Frankly Speaking

Darryl Plecas Update: Darryl Plecas spoke to The Abbotsford News' Tyler Olsen about his decision to become Speaker, shedding new light on how it all happened and on his conversation with BC Liberal interim leader Rich Coleman the night before the Legislature resumed sitting. The whole story can be read here . Darryl Plecas, MLA for Abbotsford South, surprised just about everyone today by running for and being elected Speaker of the B.C. Legislature. He represents Aldergrove in the legislature, as well as a large portion of Abbotsford. I think he will do a good job as Speaker. He has not joined the NDP or Greens - he is the Speaker, which is a non-partisan position and involves managing how the legislature operates. I have run into Darryl many times over the years, going back to our days at Douglas College in the 1970s. His family has a long history in the Fleetwood area of Surrey. He has had a great career as a criminology professor at the University of the Fr...

Delta MP Carla Qualtrough was one of the five Liberal MPs elected in the 2015 federal election in Surrey and Delta. All but one of those wins came in ridings where the Liberals have had a hard time being competitive for decades. The broken promise on electoral reform may hurt their re-election chances, as in all five ridings they won, the winning Liberal candidates took significant numbers of votes from the NDP. The federal Liberal government pulled the plug on electoral reform last week – and the fallout in Surrey and Delta may not be fully noticed until the next election in 2019. Four of the six local MPs commented after the about-face by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They said the reversal was disappointing, but not completely surprising, given the magnitude of the task and the lack of consensus about a new system. Conservative MP Dianne Watts took the opportunity to tease her Liberal opponents (five of the six local seats are held by Liberals), saying “that was a prom...

The Liberal wave hit B.C. in a big way, as it did in most parts of Canada. In B.C., the Liberals won in most urban areas, but the extent of their win shows just how urban B.C. has become. For example, Kelowna-Lake Country, a conservative bastion for generations, went Liberal. So did four of the five Surrey seats, Delta, and a seat which straddles Burnaby and North Vancouver. Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge and Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam are also now Liberal. In most of those areas, there has not been a Liberal MP since Louis St. Laurent was prime minister. Four Vancouver seats, one in Richmond, and two other North Shore seats are also Liberal - as is, quite surprisingly, Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon. That may be the most rural seat of the 17 the Liberals won. They still have a chance at an 18th seat- incumbent NDP MP Kennedy Stewart is barely ahead of his Liberal rival Adam Pankratz in Burnaby South, with a number of polls still to be counted, as this is written. The NDP are still powerfu...