The province has a familiar face at the helm after Elections BC made headway on the ballot count today, delivering some answers more than a week after British Columbians went to the polls. While the BC NDP leader David Eby will once again serve as premier, it was not the major victory the party was hoping for.
It’s still not entirely clear if the BC NDP will hold a majority or minority government. The BC NDP’s key 47th seat, in Surrey-Guildford, leans NDP by only 27 votes with some ballots still being counted.
The BC NDP still captured the most seats of any party. Eby issued a statement Monday saying Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin asked him to form the next government.
“Based on today’s final vote count, and pending judicial recounts, British Columbians have asked our BC NDP team to lead our province for a third time. It is an incredible honour and a huge responsibility. We are listening to the message voters sent with this close election, and will be getting to work on today’s tough challenges right away,” he said in a statement.
Eby will be sworn in as BC’s premier in the coming weeks and will form a cabinet as the 96 MLAs return to Victoria this fall for the 43rd parliament. However, with such a close election, it was unclear in several ridings exactly who those MLAs would be.
A statement from the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia on the 2024 BC Provincial Election: pic.twitter.com/s2E9rmmsiB
— Janet Austin (@LGJanetAustin) October 29, 2024
Two ridings, Surrey City Centre and Juan de Fuca-Malahat, were so close they triggered automatic recounts.
Juan de Fuca-Malahat went to BC NDP Dana Lajeunesse over BC Conservatives Marina Sapozhnikov, with a difference of just 125 votes.
Surrey City Centre was projected to go to the NDP, and the recount shows that it happened. BC NDP candidate Amna Shah narrowly won over BC Conservative candidate Zeeshan Wahla by more than 200 votes.
Surrey-Guildford was more than 100 votes apart on election night, with the Conservative candidate projected to win. But on Monday, the absentee ballots revealed it had flipped, with only 27 votes separating BC NDP candidate Garry Begg over BC Conservative candidate Honveer Randhawa.
That riding will now have a judicial recount.
While the NDP party didn’t see an orange crush by any means, Eby did see sizable support in his own riding of Vancouver-Point Grey, where he received a solid majority of votes over Paul Ratchford, the Conservative candidate. According to early results, Devyani Singh, the BC Green Party candidate, received less than 10% of the vote.
David Eby’s path to power
While Eby served as BC’s premier before the election, his leadership of the party did not actually start with an election.
Instead, he took on the role after then-Premier John Horgan announced he would be stepping away for health reasons after winning the 2020 election. Eby became BC’s 37th premier in November 2022.
Before becoming premier, Eby served as the minister responsible for housing and the attorney general for Horgan’s cabinet.
David Eby. (BC NDP)
In the 2024 election campaign, the NDP promised constituents it would make streets safer, boost household budgets through tax cuts, build 300,000 new homes, crack down on speculators, and get a doctor for every British Columbian. Eby also doubled down on previous election promises to extend the $10-a-day childcare by building new childcare spaces.
The NDP also promised sweeping new transportation infrastructure, including growing and improving public transit. The party said it would also complete the $40 million SkyTrain Millennium Line extension from Arbutus to the University of British Columbia campus.
David Eby. (BC NDP)
While Eby has reclaimed his seat, BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau did not. Furstenau lost her riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill to BC NDP MLA-elect Grace Lore.
She spoke on October 19 in her concession speech, saying she was “so heartened” by the support she received.
“The Greens are still going to play a pivotal role in the BC Legislature,” she said.