British Columbia.

• Author: MacAlpine, Wynne
• Position: Legislative Reports

The British Columbia Legislative Assembly has been in a period of dissolution since the writs of election were issued on April 19, ending the Thirty-Seventh Parliament. The Thirty-Eighth Parliament is expected to begin in September.

Provincial Election Results

Following a record number of recounts, the results of the May 17 provincial general election are now finalized. As reported previously, the BC Liberal Party formed the government with 46 seats and the BC New Democratic Party elected 33 members. No Independent candidates or representatives from other parties won seats in the House.

The BC Liberals received 46 percent of the popular vote, down from 58 percent in 2001, while the New Democrats won 42 percent of the popular vote, up from 22 percent in the last election. The Green Party of BC garnered 9 percent of the popular vote, down from 12 percent in 2001, and the 22 other parties running candidates each earned less than one percent of the popular vote. This represents a slight change from 2001, when two "third" parties--the BC Marijuana Party and the BC Unity Party--each won about three percent of the popular vote.

Of those Liberal MLAs elected, 36 are returning from the previous parliament, and ten are new Members. New NDP MLAs number 27, while two are returning from the previous parliament and four are former MLAs from the Thirty-Sixth Parliament.

A total of seven recounts were conducted by Elections BC. Election Act rules allow candidates to request a judicial recount and automatically require a judicial recount in constituencies where the gap between first- and second-place candidates is less than 1/500 of the total number of ballots cast in the riding. Recounts in Saanich South, Cariboo North, Skeena and Burnaby Edmonds were requested by trailing Liberal candidates, and one in Burnaby North was requested by the second-place NDP candidate. Recounts in the ridings of Vancouver-Burrard and Cariboo South were triggered automatically, as first-place candidates in those two constituencies led by only 17 and 32 votes, respectively. All recounts confirmed the original results of the combined election night and absentee ballot counts.

Voter Turnout

This election year, Elections BC waged its own campaign--to improve voter turnout. The Chief Electoral Officer, Harry Neufeld, who came to the job in 2002, has led a number of changes to improve upon the record low of 55 percent voter turnout in the 2001 provincial election. Although...