NDP widens lead in tight B.C. race

Article content

The resumption of vote counting in last week's contentious election in British Columbia led the NDP to widen its lead in two crucial races and take a 14-vote lead over the British Columbia Conservatives in another.

Article content

No results changed in nine closely contested races, and the update provided by Elections BC increases the likelihood of an NDP government.

The Conservatives had hoped to reverse the NDP's lead in Juan de Fuca Malahat and inner-city Surrey, the two closest contests after primary counting ended last Sunday, but instead a continued vote count by mail pushed the NDP to the lead.

The NDP now leads in Juan de Fuca-Malahat with 106 votes, down from 23, while the party's candidate leads in inner-city Surrey with 162 votes, down from 93.

In Surrey-Guildford, where the BC Conservatives led by 103 votes, the NDP led by 14 votes with more than 200 votes still to be counted.

The primary count ended after the Oct. 19 election, and neither David Eby's NDP nor Jon Rustad's British Columbia Conservatives were able to secure the 47 ridings needed to form a majority in the 93-seat legislature.

Article content

Article content

The NDP is elected or leads with 46 seats and the Conservatives with 45 seats, while the Green Party could maintain the balance of power after winning two seats.

If the NDP maintains its current lead in the undecided election, it will be in a position to form a minority government if it has the support of the Green Party, but if it also wins a Conservative-led race such as Surrey-Guildford, it will have a majority. narrower majority.

For the Conservatives to form a majority, they must reverse two paths in which the NDP is ahead, and while a Conservative minority government remains a possibility, the ideological gap between the party and the Greens is wide.

The NDP's lead in Mount Coquitlam-Burke widened, but there was little change in the margins in other close races.

There were more than 43,000 mail-in votes to be counted in the 93 rounds of voting across the province, in a process that was expected to be completed on Sunday.

Article content

The electoral body will also conduct full recounts starting Sunday in the Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Sari City Center districts because their margins after the initial recount were less than 100.

There will also be a partial manual recount at the Kelowna Center due to a transcription error related to a tabulator used on the trip.

The final count will be completed on Monday with more than 22,000 absentee votes counted and results will be updated on the Elections BC website hourly that day.

But even after that, a candidate can request a judicial recount if their margin of victory is less than 1/500 of the total votes counted.

Meanwhile, the BC Conservative Party candidate in Juan de Fuca-Malahat is facing criticism within her party for alleged comments about Indigenous people.

Article content

On Friday, the Vancouver Sun newspaper published an audio recording in which a person identified as Marina Sapozhnikov described First Nations people as “savage.” The newspaper says the comments came during an election night conversation with a journalism student.

Peter Milobar, the Kelowna Center Conservative candidate, posted on the social media platform.

Sapozhnikov did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Rustad issued a statement of his own on Saturday, saying he was “horrified and deeply saddened” by the comments.

“His words are not only inaccurate, they are extremely harmful and paint a distorted picture of the communities he has worked with for many years,” the statement read.

Rustad said the statements did not reflect his party's values.

He added: “We take this matter seriously.” “As leader, I am fully committed to ensuring our party leads with respect and understanding for all British Columbians,” he added.

Article content