Above image: Larry Neufeld, accompanied by wife Tammy, speaks to supporters in Dawson Creek after being elected MLA. Photo supplied.
In an election marked by razor thin margins separating the two main political parties, it wasn’t even close in the Peace.
Barely 21,000 votes separated the BC NDP from the BC Conservatives across the province, with the BC NDP coming out with one seat more than the Conservatives in a nail biter of an election.
But that wasn’t the story in the Peace. In the South Peace, Conservative Larry Neufeld handily triumphed over incumbent Mike Bernier, getting 7070 of the 10,103 votes cast so far.
“So far”, as they are still counting mail-in and out-of-district ballots, and the final results won’t be official until October 28.
Still, with 69.98 percent of the vote so far, the chance of Neufeld losing is non-existent.
“Giant thank you to the amazing people of South Peace. I look forward to working hard on your behalf,” writes Neufeld on his Facebook page. “I would be remiss in not adding a strong thank you to all of our volunteers. A campaign is far more than one individual, and I am most grateful to the many who donated their time and energy. I would also like to add a heartfelt thank you to our many donors. Your support allowed for a strong and effective campaign to be waged to a positive outcome. It would have been much more difficult without this support.”
On his Facebook page, Bernier says it has been a privilege representing this area for the last 20 years. “My kids said to me tonight, we can now have our dad back!” he quips.
In the North Peace, the spread was even larger, with Conservative newcomer Jordan Kealy—who recently came under scrutiny for posting that “they” are controlling the weather to kill off small farms so people will have to eat bugs—beating out incumbent and former BC United member Dan Davis with 74.4 percent of the vote.
That’s the single-largest percentage of the vote any candidate in the election received.
Davis received 20.15 percent of the vote.
In both the North and South Peace, the NDP ran parachute candidates who—as far as we could tell—did not actually visit the riding. In the North Peace, Ian McMahon got 5.45 percent of the vote, while in the South, Marhall Bigsby got 5.52 percent of the vote.
And, while this year saw a record number of advance voters turn out, by the time all the votes were tallied, 57.41 percent of the registered voters turned out to vote, or 2,038,075 people of the 3,550,017 registered. That’s better than the previous election (53.86 percent) but worse than the previous (61.18 percent).
In the South Peace, 10,103 people voted, while there were 17,944 registered voters. That’s 56.3 percent of registered voters, or slightly less than the provincial average.
While the Conservatives won handily in the Peace, things are less clear across the province.
While the current count has the NDP wining 46 seats, the Conservatives 45, and the Greens two, there are 11 ridings where the results are not assured. In two, these will be triggered automatically, as there was less than 100 votes separating the top two candidates.
These ridings are Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre.
In other ridings, parties might ask for a recount, which will further delay results.
And there’s still a few more days before all the ballots will be counted. With mail-in and out-of-district ballots still being counted, there’s a chance that things might shift by October 28, which is when Elections BC will have all the counts finalized. “Sixteen districts are continuing to count out-of-district ballots,” says a post on the Election BC website. “These ballots take longer to count for several reasons. With BC’s vote anywhere model, some districts are reporting out-of-district results from dozens of other contests. Write-in ballots also take longer to count than ordinary ballots.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
