It’s happening. British Columbia will be voting for a premier: the first such election in four years and two days exactly. There’s reigning BC Premier Christy Clark and there are challenging Party leaders, most notably Adrian Dix and Jane Sterk. But how do they stack up for the vote on May 14th?
CHRISTY CLARK: LIBERAL
She is the reigning premier, albeit not elected into office. Those of you living outside of British Columbia may not have known the state of politics in the 21st century. From 2001 to 2011, the province has had Liberal Gordon Campbell as premier of the province. He has been elected into office three times having to resign back in 2011 because of his approval rating declining to the point of single-digit percentage. Christy Clark has taken the role of premier ever since. Since becoming premier of BC, her approval rating as well as the approval rating of the BC Liberals improved greatly even superseding the rating of the NDP for some period of time. However the period has been short-lived.
The opposition Clark has faced during her premiership has not been as heated or intense as Gordon Campbell’s. Nevertheless she has faced heat of her own. One former Liberal MLA accused her of conflict of interest in assisting with the selling of BC Rail during the Campbell administration while cabinet minister. She has also been witness to seeing many key Liberals resigning from parliament.
With the provincial election approaching, Clark still faces a lot of heat from the opposing parties for a lot of what Gordon Campbell did during his administration. Remember I told you about her pre-election baggage? It didn’t completely go away. Her appearance at the Party leader’s debate gave her a chance to improve her political reputation as many felt she won the debate. The BC Liberal Party has greatly decreased its gap behind the BC NDP in the past three weeks trailing them only slightly. However many journalists are claiming it may be too much too late for her political career. Only the results on Tuesday will tell.
ADRIAN DIX: NDP
He’s already been written as the frontrunner for the race for premier. But it doesn’t mean that his chances of winning are unbreakable.
One of the reasons many claim Gordon Campbell has continued to be elected premier is because there hasn’t been an NDP skilled enough to rival him. Adrian may not have much experience as a Party leader but he does have considerable political experience under his belt. Dix was born the son of an insurance agency owner. He has been with the NDP Party since 1996 and like Clark has also been a political media personality for newspapers like The Sun Columnist and the Source. Dix has been the MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway since his election in 2005 and his prime areas of focus while MLA have been Children and Families and Health Issues. His biggest achievements have been bringing insulin pumps to children with type 1 diabetes and successfully preventing three Vancouver-Kingsway schools from shutting down.
He came to be elected leader of the NDP Party in 2011 upon the resignation of leader Carole James. Issues that led to his election have been Eliminating the HST, reducing business taxes, redirecting carbon tax, and increasing the minimum wage to name a few. For the provincial election, Dix has had ads marketed with the theme ‘time for a new government’. Those ads have been on television not as frequently as the BC Liberals but more commonly on Youtube. Dix has led through most of the pre-election polls and appears to be the heavy favorite to win.
However he does face stiff opposition. Firstly there was the recent Party leader debate where Christy Clark presented herself and her platform the best. That caused her to jump in the polls and even tied Dix on May 8th. Then there was bringing back the controversy Dix was responsible for during the scandal of 1990’s premier Glen Clark when Dix was Chief of Staff from 1996 to 1999. Back then he back-dated a memo to protect Clark from conflict-of-interest charges. That led to the resignation of both Clark and Dix. Dix has since redeemed himself as the MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway but the incident has arisen again by the opposing parties. That could hurt him.
Yes, Dix has a lead over Christy Clark in the polls right now but it’s too close to call right now. Don’t forget polls can say one thing and elections can say another. The big question is will it be a night for the first NDP premier in 12 years? It will all be at the buzzer Tuesday night.
JANE STERK: GREEN
Outside of the Liberals and the NDP, the only other Party making the biggest news in the election is the BC green Party and its leader Jane Sterk. The Green Party is a relatively young Party that started in 1983 but it fields policies that appeal to many BC residents like environmental issues, tolerance and diversity, social justice as well as personal and global responsibility. The questions has always been would they have what it takes to win elections and would they have what it takes to be good strong leaders?
The Green Party first made a name for itself under the leadership of founder Adrianne Carr back in 2001 when the Party finished third in the provincial election with 12.4% of the vote. They would continue to finish third in the next two provincial elections but with declining percentages of votes. In the 2009 election–the first in which Jane Sterk was Party leader– the Green Party finished with 8.1% of the vote and no seats.
The position of the Green Party here in BC is still a big question mark. Even in this election the Party won’t be fielding candidates for all 85 ridings like the NDP and Liberals: 61 to be exact. However this could be the Party’s best election. Right now the election is between two leading Party’s candidates who have both been involved with a former premier and the infamies of their administrations, even scandal involvement. The Green Party has been over 10% in the polls for most of the upcoming election period however their popularity has taken a bit of a dip in recent days. Also what should be remembered is that Sterk is native to Alberta and she didn’t move to BC until 2000. That could hurt her since the leading two candidates and many other candidates have spent most of their life in BC.
The question is will the Green Party finally make a name for itself and be able to land its first ever MLA seat? Best chances could be with Sterk in her Victoria-Beacon Hill riding but she would have to win over former NDP leader Carole James who is the incumbent leader in that riding. This will be a question not just of whether the Green Party can land a seat but its ability to strike a chord with voters. It has what it takes and now’s a better time than ever but can they do it?
JOHN CUMMINS :CONSERVATIVE
The Conservative Party is a long-standing Party like the NDP and Liberals and had it’s biggest heydays from the 30’s to the 50’s. However it has had rollercoaster success since then as the Party has had a very hard time not just trying to win seats but also trying to field seats. This year the Conservative Party has fielded candidates for 56 of the 85 MLA seats, their biggest number since 1972 and double the 24 seats they fielded candidates for in the 2009 election.
Its biggest challenge has to be with the general public. I live in New Westminster and work in downtown Vancouver. Already I can tell that the big cities are not known for welcoming politician with a right-leaning platform. Most of the bigger cities have a huge and very vocal animosity for right-wing politicians that are even as much as right-to-centre. Sometimes I think Vancouver is the capital of ‘Harperphobia.’ However it’s another story in areas like Langley and Abbotsford which are known for its conservative beliefs. In fact leader John Cummins is running in the Langley riding. Cummins himself is a former MP in the Canadian Parliament under the Reform Party and the national Conservative Party under the leadership of Harper. He resigned his seat in the Richmond-Delta national riding to pursue provincial Party leadership.
This could be the first chance in decades for the Conservative Party to make a name for itself in decades however it does face opposition of its own especially from BC residents that disagree with the Party agenda very vehemently. Like the Green Party, it too has had times where it has seen days of 10% approval or higher this past month. Also like the Green Party, it’s currently sitting below the 10% mark. There’s no question that it will have a higher percentage of votes than the 2.1% received in the last election. The question is not only what percentage of votes will it receive but also what will Tuesday’s results tell for the future of the Conservative Party?
LIBERTARIAN PARTY
Only the four parties I mentioned above have candidates running for more than half the MLA seats in the BC parliament. Actually only those four have candidates running in even as little as ten provincial ridings. The biggest Party with less than ten candidates in the running is the BC Libertarian Party. If you go to their website, you will see that the BC Libertarian agenda has a lot in common with the agenda of the American Libertarian Party. Libertarianism is still a definition that’s hard to define in terms of a political stance. Bill Maher, possibly the most famous Libertarian right now, defines a libertarian as a ‘pothead in a business suit.’ For the BC Libertarian Party, just go to their website.
The Libertarian Party of BC started in 1986 with three candidates and rose to 17 upon the 1996 provincial election. There would be no Libertarian candidates back in 2001 as Party president Paul Geddes ran for the BC marijuana Party. In the provincial elections since, the BC Libertarian Party has been putting efforts into reestablishing itself. In both previous provincial elections, the Party fielded six candidates and achieved just under 1500 votes both times.
This year the Party field eight candidates including one in my riding of New Westminster. This could be the Libertarian’s best election since 1996 when they had 17 candidates and won just over 2000 votes. However lacking a Party leader could cause some problems. Plus its lack of advertisement to the public could make a lot of people unaware of Libertarian candidates in their area. This election should give a picture of where things are going for the Party.
INDEPENDENT’S DAY?
Of all the candidates running, the most interesting should be the Independents: those that won’t be running for a Party or its agenda. Independents have always been unique candidates as it has always been a case of the politician promoting their agenda that’s often unique in comparison to most formed parties’ agendas. Last year one independent candidate–Vicki Huntington of Delta South– was elected MLA. Most interesting is that since the 2009 election, two NDP MLAs and one Liberal MLA have become independents themselves. Three of the four incumbent independent MLAs will be running in this election.
This election will see 35 independent candidates running for MLA seats in 31 ridings. Each one will have their own unique agenda and/or run for their own purposes. Many have run for some of the major parties in the past. And one, Kelowna-Mission’s Dayleen Van Ryswyk, was running for the NDP three weeks ago but had to resign from the Party because of past comments that appeared bigoted in nature. She started her campaign as an independent the next day but has recently hired a bodyguard for fear of threats.
Tuesday could give a surprising glimpse as the independents could win some seats and could provide an outlook on the political culture of BC.
And there you have it. A brief rundown of the candidates for the 40th British Columbia General Election. Sure, I could talk about all the other fifteen political parties but it would be too tedious. Remember there are 85 MLA seats in BC’s parliament and the winning Party is the one that wins 43 seats for a majority. You can click on the Wikipedia link–which also happens to be my Works Cited page– here to get all the info of who’s running and which parties. So on the 14th, will it be Premier Clark elected into office or will Adrian Dix be elected BC’s new premier? Stay tuned!
Jon The Blogcentric 