Two new seats up for grabs on May 9th

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – The crowded chamber in the BC legislature will have to find room for two additional chairs after the election. The number of ridings has increased to 87 from 85 in the last vote in 2013.

The two-seat growth was approved in 2015 after a report from the BC Electoral Boundaries Commission.

The new ridings are Richmond South Centre and Surrey South.

Richmond South Centre was carved out of three other ridings. It’s the second smallest riding in the province.

House Speaker Linda Reid will be running there for the Grits in her seventh consecutive election. She won for the first time in 1991 when then-Liberal leader Gordon Wilson led his party from obscurity to opposition. Some pundits consider Reid the heavy favourite.

Surrey South is where Children and Family Development minister Stephanie Cadieux will be running this time. It’s her third riding in three elections.
Cadieux easily won both times, and if Surrey South had existed last time in 2013, she would have won there, too, judging by results from the poll stations that make up the riding.

When the writ was dropped, the Liberals had 48 seats; the New Democratic Party, 35; the Green Party, one; and there was one Independent.

BC Liberals Look To Regain Ground Lost Since 2013 Election

The BC Liberals are going into the 2017 provincial election campaign with one fewer seat than they began with when they won the last campaign in May 2013.

In that vote, the Liberals won 49 seats, the NDP 34, with Green leader Andrew Weaver and Delta South independent Vicki Huntington picking up the other two.

Premier Christy Clark wasn’t one of the winners. She was ousted in Vancouver-Point Grey by New Democrat David Eby. She returned to the legislature after a by-election two months later in Westside-Kelowna, where Liberal MLA Ben Stewart stepped aside.

The governing party lost a seat in 2015, but only for six months, when Maple Ridge-Mission’s Mark Dalton sat as an independent during a failed federal nomination attempt.

Two by-elections in February last year resulted in the NDP being re-elected in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, and picking up Coquitlam-Burke Mountain from the Liberals, giving them 35 seats when the writ was dropped.

Besides the Liberals, New Democrats and Greens, a number of independents are running in this election along with members of ten parties that were not represented in the House in the last session.

Timeline For Candidates, Voters in 2017 BC Election

Even though the BC election is officially underway, not all the parties have finished their nomination process.

April 18th at 1 p.m. is the date and time when candidates must submit their nomination papers to the electoral officer for the district they’re running in.

Other dates on the election calendar are of interest to voters. Advance polls will be open throughout the province from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on April 29 and 30, and May 3-6. Advance voting is available to all eligible voters, and all advance voting locations are wheelchair accessible.

Voting on Election Day (May 9th) runs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and while NEWS 1130 will have results for you that night, the final count isn’t until May 22-24.

The election is officially over May 31 when absentee ballots are counted, although there is always the possibility of judicial recounts in close ridings.