Preliminary results show the BC Conservatives are set to form a substantive majority government, winning or leading in 64 seats in Saturday’s Provincial Election.
Premier David Eby called the snap election in September, amid chaos in the Conservative Party.
“I’m sure that David Eby will look back on [Saturday night] with a sense of regret,” said political analyst Shirley Bond. “He took the risk of calling a snap election, it overlapped with the municipal election, and tonight, the results were nothing short of devastating for the NDP Party, right across the province.”
Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson is the Premier-Designate, after taking over as the Interim Leader of the Conservatives a little more than a month ago, following the resignation of Kerry-Lynne Findlay as leader.
Bond and Doerkson were both MLAs with BC United, before Doerkson joined the Conservatives in the spring of 2024.
“I do know that he has a very strong work ethic,” Bond said. “He is a very popular and well-liked constituency MLA. That always matters to me, because I think you are elected, first and foremost, at home and making sure that you work hard for your constituents is really important to me, and Lorne did an exceptionally good job at that.”
Bond added that Doerkson himself six weeks ago probably couldn’t see where he would be today.
“It means he’s going to have to do a lot of hard work, and I think what British Columbians are expecting from him is that he delivers on what he promised,” she said.
Doerkson is the most northern Premier since North Coast representative Dan Miller of the NDP became the 32nd Premier of B.C. following NDP Premier Glen Clark’s resignation in August 1999.
“I’m hopeful that that gives him a sense of understanding about many of the unique issues that we face,” Bond said. “For us, it’s not about being able to go to a hospital across the bridge, it means we have to fly or drive somewhere that can take hours on icy roads, those kinds of things, he will understand that. He has seen hospital emergency room closures in his own communities, he has seen the issues with public safety, all of those things, so what I’m hoping that translates to is him having a great understanding of our issues and working really hard to find some of the things to make progress on some of those things.”
With the Conservatives flipping a lot of the province blue, and many incumbents being defeated in last week’s municipal election as well, Bond said a consistent theme has been that British Columbians want change.
“I think British Columbians, many of them are struggling every day to feed their families, to put gas in their gas tanks, to find a family doctor, to get the healthcare that they need, and I think that they want to see progress,” she said. “One of the ways that voters send that message is by saying it’s time to change it up, we certainly saw a large number of incumbents unseated last week, and again, we saw the NDP basically unelected in a substantive way [Saturday]. That’s going to be complicated for the B.C. Conservatives to deliver, those are some very challenging problems, but they have a majority, a significant majority, they need to be able to move those agenda items forward.”
BC Green Leader Emily Lowan also takes a seat in the legislature for the first time. Unofficial results show the BC Greens holding onto two seats, which Bond said is important because it lets them keep their Official Party status.
“I think that having Emily’s voice in the legislature is important,” Bond said. “When I was there, we had a very active group of Green MLAs and a leader, so I think it’s important that that perspective and the perspectives of the Green Party be represented in the legislature.”
Elections BC says the final count for the vote is planned for November 6-10, with Return Day set for November 18.
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