2017 British Columbia election

[Njall]

in 2013 Alberta was ruled by a rabidly rightwing government that was denying that climate change existed and boasted about doing absolutely NOTHING to reduce GHG emissions and the federal Harper government at the time was singing from the same songbook.

I have to take exception to that claim. Alberta's PC government enacted the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation in 2007, which was the first substantive government action to put a price on carbon in North America. While the SGER was certainly not nearly as effective as measures like the BC carbon tax, the claim that Alberta blatantly denied climate change and boasted about taking no action is 100% false.

[Njall]

OK fair enough, but the PCs policies on climate change were very very very minimal and would never have been enough to give Trudeau the "fig leaf" he needed to be able to approve KM...unless of course you think that had Prentice won the 2015 as expected he would have pulled an "only Nixon could go to China" move and introduced an aggressive climate change plan himself that would have been much like what the Alberta NDP ended up doing. i have my doubts.

Oh absolutely. I think that Prentice would have moved on climate change in a much more concentrated way than past governments had, although it would not have been to the extent of the action that the NDP has taken.

[Njall]

Though favourability/unfavourability polls do not necessarily equate with electoral choice in the end.  (And in a way, Rachel Notley in Alberta faces an inverse situation--high favourables vs low reelectability)

Notley's had approval ratings in the 30-35% range for about a year now.

[Njall]

Greens up in Saanich North and the Island

EDIT: and in Kootenay West

[Njall]

The Greens have almost caught the NDP in Cowichan Valley

[Njall]

NDP wins Cout-Comax by 9 Votes!

Wow. Crazy. I imagine the Liberals will agitate for a recount.

According to the CBC there will be an automatic judicial recount

[Njall]

NDP slowly climbing in Richmond-Queensborough, but with 8 polls left, I'm not sure if it's enough

[Njall]

Also important to note for Courtenay-Comox: Absentee ballots may be more substantial than usual due to the presence of the military base there, and the Liberal candidate is the former base commander, so he may benefit from those absentees.

[Njall]

Queensboroguh lead is about 230 with two polls left - looks like it's not flipping

[Njall]

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.  

Also of note from the diversity aspect, there are four MLAs in the new legislature of indigenous background: 2 New Democrats (Carole James and Melanie Mark), 1 Liberal (Ellis Ross), and 1 Green (Adam Olson).

[Njall]

No further counting seems to have been done since the noon update in Courtenay-Comox; the lead (BCL +3 votes) and total vote count has not changed since then.

[Njall]

No further counting seems to have been done since the noon update in Courtenay-Comox; the lead (BCL +3 votes) and total vote count has not changed since then.

Actually, I just noticed that Elections BC tweeted that Courtenay-Comox will be updated later today.

[Njall]

NDP lead in Courtenay-Comox up to 148 votes.

[Njall]

Also, according to Richard Zussman on Twitter, there are around 568 votes left to count in Courtenay-Comox, so Benninger would need around 2/3rds of the vote (doing rough math in my head) to win.

[Njall]

According to this article that I found, the agreement includes a commitment to an electoral reform referendum concurrent with the 2018 municipal elections.

Apparently, the actual agreement will be released at 2pm BC time.

[Njall]

A bare NDP-green majority sounds like a recipe for disaster. At this rate, Libs will be back in power within a year or two.

Doubtful. Losing corporate donations will cripple the Liberal Party.

Speaking from experience of PC Alberta, the BC Libs should be okay if they have a strong small-donor fundraising machine.

[Njall]

Cabinet
Premier – John Horgan
Minister of Advanced Education, Skills & Training – Melanie Mark
Minister of Agriculture – Lana Popham
Attorney General – David Eby
Minister of Children & Family Development – Katrine Conroy
Minister of State for Childcare – Katrina Chen
Minister of Citizens’ Services – Jinny Sims
Minister of Education – Rob Fleming
Minister of Energy, Mines & Petroleum Resources – Michelle Mungall
Minister of Environment & Climate Change Strategy – George Heyman
Minister of Finance and Deputy Premier – Carole James
Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development – Doug Donaldson
Minister of Health – Adrian Dix
Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation – Scott Fraser
Minister of Jobs, Trade & Technology – Bruce Ralston
Minister of State for Trade – George Chow
Minister of Labour – Harry Bains
Minister of Mental Health & Addictions – Judy Darcy
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing – Selina Robinson
Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General – Mike Farnworth
Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction – Shane Simpson
Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture – Lisa Beare
Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure – Claire Trevena

Parliamentary Secretaries
Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness – Jennifer Rice
Parliamentary Secretary for Poverty Reduction – Mable Elmore
Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors – Anne Kang
Parliamentary Secretary for Sport and Multiculturalism – Ravi Kahlon
Parliamentary Secretary for Technology – Rick Glumac
Parliamentary Secretary for Translink – Bowinn Ma