Surrey voters played a pivotal role in Oct. 19 election


Garry Begg of the NDP is now ahead by 27 votes in Surrey-Guildford. A judicial recount will take place next week. If  that result holds, the NDP will have a majority government by the slimmest of margins.


Surrey voters played a pivotal role in the Oct. 19 provincial election, as foreshadowed by the frequent visits of NDP leader David Eby and Conservative leader John Rustad to Surrey during the campaign. 

The drama continued for another 10 days until Monday, Oct. 28, when final results were announced after recounts and counting of absentee ballots. In one Surrey seat, Surrey-Guildford, winning candidate Garry Begg of the NDP has a 27-vote margin of victory over Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa. A judicial recount will take place next week to make the final determination. One is also scheduled to take place in Kelowna Centre, where Conservative Kristina Loewen is 38 votes ahead of Loyal Wooldridge of the NDP.
For now, the NDP have the slimmest of majorities in the B.C. Legislature - 47 out of the 93 seats.

The margin was 46-45 after election night. Begg was initially behind by 102 votes. The absentee ballot count started Oct. 26, and the margin kept declining. It was down to a nine-vote lead for Randhawa on Monday morning, with over 200 ballots left to count. By 2 p.m., Begg was ahead by 18 votes. Begg won Surrey-Guildford with 60.6 per cent of the vote in 2020.
Surrey City Centre went back and forth between the NDP and Conservatives on election night. When that counting was done, NDP candidate Amna Shah was 93 votes ahead of Conservative candidate Zeeshan Wahla. 
At the conclusion on of the recount Sunday, Shah was 175 votes ahead. The final margin was 236 votes Monday. 
Both of these close races show how far the NDP fell in Surrey. Much of Surrey City Centre was part of the former Surrey-Whalley riding, which longtime MLA Bruce Ralston won with almost 71 per cent of the vote in 2020.
These two ridings weren’t the only ones with dramatic results. Conservative candidates took down Education Minister Rachna Singh in Surrey North, former cabinet minister Jinny Sims in Surrey-Panorama, and one-term MLA Mike Starchuk in Surrey-Cloverdale. Star NDP candidate Baltej Singh Dhillon failed to win the new Surrey-Serpentine River riding, losing in a close race to Conservative candidate and former mayor Linda Hepner. 
In Surrey-White Rock, a longtime BC Liberal/United stronghold, incumbent MLA Trevor Halford had his work cut out for him. He ended up with 14,557 votes, less than 2,000 ahead of former White Rock mayor Darryl Walker, the NDP candidate. All in all, six Surrey ridings are now Conservative. Four more are in the NDP camp.
By contrast, Delta went totally as expected, with Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon easily winning Delta North and incumbent Ian Paton, former BC Liberal/United candidate and latterly the Conservative candidate, winning by a comfortable margin in Delta South. 
The NDP, in Surrey and elsewhere, were collectively told by voters they are only to have an uncomfortable hold on power. They were told to deliver results, not promises. Concerns about lack of funding for much-needed infrastructure from hospitals to schools, transit to child care were top of mind for many voters, who work hard every day to make enough to pay their ever-rising expenses. Conservatives, on the other hand, were told collectively by voters all across the province (and even in Surrey, where they did well) that they aren’t quite ready to govern. Many of their policies proved popular, but some of the candidates (eg. Brent Chapman in Surrey South) lacked proper vetting. 
Rustad will have much work to do to form a cohesive opposition which holds the government’s feet to the fire. He has shown himself to be far more capable than many people thought when the campaign began. This may be one of his toughest tasks. 
All incoming MLAs need to work hard to address the concerns about lack of housing, affordability, high taxes, increasing government regulation and the state of the economy. Their work is just beginning.

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