing a distraction from their own checkered record.
The notion that the election was a ho-hum affair no doubt contributed to the unusually low turnout by voters but some of the blame for that also can be worn by Carole James and her colleagues who evidently failed to convince enough people that the matters at stake were highly significant and urgent.
In fact quite a few important issues went virtually untouched in the campaign, such as the dramatic declines in the asset values of pension plans managed by British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (which raise a number of further questions why), and the surprising deal between the federal government and the Ontario government to harmonize the federal GST with the provincial sales tax, which appeared so favourable to Ontario (thanks to a huge federal subsidy) that Quebec immediately demanded equal treatment. But what did the B.C. government do? It stayed silent, not daring to rock any boats.
While many people appeared pleased with the election outcome, and many more assumed it won't make much difference, I'm one who fears it could be disastrous for the B.C. public interest, especially if Campbell takes it as a mandate to slash spending and cut services in order to address a deficit that - what a surprise - will turn out to be a lot worse than predicted shortly before the election.
In fact that's one example among many in which the Campbell Liberals engaged in deceitful tactics in order to advance their political interests.
In other words, the Liberals won in part by cheating. They bent more than a few rules, their third-party supporters stretched the truth even further, and they misrepresented germane facts in many situations.
But in any case we have to wait another week or so for the final results and then after that it will be another week or two before we get a new cabinet and a new swearing-in process.
For further data see
http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/stats/2009-ge-ref/GE-2009-05-12_Party.html
Labels: B.C. election, B.C. politics, John Twigg
posted by John Twigg at
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