Here are B.C.’s tightest ridings, in races that won’t be called for weeks

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Days after the B.C. election, several ridings are still too close to call and final results will not be available for weeks to come as mail-in and absentee ballots remain uncounted.

Many of the tightest races are on the Lower Mainland, including the Green Party’s iconic leap off Vancouver Island, which could gain the party a seat in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

The Green Party’s Jeremy Valeriote only leads by 3.4 percentage points over incumbent Jordan Sturdy in that riding. Sturdy, formerly the mayor of Pemberton, has been the Liberal MLA in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky since 2013.

Additional ballots likely to favour NDP

Heading into the election, polls heavily favoured the NDP. Thats’s one indicator analysts and pundits are pointing to in predicting the NDP will only continue to gain ground once the more than 600,000 absentee and mail-in ballots are counted.

President of the Angus Reid Institute Shachi Kurl says given how low overall turnout was, these ballots likely represent “pretty enthusiastic voters.”

“Usually when you see that kind of enthusiasm, it tends to skew towards the party that has the momentum going into the race,” she says.

“Certainly, that was the BC NDP. And what we noted was that early voters, whether they voted in an advanced poll, or whether they voted by mail, were definitely breaking toward the incumbent party more than they were for the opposition.”

Shifting suburban demographics

Elections BC says 7,704 mail-in ballots were requested between West Vancouver and the riding’s north end.

In Chilliwack-Kent, up-and-coming NDP candidate Kelli Paddon threatens to de-Throness the region, but is currently only 195 votes ahead.

Laurie Throness, who resigned from the Liberal Party after recent comments comparing the BC NDP’s free birth control plan to eugenics, also raised ire with his comments about LGBTQ+ people. Throness also took heat for advertising in a conservative Christian magazine that publishes regularly about conversion therapy.

https://twitter.com/LaurieThroness/status/1320402486264352771

Kurl says Throness’ runner-up status reveals how densification and shifting populations may have impacted the status quo in Liberal strongholds in the Fraser Valley, Langley and Surrey.

“Where maybe some assumptions we have about the way people vote and what they think in those areas are changing simply because the people who live there are changing a little bit.”

If Throness manages to pull ahead after remaining ballots are counted, he will sit in the Legislature as an independent.

Kurls says Throness performed well, and that could have been the motivation behind Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson’s slow response to the multiple controversies around his candidacy.

Read more: 

• Four B.C. ridings depend on mail-in ballots to finalize results

• BC NDP gain popularity in Surrey, sweep 7 of 9 ridings

Former Minister of Child and Family Development not secure in lead

Another B.C. incumbent who could be toppled by shifting demographics in Metro Vancouver suburbs includes Stephanie Cadieux, the former Liberal Minister of Children and Family Development.

Cadieux has the widest of the slim margins, with just 7.5 percentage points separating her from the NDP’s Pauline Greaves.

Kurl and other analysts point to the housing crisis as a driver for the influx of young voters to ridings further from the downtown core and says that’s bringing new ways of thinking to old Liberal ridings.

“Places that used to be zoned and predominantly single-family homes, a home and a backyard and a garden where maybe only four of five people lived, they’ve densified, and you see more townhouse complexes, more towers, more condo complexes,” she explains.

In Vancouver-Langara, former runner-up for the BC Liberal leadership race, Michael Lee, is still holding his ground, but could be upset, as he leads by only 5.7 percentage points.

In second place, for now, is the NDP’s Tesicca Truong, the co-founder of City-Hive, who says she will focus on community, climate, and housing.

In Langley East, the population is expected to double by 2040.

It’s also where former Housing and LNG minister Rich Coleman held post beginning in 1996, the NDP are ahead by 1.5 percentage points.

The Liberals ran Township of Langley councillor Margaret Kunst against the NDP’s Megan Dykeman, a school board chair.

Other ridings that could be impacted by the long wait for final results include Abbotsford-Mission (Liberal incumbent leads by one percentage point), as well as Vernon-Monashee, Fraser-Nicola, and Parksville-Qualicum