Outcome of B.C. election that few people wanted could be determined in Surrey
The campaign to Keep the RCMP in Surrey may be a decisive factor in the outcome of the provincial election in Surrey. Frank Bucholtz photo
The provincial election that almost no one wants or needs is now underway. NDP leader and current premier John Horgan has taken a huge gamble, hoping that the government’s popularity due to its handling of COVID-19 will be enough to give his party a majority government.
It’s a gamble for a number of reasons. The biggest one is that so few people want an election, and do not believe that the minority government was in any danger of falling. The next election was scheduled for October, 2021, and most people were quite ready to wait that long to vote.
It’s also a gamble because the number of COVID-19 cases is much higher than it has been, and the situation in schools (recently reopened) is challenging. There have been COVID-19 cases in schools already (many of them in Surrey) and many parents and teachers have serious doubts about ongoing safety in the classroom. As the cool weather comes, students tend to get sicker with other ailments, which makes dealing with COVID-19 more difficult. If a student is exposed to the virus, self-isolation is required - which means that, in many cases, a parent has to stay home from work.
Horgan and the NDP won’t get any credit if the number of cases and the school situation deteriorate further.
The 2017 election results saw the BC Liberals decline in number of seats, to 43 - one short of a majority. The NDP won 41 seats, and three Greens were also elected. After some floundering around by then-premier Christy Clark, it was clear she would not be able to govern any longer. Horgan and his MLAs signed an agreement with Andrew Weaver and the other two Green MLAs. Among other things, the agreement stated that there would not be an election until 2021, unless the government was defeated on a confidence motion. That didn’t happen, but we are having an election anyway. The unilateral abrogation of a contract does not sit well with some voters. It most certainly will not bring more undecided voters into the NDP fold.
The BC Liberals and the Greens do have a lot of ground to make up - one reason Horgan ripped up the agreement.
Sonia Furstenau
Cowichan Valley MLA Sonia Furstenau was just elected as the new Green leader to replace Weaver, who has been sniping at his former colleagues and sitting as an independent since he resigned as the Green leader. Andrew Wilkinson, the B.C. Liberal leader, is unknown to many voters and comes across as a west side of Vancouver know-it-all to many who are familiar with him.
He certainly can’t compete with John Horgan’s image as the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with.
Then there is the whole question of voter engagement. There will be no door-knocking. Social media will replace some, but not all of that type of connection with voters. Many voters will know nothing about their candidates, which could lead to either voting strictly by party or not voting at all. Many are fearful about in-person voting, and already the number of requests for mail ballots is far ahead of where it was in 2017. Estimates are that as many as 40 per cent of voters will vote by mail.
What are the issues? There are issues in each riding, of course, but most people are focused on a few basic and very important province-wide issues - COVID-19 and how best to deal with it; school reopening; the state of the provincial economy; and their own personal financial, physical and mental wellbeing.
For the NDP to win a majority, they have to expand their number of MLAs. It is likely they will win almost all the seats they hold, but at least two in Surrey aren’t that safe.
Jinny Sims, who holds Surrey-Panorama, has been in some hot water and had to leave cabinet. Her riding is vulnerable anyway, and efforts by the Keep the RCMP in Surrey campaign could bear fruit there. That organization has targeted NDP MLAs in Surrey because of the province’s decision to let a Surrey Police force go ahead without a referendum. Garry Begg, a former top Surrey RCMP officer, is the NDP MLA in Surrey-Guildford and he too will be targeted. That riding (formerly Surrey-Tynehead) was held by another former RCMP officer, Amrik Virk, for the BC Liberals between 2013 and 2017 and a rerun of the 2017 election is not impossible. Wilkinson has already brought up the Surrey policing issue in the campaign.
Maple Ridge-Mission is also a seat the NDP could lose. The party won seats in Surrey, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows in 2017 at least partially by promising to end tolling on the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridges. That isn’t an issue in 2020. The tolls are not coming back. Bob D’Eith won Maple Ridge-Mission for the NDP by a small margin in 2020.
There isn’t likely to be much change in either the B.C. Interior or Vancouver Island. The BC Liberals hold most of the Interior seats and the NDP hold most of the Vancouver Island seats. If the NDP can pry one or two seats from the Greens on Vancouver Island it could make a big difference.
The election will most likely be won or lost in the Lower Mainland, with its rich seat count, and suburban seats which have been closely-contested in the past will likely play the most important role.
Expect to see John Horgan and Andrew Wilkinson in Surrey and surrounding communities every week of the campaign. With policing, COVID-19 testing, school reopening, school construction, new hospital, other health care and transportation issues all important in Surrey, it is entirely possible that the election will be won or lost in B.C.’s second-largest city.
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