2005_British_Columbia_general_election

2005 British Columbia general election

2005 British Columbia general election

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The 2005 British Columbia general election was held on May 17, 2005, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of the Province of British Columbia (BC), Canada. The British Columbia Liberal Party (BC Liberals) formed the government of the province prior to this general election under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell. The main opposition was the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP), whose electoral representation was reduced to two MLAs in the previous provincial election in 2001.

Quick Facts 79 seats of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia 40 seats were needed for a majority, Turnout ...
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The BC Liberals retained power, with a reduced majority of 46 out of 79 seats, down from the record 77 out of 79 in 2001. Voter turnout was 58.2 per cent.

Under amendments to the BC Constitution Act passed in 2001, BC elections are now held on fixed dates: the second Tuesday in May every four years. This was the first provincial election for which elector data in the provincial elector list was synchronised with the National Register of Electors.[2]

Coincidental with the general election, BC voters also voted on whether or not to change the province's electoral system.

Electoral reform referendum

The BC electoral reform referendum was held in conjunction with this election. This referendum asked voters whether or not they support the proposed electoral reforms of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, which included switching to a single transferable vote (STV) system. Had it been approved by 60% of voters in 60% of ridings), the new electoral system would have been implemented for the general election in 2009. Although the proposed reform attracted a clear majority (58% of the popular vote in favour, with 77 out of 79 ridings showing majority support), the level of support was just short of that required for mandatory implementation. A new vote on a revamped version of STV was held in conjunction with the 2009 British Columbia general election.


Results

More information Party, Leader ...

    MLAs elected

    Synopsis of results

    Main article: Results of the 2005 British Columbia general election by riding
    More information Riding, Winning party ...
    1. [a 1]
      including spoilt ballots
    2. [a 2]
      parties receiving more than 1% of the popular vote, or fielding candidates in at least half of the constituencies, are listed separately. Democratic Reform is highlighted, as it received more votes than the Marijuana Party while having fewer candidates. Conservatives are also listed separately, as they achieved significant 3rd and 4th places in several districts.
    3. [a 3]
      Vicki Huntington received 8,043 votes
    4. [a 4]
      Paul Nettleton was the incumbent Liberal MLA in Prince George-Omineca.
      = Open seat
      = turnout is above provincial average
      = winning candidate was in previous Legislature
      = Incumbent had switched allegiance
      = Previously incumbent in another riding
      = Not incumbent; was previously elected to the Legislature
      = Incumbency arose from by-election gain
      = other incumbents renominated
      = previously an MP in the House of Commons of Canada
      = Multiple candidates


    Summary analysis

    More information Party in 1st place, Party in 2nd place ...
    More information Parties, 1st ...
    More information Source, Party ...

    Results by region

    More information Party name, Van. ...

    xx Denotes party received less than 0.1%

    Timeline

    Pre-campaign period

    • August 30, 2001 - Bill 7, Constitution Amendment Act is passed, fixing the date of the election at May 17, 2005.
    • November 13, 2002 - Liberal MLA Paul Nettleton accuses the government of a secret plan to privatize BC Rail as well the BC Hydro electric utility. He is removed from caucus several days later and sits as an Independent Liberal until the 2005 election, when he unsuccessfully ran in Prince George-Mount Robson against Shirley Bond. BC Rail was subsequently sold to CN in what other bidders have described as a corrupted process, and BC Hydro's administrative arm was sold to Accenture.
    • January 9, 2003 - Premier Gordon Campbell is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol on Maui. Because drunk driving is not a criminal offence in the state of Hawaii, but only a misdemeanour, Campbell did not resign his seat as he would have had to in Canada, and due to pressure from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) he attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and a series of speaking engagements condemning drinking and driving.
    • November 23, 2003 - Carole James is elected as leader of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia.
    • December 28, 2003 - the RCMP execute search warrants on various locations in the Lower Mainland and Greater Victoria, including offices in the Parliament Buildings in Victoria, in relation to suspicious dealings in relation to the bidding process for the sale of BC Rail (see BC Legislature Raids).
    • March 22, 2004 - Liberal MLA Elayne Brenzinger quits the caucus citing a "secret agenda" being undertaken by Premier Campbell in relation to the sale of BC Rail.[7]
    • September 17, 2004 - Deputy Premier Christy Clark, whose house had been searched under warrant by the RCMP in connection with the BC Legislature Raids investigation, quits politics saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.
    • October 22, 2004 - New Democrat Jagrup Brar wins a by-election in Surrey-Panorama Ridge with 53.6% of the vote, a swing of 33.7% to the NDP from the 2001 result. One of Brar's competitors was Green leader Adriane Carr who captured 8.4% of the vote.
    • December 14, 2004 - In the wake of revelations he had been under surveillance by the RCMP in connection with dealings concerning the sale of BC Rail, Liberal Finance Minister Gary Farrell-Collins abruptly resigns from cabinet and the legislature despite having been named co-chair of the Liberal re-election campaign a month earlier. The move requires Premier Campbell to undertake a minor cabinet shuffle.
    • January 15, 2005 - The Democratic Reform British Columbia party is created out of a merger of the British Columbia Democratic Coalition and the All Nations Party of British Columbia. The party also boasts the support of key elements of the Reform Party of British Columbia. Prior to the official creation of this party, the Democratic Coalition and Reform BC jointly nominated a candidate for the Surrey-Panorama Ridge by-election.
    • January 19, 2005 - Independent MLA Elayne Brenzinger joins DRBC, adding a third party to the Legislative Assembly for the first time since Gordon Wilson folded his Progressive Democratic Alliance party and joined the NDP.
    • January 31, 2005 - Liberal MLA and then-cabinet minister Sandy Santori resigns from his seat in the Legislature in a dispute over the deletion of emails by Premier Gordon Campbell's Deputy Minister to the Premier, Ken Dobell.[8]
    • February 15, 2005 - New Liberal Finance Minister Colin Hansen introduces what is widely viewed as an "election budget" which promised $1.3 billion in new spending, tax cuts and an economic surplus.
    • March 11, 2005 - Attorney-General Geoff Plant announces that he will not seek re-election.
    • March 15, 2005 - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation board chair Carole Taylor announces that she will run for the Liberals in the riding of Vancouver-Langara. Premier Gordon Campbell endorses Taylor's candidacy.
    • March 29, 2005 - The consortium of television stations organizing the leaders' debate announces that the leaders of the Liberal, New Democratic, and Green parties will be invited to participate in the debate.
    • April 13, 2005 - The NDP and Green Party release their platforms in Victoria.

    Campaign period

    • April 19, 2005 - The writ of election is issued (not "dropped" as in past elections), dissolving the Legislature and beginning the official campaign period.
    • April 20, 2005 - The NDP becomes the first party to complete a province-wide nomination slate.
    • April 22, 2005 - NDP candidate Rollie Keith withdraws his candidacy in Chilliwack-Kent after telling the Vancouver Province that he was "impressed" when he met Slobodan Milošević and that he did not believe there had been war crimes committed in Kosovo.
    • May 3, 2005 - The leaders of the Liberal, NDP and Green parties meet in a televised debate. Commentators indicate the debate was either a draw or a win for Green leader Adriane Carr. An Ipsos-Reid poll conducted online following the debate showed that 33% of debate views thought the debate produced no clear winner, 31% felt NDP leader Carole James won, 23% felt Liberal leader Gordon Campbell won while only 12% saw Carr as the winner.
    • May 17, 2005 - CBC projects a BC Liberal majority government at 9:05 p.m. local time.
    • June 22, 2005 - Tim Stevenson, who lost to Lorne Mayencourt by 11 votes, asks the Supreme Court of British Columbia to order a new election in Vancouver-Burrard due to 70 ballots that could not be counted because they had not been initialed by election officials.

    Opinion polls

    Voter intention polling

    More information Polling firm, Last day of survey ...

    Besides the usual public polling by market research firms, other organizations have been attempting to predict the results of the upcoming election using alternate methods. Results suggest that all three projections below underestimated NDP seats and overestimated Liberal seats:

    UBC's Election Stock Market tracks the prices of contracts whose value depend on election results:
    Popular vote: Lib 44.5%, NDP 35.9%, Green 13.9%, Other 5.3%
    Seats: Lib 48.6 (61.5), NDP 29.4 (37.2), Other 1.6 (2.0)
    (values in parentheses are values of actual contracts, in cents)

    The Election Prediction Project aggregates submissions from the Internet and subjectively predicts winners based on the submissions (see methodology):
    Seats: Lib 50, NDP 29, Other 0

    Will McMartin at the progressive online newspaper The Tyee makes his predictions by looking at "historic election results and selected demographics, as well as public opinion polls, regional sources and input from Election Central readers" (see details):
    Seats: Lib 51, NDP 28, Other 0.

    Political parties

    British Columbia has Canada's least restrictive elections laws with regard to political party registration, and consequently there are currently nearly 50 parties registered with Elections BC, by far the most of any jurisdiction in the country. Twenty-five parties contested the 2005 election, also a considerably greater number than anywhere else in Canada.

    See also: List of political parties in Canada § British Columbia

    British Columbia Liberal Party

     

    Leader: Gordon Campbell

    The BC Liberals won 77 of 79 seats in the 2001 election. At dissolution, the party held 72 seats. One member elected as a Liberal left the party to sit as a member of Democratic Reform British Columbia; one member elected as a Liberal left to sit as an independent; the party lost one by-election to the opposition New Democratic Party; and two former Liberal seats were vacant when the election was called. In 2005 election, the Liberal party dropped from 72 to 46 seats in the legislature, yet still won the election.

    New Democratic Party of British Columbia

     

    Leader: Carole James

    The NDP's legislative caucus was reduced from a majority to just two seats in the 2001 election. It won another seat in an October 2004 by-election to bring the total to three. Carole James led the NDP to 33 seats to become the Leader of the Opposition.

    Green Party of British Columbia

     

    Leader: Adriane Carr

    The Green Party ran 72 candidates in 2001, winning 12 percent of the vote but no seats in the legislature. Some argued that the Green Party support peaked in 2001, drawing on dissatisfied NDP voters, and they would remain incapable of winning a seat in 2005 under the First-Past-the-Post system; others believed that if there had been four or more competitive parties in this election, the Greens might elect a handful of members. Alternatively, if they had received more votes, they would have been more likely to win a seat. The Greens may benefit if a later election is conducted using the proposed BC-STV system. In 2005, the Greens received 9% of the popular vote and no seats.

    Democratic Reform British Columbia

     

    Leader: Tom Morino

    Democratic Reform British Columbia is a new party created in early 2005 by the merger of the British Columbia Democratic Coalition—a coalition of minor centrist parties— with the All Nations Party of British Columbia and key elements of the Reform BC. Independent MLA Elayne Brenzinger, a former Liberal, became DRBC's first MLA on January 19, 2005. Controversially, no invitation was extended for Morino to participate in the leader's debate.

    British Columbia Marijuana Party

     

    Leader: Marc Emery

    The BC Marijuana Party nominated 43 candidates in this election. It was the only party other than the Liberals and NDP to run candidates in all 79 districts in 2001. The party chose not to run in certain districts and instead endorse New Democrat and Green candidates who publicly favour the legalization of marijuana. Party founder Marc Emery ran against Solicitor General Rich Coleman, an anti-drug hardliner, in staunchly conservative Fort Langley-Aldergrove. He gained controversy early in the campaign for claiming that the government spends too much money on senior citizens.

    Minor parties

     

    Work Less Party of British Columbia

    Leader: Conrad Schmidt

    The WLP is an anti-materialist political movement that hopes to achieve socialist and green ends through, among other things, the promotion of a four-day work-week. The 2005 BC election marked the debut in Western politics of any registered party expressly driven by the ideology of voluntary simplicity. It nominated 11 candidates, all in urban ridings.

    		  

    Platinum Party of Employers Who Think and Act to Increase Awareness

    Leader: Jeff Evans

    Nominated eleven candidates.

     

    British Columbia Conservative Party

    Leader: Barry Chilton

    Nominated seven candidates. Former provincial affiliate of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

    		  

    British Columbia Libertarian Party

    No registered leader

    Nominated six candidates. Provincial affiliate of the Libertarian Party of Canada

     

    People's Front

    Leader: Charles Boylan

    Nominated five candidates. Provincial affiliate of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).

    		  

    Western Refederation Party of British Columbia

    No registered leader

    A new autonomist/separatist party that nominated four candidates around the province.

     

    Communist Party of British Columbia

    Leader: George Gidora

    Nominated three candidates. Provincial affiliate of the Communist Party of Canada.

    		  

    Sex Party

    Leader: John Ince

    Nominated three candidates in the City of Vancouver. Billed itself as "the world's first sex-positive party."

     

    Bloc British Columbia Party

    Leader: Paddy Roberts

    Libertarian separatist movement. Nominated three candidates in the Interior.

    		  

    British Columbia Social Credit Party

    No registered leader

    Although Social Credit governed British Columbia for most of the period from 1952 to 1991, the party is now a minor party, with little organization or support. It nominated the minimum two candidates in order to retain party status this election.

     

    Freedom Party of British Columbia

    Leader: Kenneth Montgomery Keillor

    Nominated two candidates.

    		  

    British Columbia Patriot Party

    Leader: Andrew Hokhold

    Nominated two candidates.

     

    Western Canada Concept Party of British Columbia

    Leader: Doug Christie

    Although the WCC did not run in the 2001 election, it has been a constant, if minor, force in the BC political fringes for decades. Christie, its controversial leader, and a second candidate were nominated by the party in Greater Victoria.

    		  

    British Columbia Party

    Leader: Grant Mitton

    The BC Party is also a relatively old minor party, one of several populist conservative organizations that attempted to fill the vacuum after the collapse of Social Credit in the mid-nineties. This was the first election in which it nominated candidates. It nominated two candidates. A third possible candidate, Summer Davis in Surrey-Tynehead, ran as an independent.

     

    British Columbia Moderate Democratic Movement

    No registered leader

    The majority of the Moderates, including leader Matthew Laird, joined DRBC. The party's registration did not lapsed, however. The two candidates running under its banner opposed the merger.

    		  

    British Columbia Youth Coalition

    No registered leader.

    Nominated two candidates.

     

    British Columbia Unity Party

    Interim Leader: Daniel Stelmacker

    BC Unity finished fourth in 2001, winning slightly over 3% of the vote with a slate of 56 candidates. It stood poised to potentially benefit from right-of-centre voters disenchanted with Campbell, but instead fell victim to serious internal division following a failed merger with the BC Conservative Party, which led to Chris Delaney's resignation as party leader. It appointed Daniel Stelmacker as its interim leader until it can hold a full leadership convention in the autumn of 2005. Stelmacker was its only nominated candidate, in Skeena riding.

    		  

    Reform Party of British Columbia

    No registered leader

    Aborted mergers with BC Unity and DRBC drained supporters left and right from BC Reform, leaving only a tiny core of what was briefly BC's third party. Party founder Ron Gamble was the party's sole candidate in North Vancouver-Lonsdale.

     

    Your Political Party of British Columbia

    Leader: James Filippelli

    YPP appears to be a one-man political movement; its website made mention of no figures other than Filippelli, the party's founder and leader, who was its sole candidate in this election. He ran in Port Moody-Westwood.

    		  

    Emerged Democracy Party of British Columbia

    Leader: Tony Luck

    Nominated one candidate, Rob Nordberg, in Surrey-Green Timbers.


    References

    1. [1]
      "Statement of Votes - 38th Provincial General Election" (PDF). Elections BC. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 25, 2023. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
    2. [2]
      "Elections BC and Elections Canada will Amalgamate Voters Lists" (PDF). Victoria, British Columbia: Elections British Columbia. May 21, 2004. Retrieved March 30, 2011.
    3. [3]
      Elections BC 2005, p. 24.
    4. [4]
      "B.C. Voter Participation: 1983 to 2013" (PDF). Elections BC. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 28, 2019. Retrieved May 11, 2017.
    5. [5]
      Elections BC 2005, pp. 37–39.
    6. [6]
      Elections BC 2005, pp. 25–36.
    7. [7]
      Hansard, October 6, 2004, quoted in the BC Legislature Raids blog
    8. [8]
      Delete button wipes out 'transparency' in government: Called for 'thorough, complete, diligent investigation', Michael Smyth, The Province June 25, 2009, quoted in the BC Legislature Raids blog

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