As final tabulations take place this week in the B.C. provincial election, a split in votes among right-leaning candidates may have paved the way for the B.C. NDP’s potential victory in the closely contested riding of Vernon-Lumby.
Independent candidate Kevin Acton garnered just over 15 per cent of the vote, likely drawing from a pool of Conservative supporters and complicating the election landscape.
B.C. NDP incumbent Harwinder Sandhu holds a 384-vote lead over Dennis Giesbrecht of the B.C. Conservative Party, with final vote counts underway this week.
Across B.C., the NDP is holding or leading in 46 seats in a close race with B.C. Conservatives who are holding or leading in 45 ridings. The B.C. Green Party has two seats.
If there are no changes to those numbers when the final results are announced later this week, the NDP will have a minority government — an outcome that frustrates some B.C. Conservatives like newly elected MLA Amelia Boultbee representing Pentiction-Summerland.
“If you really dig into the riding-by-riding results, we lost Steveston-Richmond and Vernon-Lumby because of these B.C. United / Independent candidates who had, frankly, no business running, and they ran and spilt the vote, and if they hadn’t done that, we would have a Conservative majority government,” Boultlee said.
“Their own leader, Kevin Falcon, said, ‘Step down. Stand down. Do the right thing for British Columbia, and let’s all join together with the Conservatives to beat the NDP.”
For decades, any talk of vote-splitting in B.C. politics usually referred to left-leaning voters making a choice between the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Green Party.
After the collapse of B.C. United this summer and the rise of the B.C. Conservative Party, vote-spitting in this election generally occurred on the right side, as a handful of former B.C. United candidates, like Acton, remained on the ballot as Independents.
Reflecting on his role in the election, Acton acknowledged he may have played the role of a spoiler.
“I would definitely agree that probably most of the votes I got would have come from people that were right-leaning.”
However, he remains unapologetic about his decision to run, suggesting it may have played a part in keeping the B.C. Conservative party out of power.
“The reality is more than 4,000 people put their faith in me, and likely they didn’t want the far-right or the left that was offered to them,” Acton said.
“I think I gave people an out, and now we are in a situation where maybe we will see the government work a little bit better together.”
Acton pointed at the B.C. Conservatives’ choice to go with Giesbrecht instead of accepting his offer to become their candidate as a reason for staying in the race.
Action, the long-standing mayor of Lumby and a familiar face in the North Okanagan, said Giesbrecht was chosen to run in Vernon-Lumby despite not living in the area.
“I’m sure Dennis is just hating me right now, but the reality is this province is supposed to be about a democracy and not election engineering.”
Giesbrecht says he’s disappointed with the outcome but has no hard feelings toward Acton, even if he did play the spoiler in the race.
“I don’t hate anybody. That’s not my nature. We ran a positive campaign. It happened the way it happened … and it’s not worth getting upset.”
Even though Acton received 15 percent of the vote, the NDP’s Harwinder Sandhu said she’s not convinced that her lead in Vernon-Lumby can be attributed solely to vote-splitting.
“There are people who voted for the Independent candidate here and around the province that clearly didn’t agree with John Rustad or his stance on various issues, or his agenda and vice-versa for us,” Sandhu said.
“Clearly, those voters didn’t agree with either party platform.”
Regardless of voters’ motivations, the NDP’s victories in Vernon-Lumby and Richmond-Steveston are crucial if the party hopes to govern with the support of the B.C. Green Party. The issue of vote-splitting is likely to remain a subject of debate long after the final election results are announced.