University of Victoria political scientist Michael Prince has mapped out some homework for the B.C. Green Party in the wake of its dismal showing in the Nanaimo byelection, won by the NDP’s Sheila Malcolmson.
“Maybe what it does for the Greens is give them a pause to rethink and refresh their identity and their distinctiveness from the NDP,” Prince said Thursday.
The Greens this year and next should “strategically select some issues where they can showcase that,” he said.
The Green Party’s support in the Wednesday byelection slid to 7.38 per cent, from 20 per cent in the 2017 provincial election in Nanaimo.
Prince figures that much of the Green support moved to the Liberal’s Tony Harris, who placed second, with some also going to the NDP.
The Greens hold three seats in the B.C. legislature, and are in a governing alliance with the NDP, which has 41 seats.
“If they are going to win more seats or even hold seats in next general election, they’ve got to clearly grow their support,” Prince said.
Royal Roads University’s David Black, who is with the school of communication and culture, has a somewhat different take on the Greens.
“From what I can see here, a lot of Green voters simply didn’t vote,” while others moved to the NDP to boost that party’s support over 2017, he said.
Greens, with candidate Michele Ney, did not split the vote as some political watchers had predicted, Black said.
As well, the NDP’s voter-turnout organization “worked as well as it always has.”
Black noted that Malcolmson increased her party’s share of the vote to 49.2 per cent from 46.5, an achievement given the popularity of Leonard Krog, who won the seat for the NDP in the previous election. Krog is now mayor of Nanaimo and resigned his provincial seat late in 2018, triggering the byelection.
As for the Liberals, businessman Harris is the reason that party received a higher percentage of the vote, to 40.47 per cent, in this election, compared with 32.54 per cent in 2017, Black said. “It’s him that made that surge possible.”
Initial results were released by Elections B.C., which announced Thursday that the estimated turnout was 53 per cent.
That figure represents valid and rejected ballots at advance polls and from the general vote, plus estimates of new voters who registered and 2,839 absentee ballots that were mailed in. Those absentee votes still have to be verified.
The final count will begin on Feb. 6, Elections B.C. said.
Krog said he is pleased that the byelection is over and is “thrilled” that a federal vote is coming up on Oct. 21.
“My job as mayor in the next few months is to milk the federal and provincial government cows as much as I possibly can for the benefit of our citizens,” Krog said.
“We are looking for any kind of assistance for our community generally.”
That could include support for a fast foot-passenger ferry between Nanaimo and Vancouver and funding for the city’s Port Theatre
Krog is also hoping that Nanaimo’s time in the spotlight may help boost the local economy by encouraging investment and job creation.
He said that he had expected Malcolmson to win and presumed Harris would increase the Liberal vote. “I didn’t see quite the collapse of the Green vote in the way it happened.”
It is clear that voters were not keen on the idea of a possible provincial election, he said.
The byelection was critical to the parties because numbers are so close in the B.C. legislature. The NDP-Green partnership totals 44 seats and the Liberals have 42.
If Harris had won, the numbers would have moved to a tie at 43-43.
