The 2020 British Columbia general election was held on October 24, 2020, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly to serve in the 42nd parliament of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The incumbent New Democratic Party of British Columbia (BC NDP) won a majority government, making John Horgan the first leader in the history of the BC NDP to win a second consecutive term as premier.^[2] The incoming Legislature marked the first time the NDP commanded an outright majority government in BC since the 1996 election, as well as the first province-wide popular vote win for the party since 1991.

Quick Facts 87 seats in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia 44 seats needed for a majority, Turnout ...

2020 British Columbia general election

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87 seats in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia 44 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	54.50%[1] 6.7 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader John Horgan Andrew Wilkinson Sonia Furstenau Party New Democratic Liberal Green Leader since May 4, 2014 February 3, 2018 September 14, 2020 Leader's seat Langford-Juan de Fuca Vancouver-Quilchena Cowichan Valley Last election 41 seats, 40.29% 43 seats, 40.37% 3 seats, 16.83% Seats before 41 41 2 Seats won 57 28 2 Seat change 16 13 Popular vote 898,384 636,148 284,151 Percentage 47.69% 33.77% 15.09% Swing 7.32 pp 6.52 pp 1.74 pp
Popular vote by riding. As this is an FPTP election, seat totals are not determined by popular vote, but instead via results by each riding. Click the map for more details.
Summary of the 2020 British Columbia general election
Premier before election John Horgan New Democratic Premier after election John Horgan New Democratic

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Horgan called a snap election on September 21, 2020, the first early election in the province since the 1986 election. Horgan portrayed the call for an early election as required for stability given the fact that the BC NDP was governing with a minority of seats in the Legislative Assembly, but his decision was criticized by both the NDP's confidence and supply partner, the British Columbia Green Party, and the province's Official Opposition, the British Columbia Liberal Party, as opportunistic.

Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson resigned two days after the election, but remained as leader until November 23.^[3]

This election took place under first-past-the-post rules, as proportional representation had been rejected with 61.3% voting against it in the 2018 referendum.^[4]

Section 23 of British Columbia's Constitution Act provides that general elections occur on the third Saturday in October of the fourth calendar year after the last election.^[5] The fixed election date was previously set for the second Tuesday in May — tentatively making the next election date May 12, 2021; but the BC NDP passed legislation in 2017 amending the section of the constitution pertaining to the set election day.^[6] The same section, though, makes the fixed election date subject to the lieutenant governor's prerogative to dissolve the Legislative Assembly as he or she sees fit (in practice, on the advice of the premier or following a vote of non-confidence).^[5][7]

This prerogative was exercised on September 21, 2020, when Premier John Horgan called a snap election, thus dissolving the 41st Parliament.^[8] The writ of election was issued the same day, commencing a 32-day campaign. This was the first election in BC in nearly two decades to not have been held on the fixed date, following four successive elections which had adhered to fixed-date legislation under amendments to the Constitution Act introduced by the Liberal government under Gordon Campbell and passed shortly after the Liberals came into power subsequent to the 2001 election. It was also the first time a BC government had gone to the polls before the expiration of its mandate since the Social Credit government under Bill Vander Zalm called an early election in 1986.

This election was the second Canadian provincial election held during the COVID-19 pandemic, after the September 2020 election in New Brunswick – also a snap election. Due to the pandemic, more than 720,000 people requested mail-in ballots. Elections BC expected that 35 to 40 percent of ballots would be sent by mail, compared to 1 percent historically. Advance voting took place between October 15 and 21, with more than 681,000 people voting ahead of the election date.^{[2][9][10][11]}

Due to the significant increase in mail-in voting,^[2][12] the full results of the election were not known until November 8; the results of the judicial recount held in one constituency, West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, were only known on November 17.^[13]

The election occurred only three years and five months after the 2017 election and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia. By the terms of the confidence and supply agreement that had been struck between the NDP and the Green Party, the NDP had been barred from calling a snap election and from holding an election before the fixed date. The premier defended his decision to call an early election, claiming that the province needed the government to have a strong mandate and stability to deal with the challenges of the pandemic for the coming years; the governing New Democrats did not have a majority of seats in the legislature, relying on confidence and supply from the Greens for a slim combined majority. An Ipsos poll conducted for Global News and radio station CKNW found that 46 percent of people disapproved of the snap election call, while 32 percent approved.^[14] Horgan and the BC NDP had been enjoying popularity in the polls during the summer and throughout the pandemic.^{[15][16][17][18]}

On September 21, 2020, the BC NDP chose Nathan Cullen, a longtime party member and former member of Parliament for the federal NDP, to be the New Democratic candidate in the riding of Stikine, which is located in northwestern BC and was previously represented by Doug Donaldson. Cullen, a white man, was nominated after the NDP attempted, but failed, to find a person wanting to run who was a person from an "equity-seeking" group, such as a woman or Indigenous person; the party's policy required that a vacancy left by a male MLA not running for re-election must be filled by a person from these groups. Annita McPhee, an Indigenous woman of the Tahltan Nation who had served as president of the Tahltan Central Government, previously declared her intention to become the NDP candidate, but was not considered by the NDP. The NDP said that McPhee's application contained invalid signatures, and Cullen was nominated before the paperwork problem could be resolved. According to a party official, McPhee had indicated that she did not want to be associated with the NDP following the 2019 federal election, which was denied by McPhee.^{[19][20][21][22]}

On September 28, BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson promised a one-year tax holiday on the 7% provincial sales tax, at an estimated cost of $6.9 billion, and to thereafter set it to 3% for the following year, at an estimated cost of $3.9 billion, saying that it would stimulate the economy.^[23][24]

On September 30, NDP leader John Horgan promised to improve conditions at long-term care homes, at a cost of $1.4 billion.^[25]

The NDP filed a complaint to Elections BC against Liberal candidate Garry Thind, accusing him of violating the Elections Act by attempting to collect voters' information in order to provide them with a ballot.^[26]

On October 4, the BC Liberals announced that they would pause the transition in Surrey from an RCMP force to a local police department, and that they would hold a referendum of whether the city's switch to a local police department should be reversed.^[27]

On October 8, the NDP announced that they would commit to building, contingent on contributions from the federal government, the entire 16-kilometre (9.9 mi) SkyTrain Expo Line extension to Langley Centre by 2025.^[28]

These are the final results, which include mail-in and absentee ballots.

More information Party, Votes ...

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats
					2017	Dissolution	Elected	Seat change
	New Democratic	898,384	47.69	7.32	41	41	57	16
	Liberal	636,148	33.77	6.52	43	41	28	15
	Green	284,151	15.09	1.74	3	2	2	1
	Conservative	35,902	1.91	1.38	0	0	0
	Independents	13,818	0.73	0.20	0	2	0
	Libertarian	8,360	0.44	0.05	0	0	0
	Christian Heritage	3,895	0.21	0.04	0	0	0
	Communist	786	0.04		0	0	0
	Vision	761	0.04		0	0	0
	Rural	754	0.04		0	0	0
	Wexit	673	0.04		0	0	0
Vacant					–	1	–	–
Total		1,883,632	100.00	–	87	87	87	–
Valid votes		1,883,632	99.21
Invalid/blank votes		14,921	0.79	0.20
Total votes		1,898,553	100.00	–
Registered voters/turnout		3,524,812	53.86	7.34
Source: Elections BC[52]

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The following tables present results by riding per Elections BC.^[13]

• Names in bold are outgoing cabinet ministers, and names in italics are party leaders. The premier is in both.
• † denotes incumbent MLAs who are not seeking re-election.
• ‡ denotes incumbent MLAs who are seeking re-election in a different riding.
• A riding name in brackets below the name of the incumbent MLA indicates the name of the predecessor riding contested in the last election.
• Candidate names are given as they appeared on the ballot, and may include formal names and middle names that the candidate does not use in day-to-day political life. For example, Greg Kyllo appeared on the ballot as Gregory James Kyllo.

11 incumbent MLAs lost their seats.

Open seats changing hands

Student votes are mock elections that run parallel to actual elections, in which students not of voting age participate. They are administered by Student Vote Canada. Student vote elections are for educational purposes and do not count towards the results. There were ties in two constituencies, Kelowna—Lake Country (BC Green and BC NDP) and Shuswap (BC Liberal and BC NDP), which were both counted twice.^[121]