2017 British Columbia election

[Hatman 🍁]

obligatory map

[136or142]

Homer Simpson channels Andrew Weaver on the Green Party election results
https://youtu.be/R_rF4kcqLkI?t=1m44s

[136or142]

All votes except absentee ballots have now been counted: 1,799,355 votes.  Any chance it gets to 2,000,000?

http://electionsbcenr.blob.core.windows.net/electionsbcenr/GE-2017-05-09_Party.html

As it says on the website, that number is only the valid votes cast.  So, the number of people who cast a ballot is greater than that.  Anybody know how many spoiled ballots there usually are?

I think it's possible about 2 million cast a ballot. If only there weren't well over 3 million eligible voters.

[Antonio the Sixth]

lolbc

[Lotuslander]

Haha. I see the NDP cultists continue to inhabit this site. C'est la vie. Nothing like a major BC poli site (whereby I have been a mem for over 10 years) inhabited by centre-left/centre/centre-right folk sans the NDP cultists akin to here. It is what it is.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming...

BC hasn't seen a minority since 1952 - 65 years ago when W.A.C. Bennett and the Socreds first came on the BC political scene. Somewhat unchartered territory for BC in terms of political history.

Interior BC saw swing toward BC Libs while Metro Van inner belt saw swing toward the NDP with BC NDP taking all of the BC Lib-held swing seats. Still analyzing/digesting the whole matter.

In terms of popular vote share (with changes from 2013):

BC Libs: 41% (-3%)
BC NDP: 40% (+-0%)
BC Greens 16.7% (+8.6%)
BC Cons: 0% (although likely ~0.3%) (-4.5%)

Prima facie, overall provincially, the BC Greens were the beneficiary of the 2017 vote loss by the BC Libs/BC Cons from 2013. But voter migration modeling is much more complex than that. Just keeping it simple.

My fave riding in 2013 was Saanich North & the Islands (long-time BC Lib riding) - a true 3-way race whereby each party received ~1/3 vote. Here are 2017 results (2013 changes in brackets):

BC Green: 41.7% (+9.7%)
BC NDP: 30.3% (-3%)
BC Lib: 26.9% (-6.1%)

As seen in many ridings across BC, here the BC Greens took twice as many disaffected 2013 BC Lib votes v. BC NDP voters. Something I suspect that BC Green leader Andrew Weaver is cognizant of.

Now we come to the 2017 election high-profile riding of Courtenay-Comox. After redistribution/boundary changes, this riding was a relatively safe BC Lib seat based upon 2013 transposed results. 2017 result with 2013 transposed result changes:

BC NDP: 37.15% (+1.8%)
BC Lib: 37.12% (-10.7%)
BC Green: 18.1% (+7%)
BC Con: 7.6% (+1.7%)

Looks like both the BC Cons and esp. the BC Greens took a chunk of 2013 BC Lib vote in this riding. Now the BC NDP leads by 9 votes at initial count. BTW, the BC Cons took 2,061 votes here last night.

Another 176,000 special ballots, absentee ballots and similar category ballots will be tabulated and included in final results in two weeks time, which equates to ~2,000 votes per riding.

The BC NDP had a net gain of 25 votes in this final count in 2013 under the old Comox Valley riding boundaries with strong BC NDP areas Denman/Hornby Isles and Cumberland since removed.

If the BC Libs win this seat after final recount, other recounts, then the BC Libs have squeaked by a bare majority of 44 seats to 43 seats for the combined opposition BC NDP/ BC Greens. But even that is problematic for the BC Liberals. The BC Liberals win need to appoint a speaker leaving a 43-43 tie vote in the legislature albeit the Speaker can break that tie vote under most circumstances.

Further problems arise... if one BC Lib MLA is sick, in the hospital, dies, stuck in traffic, etc. and unable to make a key vote in the legislature such as a Throne Speech, monetary bill, etc. with the opposition showing up - the gov't could fall (I don't know if Speaker is able to tie a vote under those circumstances).

OTOH, if the BC NDP retains Courtenay-Comox after final recount we are left with 43 BC Libs, 41 BC NDP, and 3 BC Greens.

So what happens next? Clark is still the preem. Weaver is now the king-maker and has numerous options at his disposal.

Weaver has a few options:

1. BC Greens act as opposition without formal support for BC Libs/BC NDP without bringing down minority gov't - abstaining from voting on monetary bills in exchange for some compromises (my gut instinct);

2. BC Greens form accord with either BC Libs/BC NDP - problematic for numerous reasons - his 2017 voters and potential pitfalls at next election siding with one side or the other;

3. BC Greens form coalition with one party or other - when gov't falls, BC Greens likely to be obliterated as these small 3rd parties have experienced obliteration in similar circumstances;

Now let's look at Weaver wants:

1. Ban on corporate/union party funding (non-negotiable) - BC NDP wants a legislative bill whereas BC Libs propose independent panel to review matter for recommendations;

2. PR - BC NDP proposes referendum on their own PR version. BC Libs non-committal;

3. BC Greens currently have 3 MLAs while 4 are required for official opposition party status, which brings additional funding, research staff, etc.

Right now, that's what Weaver has stated what is looking for.

Now who can Weaver work with? Interestingly enough, Global BC's Keith Baldrey interviewed Weaver a few weeks back and Baldrey asked Weaver point blank... "Who will you feel more comfortable supporting in a minority gov't - Clark or Horgan?" Weaver responded that "You're putting me on the spot... Horgan has exploded on me multiple times... he has to control his temper... he doesn't want to bring people to work with him... whereas with Clark you can have a respectful disagreement and it's not personal".

Frankly, that was quite a signal right there and I suspect Weaver is prepared to not oppose the BC Libs governing in minority with Weaver/ BC Greens abstaining from voting on monetary bills, which would bring down the gov't. Of course, with the BC Libs agreeing to his 3 main conditions listed above.

Just speculation and conjecture on my part. Weaver could support Horgan and BC NDP as well.

Minority gov'ts also have a shelf life up to 18 months and highly likely that we will be in election mode within that time frame. No party will attempt to bring down a minority gov't... during the interim... as the electorate will punish same. We will also likely be in campaign mode - as opposed to actual governing over the next 18 months as well - considerable political uncertainty as well.

Moreover, seems like the BC Libs still have a large war chest while the BC NDP/BC Greens have depleted their financial resources.

Interestingly enough, Insights West released an opinion poll today focused, in part, upon this topic...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Suspect Weaver will walk a fine-line moving forward. My 2 cents.

[lilTommy]

If the seat count stays as is, the diversity of the two Caucus look like this: (feel free to verify, I eye-balled it)

BCNDP - 41
Women - 19, 46%
Visibly Minority - 12, 29%
LGBT - 4, 10%

BCLiberal - 43
Women - 13, 30%
Visible Minority - 5, 12%
Physical Disability - 1, 2%

People can discuss the NDP's internal nomination process's but its hard to argue with the results when about half the MLAs elected are women and almost half come from minority communities.  

I was trying to count up who was LGBT in the NDP caucus. I could think of Chandra Herbert, Farnsworth, Elmore...and who is the fourth one?

Nicholas Simons, was very open but low key about it when he had a short- lived run for leader in 2011 (dropped out to endorse Horgan)

[DL]

Actually the NDP has 5 LGBT MLAs, an article in the Georgia Straight mentioned Jennifer Rice as well

[adma]

Haha. I see the NDP cultists continue to inhabit this site. C'est la vie. Nothing like a major BC poli site (whereby I have been a mem for over 10 years) inhabited by centre-left/centre/centre-right folk sans the NDP cultists akin to here. It is what it is.

You're dodging.  To reiterate a point, this is what you predicted

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'll hopefully make some swing maps at some point, but in the meantime, this is a pretty interesting chart:



Any reason for the large swing in Richmond?

ETA: Looks like a lot of that swing may have come from the Conservatives

[Zanas]

I can't begin to fathom why 15% of the voters would cast a useless vote for the Greens when NDP is an available alternative. Canada is just weird sometimes.

Says the only Hamon voter in all of France...

[DL]

Any reason for the large swing in Richmond?

Richmond is heavily, heavily Chinese and even though in terms of average income its no richer than Surrey (which is heavily South Asian and is more NDP-friendly) it has traditionally been an NDP dead zone because the NDP didn't have much support in the Chinese community. If you look at household income and being a inner suburb of Vancouver, were it not for the Chinese factor, Richmong OUGHT to be as NDP-friendly as Surrey! so the gains there are a bit of a reversion to the mean

That seems to have changed this time. If you look at how the NDP picked up Fraserview and Burnaby North (both of which have large Chinese populations) and gained so much ground in all four Richmond seats, I suspect that as the Chinese community matures and assimilates politically it is starting to hedge its bets politically and the taboo on voting NDP is wearing off. Now that the NDP has elected four Chinese-Canadian MLAs, I expect the NDP to target Richmond heavily next time and to have much more credibility in that community.

[DL]

One note about polling in the BC election. We were treated to lots of pontificating about how "only traditional CATI polls are of any value" and about how any poll done by IVR or based on an online panel was supposedly a "worthless junk poll".

In the end, the CATI polls that were done were actually the WORST! Final online and IVR polls all more or less nailed it the province-wide vote as dead even or a 1 point gap. The only outlier was the CATI by Innovative which had the BC Liberals 5 points ahead. The only other CATI polling i saw was a series of four riding polls by Oracle all on Vancouver Island...each of which grossly overestimated BC Liberal support.

Can we finally put to bed this notion that only CATI polls are the "gold standard" and that everything else is worthless. It clearly isnt true anymore. i acknowledge that mainstreet's riding polls by IVR were also all dreadful - but a growing challenge in doing riding polls in urban ridings is the impossibility of getting riding based cell phone numbers.

[Hatman 🍁]

I can't begin to fathom why 15% of the voters would cast a useless vote for the Greens when NDP is an available alternative. Canada is just weird sometimes.

Says the only Hamon voter in all of France...

I'd argue there's less of a difference between the NDP and the Greens than between Hamon and Melanchon!

Any reason for the large swing in Richmond?

Richmond is heavily, heavily Chinese and even though in terms of average income its no richer than Surrey (which is heavily South Asian and is more NDP-friendly) it has traditionally been an NDP dead zone because the NDP didn't have much support in the Chinese community. If you look at household income and being a inner suburb of Vancouver, were it not for the Chinese factor, Richmong OUGHT to be as NDP-friendly as Surrey! so the gains there are a bit of a reversion to the mean

That seems to have changed this time. If you look at how the NDP picked up Fraserview and Burnaby North (both of which have large Chinese populations) and gained so much ground in all four Richmond seats, I suspect that as the Chinese community matures and assimilates politically it is starting to hedge its bets politically and the taboo on voting NDP is wearing off. Now that the NDP has elected four Chinese-Canadian MLAs, I expect the NDP to target Richmond heavily next time and to have much more credibility in that community.

Well yes, obviously the Chinese vote is shifting, which I find very interesting. I know they have a populist streak, remember how much they voted against the HST in the referendum?

One note about polling in the BC election. We were treated to lots of pontificating about how "only traditional CATI polls are of any value" and about how any poll done by IVR or based on an online panel was supposedly a "worthless junk poll".

In the end, the CATI polls that were done were actually the WORST! Final online and IVR polls all more or less nailed it the province-wide vote as dead even or a 1 point gap. The only outlier was the CATI by Innovative which had the BC Liberals 5 points ahead. The only other CATI polling i saw was a series of four riding polls by Oracle all on Vancouver Island...each of which grossly overestimated BC Liberal support.

Can we finally put to bed this notion that only CATI polls are the "gold standard" and that everything else is worthless. It clearly isnt true anymore. i acknowledge that mainstreet's riding polls by IVR were also all dreadful - but a growing challenge in doing riding polls in urban ridings is the impossibility of getting riding based cell phone numbers.

Indeed, many CATI polls do not use cell sample, and people with landlines are going to skew heavily Liberal.

[136or142]

One note about polling in the BC election. We were treated to lots of pontificating about how "only traditional CATI polls are of any value" and about how any poll done by IVR or based on an online panel was supposedly a "worthless junk poll".

In the end, the CATI polls that were done were actually the WORST! Final online and IVR polls all more or less nailed it the province-wide vote as dead even or a 1 point gap. The only outlier was the CATI by Innovative which had the BC Liberals 5 points ahead. The only other CATI polling i saw was a series of four riding polls by Oracle all on Vancouver Island...each of which grossly overestimated BC Liberal support.

Can we finally put to bed this notion that only CATI polls are the "gold standard" and that everything else is worthless. It clearly isnt true anymore. i acknowledge that mainstreet's riding polls by IVR were also all dreadful - but a growing challenge in doing riding polls in urban ridings is the impossibility of getting riding based cell phone numbers.

To be precise though, all of that pontificating came from our resident troll. 

[136or142]

Any reason for the large swing in Richmond?

Richmond is heavily, heavily Chinese and even though in terms of average income its no richer than Surrey (which is heavily South Asian and is more NDP-friendly) it has traditionally been an NDP dead zone because the NDP didn't have much support in the Chinese community. If you look at household income and being a inner suburb of Vancouver, were it not for the Chinese factor, Richmong OUGHT to be as NDP-friendly as Surrey! so the gains there are a bit of a reversion to the mean

That seems to have changed this time. If you look at how the NDP picked up Fraserview and Burnaby North (both of which have large Chinese populations) and gained so much ground in all four Richmond seats, I suspect that as the Chinese community matures and assimilates politically it is starting to hedge its bets politically and the taboo on voting NDP is wearing off. Now that the NDP has elected four Chinese-Canadian MLAs, I expect the NDP to target Richmond heavily next time and to have much more credibility in that community.

I commented on this previously.  I wrote there were three primary possibilities (or a combination of 'all of the above')
1.The Chinese community becoming more integrated with the general community.

2.The general swing in Metro Vancouver to the NDP

3.A sense from all voters in Richmond that they had been taken for granted by the B.C Liberals.  I was at the NDP office on election night and in their concession speeches both defeated candidates Kelly Greene and Chak Au mentioned that.  So, it's likely that was something they had heard on the door step.

In addition to the not very popular in Richmond Massey Bridge Replacement and the school closures (which was the reason for Kelly Greene's entry into politics) there may have been some unhappiness with Jas Johal being appointed as the B.C Liberal candidate (both due to the lack of a nomination and that he doesn't live in the riding or in Richmond or New Westminster) and the extra sense with some Richmondites of 'time for a change' with Linda Reid who was first elected back in 1991.

This is especially the case with Linda Reid in that there is a sense that despite her lengthy service of 'what has she done for us?" as well of, obviously  'she's nothing but a hack career politician.'

In regards to Johal, it will be interesting to see how he did in the Richmond part of the riding vs. how he did in the New Westminster part of the riding.

Johal is ahead by over 250 votes, but with the absentee votes still to be counted there is a very slim possibility he could lose.  I wouldn't expect it, but it's a possibility.

Based on the 2015 Federal Election results there certainly is no indication that Richmond is becoming any more NDP ideologically.

[136or142]

One explanation for the upset win of Bowinn Ma in North Vancouver-Lonsdale is that the outgoing Liberal MLA, Naomi Yamamoto, was hurt by the "I am Linda" incident.

On the video after Christy Clark quickly walked away (ran away?) from the Linda person who wanted to tell Clark why she'd never vote for her, Yamamoto apparently gave Linda a very nasty glare/stare.

I don't think this would have become anywhere near the issue it did if the B.C Liberals did not put out the ridiculous allegation that Linda was somehow an NDP plant.  Christy Clark further compounded that by claiming that Linda said that she had never voted for the B.C Liberals when all she, in fact, said was "I'd never vote for you."

I wouldn't say Christy Clark was intentionally lying there because I know memory is a strange thing, but why did she and the B.C Liberals feel any need to respond to this incident in the first place?

Another reason that may have been a bigger cause - this riding which is based in the City of North Vancouver - and is home to many renters, may have not been too happy with Christy Clark's opposition to the NDP promise of a $400 a year rent subsidy on the basis that 'people want help moving to homes and don't want to stay renting.'

I think most renters probably agreed with Horgan when he said (this wasn't his exact reply but it summed up his position) "people want help with addressing their present situation."

Also, I always find this interesting:

When a tax increase of say $400 a year is proposed right wing politicians and their advocacy group enablers refer to it as a 'massive tax increase.'

When a tax cut (or subsidy) of $400 is proposed many politicians and advocacy group enablers of all stripes refer to it as 'an insignificant cut worth $1 a day."

[136or142]

Should the Liberals form the next government and not in a formal coalition with the Greens, I would certainly suggest to them that they appoint more MLAs from Metro Vancouver to the cabinet.  The "woefully underused MLAs Sam Sullivan and Marvin Hunt" (quote from David Schreck from before the election) should be two obvious considerations.  Sam Sullivan was a one term mayor of Vancouver and Hunt was a Surrey City Councilor and chair of the GVRD.

My proposed B.C Liberal cabinet (9 MLAs from Metro Vancouver, 9 MLAs from North/Interior - including Christy Clark - and the one from Vancouver Island, ,not including Donna Barnett.)

1.Premier/Federal-Provincial Relations, Christy Clark
2.Finance/House Leader, Mike de Jong
3.Economic Development and Trade, Shirley Bond
4.Tourism, Small Business and Culture, Jane Thornthwaite
5.Labour, Immigration and Citizenship, Teresa Watt
6.Natural Resources and Forestry, Steve Thomson
7.Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Rich Coleman
8.Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Norm Letnick
9.Environment, Mary Pollack
10.Transportation and Infrastructure, Todd Stone
11.Citizen Services, Innovation and Technology, Sam Sullivan
12.Human Resources and Housing, Michelle Stilwell
13.Children and Family Development, Stephanie Cadieux
14.Education, Mike Bernier
15.Advanced Education and Training, Mike Morris
16.Health, Coralee Oakes
17.Municipal Affairs, Marvin Hunt
18.Aboriginal Relations, John Rustad
19.Justice and Public Safety, Andrew Wilkinson

1.Minister of State for Rural Development, Donna Barnett

On the one hand I could see an interest in Christy Clark promoting some of the high profile new MLAs to cabinet - Ellis Ross who gained an open NDP riding in Skeena, Peter Milobar the popular mayor of Kamloops, Tracy Redies the CEO of Coast Capital Savings Credit Union, or Jas Johal, but with the Liberals in such a precarious position, it would also be very difficult to drop any current ministers from the cabinet.

Dropped minister "What's the Mr Whip, you need me for a vote, cough cough.  I seem to have just gotten a cold, sorry but it's best I not go to the legislature."

The actual outgoing cabinet has 21 senior positions with two others who were ministers of state, but I think the easiest thing for Christy Clark to do would be to just tell her new MLAs that 'there will be future cabinets.'

Shirley Bond gets trade from Teresa Watt because Bond is Economic Development Minister and this requires a top minister due to Trump.

Jane Thornthwaite is promoted to cabinet as Tourism minister as she represents tourist economy communities in North Vancouver.

Teresa Watt is from heavily recent immigrant Richmond.

Steve Thomson important to keep a steady hand at Forestry with the softwood lumber issue.

Rich Coleman takes over from retiring Bill Bennett. Energy is an important issue with the Site C Dam going ahead and with the negotiations over the Columbia River Treaty.  Merging Coleman's Natural Gas portfolio back into the larger ministry would also be an acknowledgment that LNG development is mostly a fantasy.

Sam Sullivan is promoted to cabinet.  His riding has many 'knowledge workers.'

Marvin Hunt is promoted to cabinet.

Andrew Wilkinson takes over from the defeated Suzanne Anton.  Wilkinson is one of the few lawyers in cabinet, and was a prominent and highly regarded person prior to getting into politics (in addition to being a top person at the B.C Civil Liberties Association, he is also a Rhodes Scholar, a medical doctor and was a Deputy Minister in the Gordon Campbell government. ) Unfortunately, just like the once highly regarded Chris Alexander, Wilkinson seemed to have a personality transplant after getting elected and became a partisan attack dog and hack government lying enabler.

The Justice Ministry which is supposed to be somewhat nonpartisan would be an opportunity for him to redeem himself.  I heard him in a fairly lengthy radio interview yesterday morning on CBC and he came across as much more reasonable and is clearly highly intelligent.

[adma]

One note about polling in the BC election. We were treated to lots of pontificating about how "only traditional CATI polls are of any value" and about how any poll done by IVR or based on an online panel was supposedly a "worthless junk poll".

In the end, the CATI polls that were done were actually the WORST! Final online and IVR polls all more or less nailed it the province-wide vote as dead even or a 1 point gap. The only outlier was the CATI by Innovative which had the BC Liberals 5 points ahead. The only other CATI polling i saw was a series of four riding polls by Oracle all on Vancouver Island...each of which grossly overestimated BC Liberal support.

Can we finally put to bed this notion that only CATI polls are the "gold standard" and that everything else is worthless. It clearly isnt true anymore. i acknowledge that mainstreet's riding polls by IVR were also all dreadful - but a growing challenge in doing riding polls in urban ridings is the impossibility of getting riding based cell phone numbers.

To be precise though, all of that pontificating came from our resident troll. 

To repeat what he predicted...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Hey, Lotuslander was grandiosely declaring himself the expert of all experts.  He, and only he, knew the way things were going; the rest of us were NDP snowflakes.

And, look what happened to this so-called "expert".  Blown credibility in an instant.  *Nobody's* gonna take that putz seriously anymore.  He's no winner; he's just a bum--*regardless* of whether the BC Liberals get their majority in the end.



Wonder if he'll be hiding in the bushes, Sean Spicer-style...

[Lotuslander]

Haha. Posters here are always entertaining. Love it. But caveat emptor.

Van Sun's Vaughn Palmer, Global BC's Keith Baldrey & Globe and Mail's Justine Hunter have been live on Shaw TV over the past hour discussing the BC election. Lottsa interesting nuggets, which now provides some logical sense as a backdrop into Metro Vancouver's 2017 results.

For example, just Surrey, a major municipality in Metro Vancouver... the BC Libs lost ~20,000 votes compared to the 2013 BC election. So what happened to these votes in 2017? While some went to the BC NDP, more went to the BC Greens, while the majority just stayed home. Never saw that coming.

Again, that's just Surrey.

It's known as drilling down into the numbers and voter migration.

And yep. CATI is the gold standard in BC. Bar none.

[MAINEiac4434]

BCNDP's vote percentage only went up by 0.15%. Whatever they gained from the Liberals they lost an equal amount to the Greens.

[rob in cal]

  This must be one of the best seat % wins by a Green Party anywhere in the world in a system using FPTP. Hopefully that doesn't make them lose their intensity of support for PR.

[adma]

Haha. Posters here are always entertaining. Love it. But caveat emptor.

Van Sun's Vaughn Palmer, Global BC's Keith Baldrey & Globe and Mail's Justine Hunter have been live on Shaw TV over the past hour discussing the BC election. Lottsa interesting nuggets, which now provides some logical sense as a backdrop into Metro Vancouver's 2017 results.

For example, just Surrey, a major municipality in Metro Vancouver... the BC Libs lost ~20,000 votes compared to the 2013 BC election. So what happened to these votes in 2017? While some went to the BC NDP, more went to the BC Greens, while the majority just stayed home. Never saw that coming.

Again, that's just Surrey.

It's known as drilling down into the numbers and voter migration.

And yep. CATI is the gold standard in BC. Bar none.

You don't get it.  And all you're doing is offering post-mortem banalities courtesy of Shaw TV (much of which has already been gone over in this thread, so it isn't exactly *new* to us, at least through deductive reasoning), trying to cover up and deflect from your incompetent quackery in the name of election forecasting.  I mean, you are to election forecasting what Lyle Lanley is to monorails...

[136or142]

One note about polling in the BC election. We were treated to lots of pontificating about how "only traditional CATI polls are of any value" and about how any poll done by IVR or based on an online panel was supposedly a "worthless junk poll".

In the end, the CATI polls that were done were actually the WORST! Final online and IVR polls all more or less nailed it the province-wide vote as dead even or a 1 point gap. The only outlier was the CATI by Innovative which had the BC Liberals 5 points ahead. The only other CATI polling i saw was a series of four riding polls by Oracle all on Vancouver Island...each of which grossly overestimated BC Liberal support.

Can we finally put to bed this notion that only CATI polls are the "gold standard" and that everything else is worthless. It clearly isnt true anymore. i acknowledge that mainstreet's riding polls by IVR were also all dreadful - but a growing challenge in doing riding polls in urban ridings is the impossibility of getting riding based cell phone numbers.

To be precise though, all of that pontificating came from our resident troll. 

To repeat what he predicted...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Hey, Lotuslander was grandiosely declaring himself the expert of all experts.  He, and only he, knew the way things were going; the rest of us were NDP snowflakes.

And, look what happened to this so-called "expert".  Blown credibility in an instant.  *Nobody's* gonna take that putz seriously anymore.  He's no winner; he's just a bum--*regardless* of whether the BC Liberals get their majority in the end.

Wonder if he'll be hiding in the bushes, Sean Spicer-style...

To be precise, I think you were the only person here who took him seriously before this.

[King of Kensington]

What's striking to me in this election is the erosion of the "urban liberal" pillar of the Free Enterprise Coalition over these past two elections.  In terms of their geographic base, Christy Clark's "Liberals" look pretty much identical to Harper's Conservatives in 2008 and 2011, False Creek really being the last of the "federal Liberal" BC Liberal holdouts. 

The "urban pillar" group has really solidified behind the NDP in the past two elections.  David Eby won with a much bigger margin in Point Grey than Gordon Campbell did in 1996, 2005 and 2009, the NDP took Fairview again by a wide margin too and even False Creek was close.

[136or142]

What's striking to me in this election is the erosion of the "urban liberal" pillar of the Free Enterprise Coalition over these past two elections.  In terms of their geographic base, Christy Clark's "Liberals" look pretty much identical to Harper's Conservatives in 2008 and 2011, False Creek really being the last of the "federal Liberal" BC Liberal holdouts.  

The "urban pillar" group has really solidified behind the NDP in the past two elections.  David Eby won with a much bigger margin in Point Grey than Gordon Campbell did in 1996, 2005 and 2009, the NDP took Fairview again by a wide margin too and even False Creek was close.

Also Vancouver-Quilchena and in the 2015 Federal election the Liberals won North/West Vancouver by large margins.

Maybe my strong dislike of Christy Clark clouds my judgement here, but I think this is much more of a strong anti Christy Clark government sentiment than a shift of Federal Liberals to the N.D.P based on changing ideology.

Our resident troll often quotes Keith Baldrey and I remember after the 2013 election when after nearly 3/4 of Christy Clark's cabinet was either from the Fraser Valley or from the Interior/North (around half the cabinet was from the Interior/North even though they had just 25 of the then 85 seats in the legislature) and Baldrey said something like "Vancouver shouldn't be surprised that it was punished after it voted out two Liberals."

And then after that came the disaster of Peter Fassbender as both education minister and municipal affairs/Translink Minister.  

Given that there isn't a bottomless pit of money to spend, I can sympathize with the government for the spending restraint in education, especially since the education outcomes for average students are very good based on rankings from standardized tests (the higher intelligence and the lower intelligence special needs students are the ones who seem to be getting shafted) and I believe the Vancouver School Board was much more to blame for its conflict with the province, but as Translink Minister, both he and before him Todd Stone certainly seemed to go out of their way to pick fights with the mayor's council forcing them into a referendum at the same time as allocating basically the same amount of money the referendum would have allowed to be collected in taxes on the ridiculously expensive George Massey Bridge that only one mayor wants.  

Throw in the housing affordability issue that the Christy Clark government for whatever reason was extremely slow to address, and essentially Vancouver and other parts of Greater Vancouver decided to punish Christy Clark in return.

I would think that if Christy Clark resigned as Premier and was replaced by a centrist Liberal like Mike Bernier that the B.C Liberals would regain a number of Greater Vancouver ridings in a subsequent election and return with a comfortable majority.

The view is that in many ridings the increase in the Green vote was a result of past B.C Liberal voters who couldn't take any more of Christy Clark but couldn't bring themselves to vote for the NDP parking their vote with the Greens.  The B.C NDP for the fourth straight election has basically stalled at 40% of the vote.

Of course, part of this view is likely based on the need for so many pundits to keep churning out the lazy conventional wisdom that the 'NDP can only win (or come close to winning) when the free enterprise coalition is split' so these new Green voters MUST be former Liberals.  For example, there is a ridiculous claim that the Green Party did not split the centre/left vote and take ridings form the NDP. The NDP candidates in the former NDP ridings of Saanich North and the Islands and Cowichan Valley might disagree with that.