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.
The election was the first contested on a new electoral map completed in 2008, with the total number of constituencies increased from 79 in the previous legislature to 85. Under amendments to the BC Constitution Act passed in 2001, BC elections are now held on fixed dates which are the second Tuesday in May every four years.
The election did not produce a significant change in the province's political landscape. The BC Liberals, who had been in power since the 2001 provincial election, were returned to power, constituting the first time in 23 years a party had won three elections in a row in British Columbia. As a result of the seat redistribution, both the Liberals and the New Democrats gained seats, and both parties increased their popular vote by less than one per cent over 2005. Each party lost two incumbent MLAs: the BC NDP's Jenn McGinn and Charlie Wyse, and the Liberals' John Nuraney and Wally Oppal were defeated. All other seat changes in the election resulted from the new seats or from retiring incumbents.
Voter turnout was 50.99% of eligible voters (1,651,567 registered voters).
The BC Liberal party dropped from 72 to 46 seats in the legislature after the 2005 provincial election. Having formed a majority government since 2001 the party promoted its own track record as the government. Much of the party's platform was revealed in the 2009 Budget which included a three-year fiscal plan including revenue expectations, tax measures, and spending priorities. The budget proposed cost savings from reduced budgets in half of the ministries, 76% less government advertising, public sector wage freezes, and less spending on government travel costs, contracted professional services, and discretionary spending. The budget plan proposed to increase spending by $4.8 billion over 3 years for healthcare, $300 million over three years for social services, and $800 million more annually for education, as well as some new funding for childcare, policing, victims services, and social housing. The BC Liberal platform, some of it already promised in the budget, advocates hospital improvements in Surrey, Victoria, Vernon, Fort St. John and Kelowna; travel and accommodation assistance to families who must travel long distances to be with their children when they are receiving care; new measures to help remote communities get new access to fresh fruit and vegetables; provide citizens electronic access to their health records; establishing voluntary five-year-old kindergarten classes; establishing a law school at Thompson Rivers University, a medical school at UBC Okanagan, and a Wood Design and Innovation Centre at UNBC; doubling the BC Training Tax Credit; exempting the first $20,000 of seniors' pension income from income tax; legislating a Residents Bill of Rights for seniors living in residential care facilities and a registry for residential care aides; installing cameras to monitor school yards and high-risk public areas; outlaw dumping of raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and help build a new sewage treatment plan for Greater Victoria.[3]
Under Carole James' leadership the NDP won 33 seats in the 2005 election and two by-elections in 2008. Among other points, its platform involved repealing the carbon tax, instituting a cap and trade plan of greenhouse gas emissions, adopting California's tough vehicle tailpipe emission standards, expanding the capacity and efficiency of public hospitals, instituting health care wait time guarantees, a 1-year small business tax holiday, freezing post-secondary tuition fees, hire more Crown Prosecutors, restoring public oversight to BC Ferries, restricting raw log exports, increasing the minimum wage to $10/hr indexed to inflation, placing a moratorium on new private run-of-the-river power projects, reinstating the Buy BC program, creating a new Rural Economic Development Fund, and promoting farm gate sales of agricultural products (including meat).[4]
The Green Party ran a full slate of candidates, as it did in 2005 when it won over 9 percent of the vote but no seats in the legislature. Its new leader was Jane Sterk, a former Esquimalt councillor. It supported the BC-STV proposal in the referendum. The party released its platform in a book titled British Columbia's Green Book, 2009—2013. Amongst other points, it advocated balanced budgets, reducing taxes on industry and business while increasing taxes on pollution, creating a Green Venture Capital Fund to invest in green collar jobs, directing 1% from the PST to municipal governments, allowing municipalities to issue municipal bonds, creating a provincial police force, reducing tuition fees by 20%, increasing funding to post-secondary institutions, refunding full tuition fees to graduates who work and live in the province for five years after receiving their degree, banning use of cosmetic pesticides, expanding the Medical Service Plan (to cover chiropractic, physiotherapy, eye exams, massage therapy, routine physical exams, and counselling for addictions), creating a Guaranteed Livable Income by unifying all current income support programs, supporting harm reduction practices, regulating cannabis, halting river-based hydro projects pending a review of the environmental assessment process, re-establishing BC Ferries as a Crown corporation, halting the Gateway Program, using usage based insurance for ICBC rates, and creating a BC Legacy Fund from oil and gas royalties for municipal and rural community projects.[5]
The Conservatives nominated 24 candidates, up from seven candidates in 2005 when they won 0.55% of the vote. In spite of his low profile party leader Wilf Hanni participated in a leaders' "Forum" in May 2009.[6] Their platform advocated, among other points, competitive and performance-based healthcare delivery within a publicly funded system, opposing the Recognition and Reconciliation Bill with Aboriginal peoples, returning treaty responsibility to the federal government, repealing the carbon tax and opposing a carbon trading system, expanding resource development (including offshore drilling), reducing the PST by 1%, harmonizing the PST with the Federal GST, eliminating the Property Transfer Tax, rolling back salary increases of MLAs and senior government employees, permitting parents more choices in which schools to send their children to and funding the schools accordingly, repealing the Corren Agreement, reducing tuition fees for students who meet certain standards in post-secondary education, light rail transit in southern Vancouver Island and in Chilliwack, eliminating tolls on bridges (including a proposed toll on the Port Mann Bridge), work requirements on public projects for criminals serving time in jail, a new program to address small crime separately from more serious crimes, creation of a program called Communities That Care to strengthen family dynamics and reduce negative youth behaviors, publishing a Criminal Offenders Registry, creating a substantive appeal process beyond the BC Human Rights Tribunal, enact a 'Right to a Free Vote' legislation for MLAs to freely vote in the Legislature, hold votes for federal senators, and implement a preferential voting system for provincial elections.[7]
The Libertarian Party ran six candidates in this election, as it did in 2005. The party supported reducing government involvement in delivery of health care, education, and car insurance; reducing taxes as services are privatized; and reducing government regulation on guns and drugs.[8]
The Marijuana Party ran one candidate in this election and endorsed the Green Party. In 2005 it ran 44 candidates, while in 2001 it ran a full slate.[9]
The Refederation Party nominated 22 candidates, up from four candidates in 2005 under its previous name the "Western Refederation Party of BC". The party mainly advocates for direct democracy based on the Swiss model, the creation of a provincial constitution, and re-negotiating with the federal government the terms of confederation. According to its website its platform also includes the creation of a provincial police force, homogeneous schools and classes of students with similar abilities, reinstating alternative medical options (such as physiotherapy, dental, and chiropractic) into the Medical Services Plan and placing the Medical Services Plan under the jurisdiction of Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, making WorkSafe an enforcement agency only by moving its insurance component to ICBC, a moratorium on run-of-river hydro projects and fish farms, holding a referendums on the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement and the sale of Crown Corporations, and a judicial review of the sale of BC Rail.[10]
The Communist Party of BC is the provincial branch of the national Communist Party. It had three candidates running in the 2009 election, as it did in 2005. The CPBC campaigned against BC-STV in favour of Mixed Member Proportional representation. It advocates progressive tax based on ability to pay, raising the minimum wage to $16/hour indexed to the cost of living, ending the $6/hour training wage, holding a public inquiry into the sale of BC Rail, banning raw log exports, requiring by legislation the processing of timber locally for export, banning evictions for the purpose of renovation, scrapping the Gateway Program, holding elections for the TransLink board with a $1 single zone fare for the Lower Mainland, removing guns and tasers from transit police, eliminating tuition fees, expanding the apprenticeship program, lowering the voting age to 16, withdrawing from the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, and reintegrating BC Transmission Corporation back into BC Hydro.[11]
The Nation Alliance Party is a new party that nominated two candidates in this election, both in Richmond ridings. The party seeks to promote the rights of ethnic minorities and recent immigrants. Among other points, it advocates promoting participation in the public affairs, promoting non-violence, and opposing racialism.[12]
The People's Front is the provincial wing of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) which generally advocates, among other points, increased spending on health, education and other social programs, a moratorium on the debt, hereditary rights of the Aboriginal peoples, recognition of the equality of all languages and cultures, instituting recall elections, and rights for individuals to initiate legislation.[13] It nominated four candidates in this election, down from five in 2005 and 11 in 2001.
The BC Reform Party nominated four candidates. It had only one candidate in the 2005 election but nine in 2001 and a full slate of 75 in the 1996 election. According to its website, its platform includes, amongst other points, replacing the provincial income tax with a sales tax and a business tax on gross receipts, use of an employee payroll credit, repudiation of any carbon taxes and carbon credit trading, re-establishing public equity in BC Investment Management Corporation, re-establishment a Grand jury system, restrictions on judicial reviews of legislative actions, and elections for local provincial court judges.[14]
Billing itself as "the world's first sex-positive party", the Sex Party nominated three candidates in Vancouver ridings, as it did in 2005. According to its website, its platform includes, amongst other points, requiring sexual health and hygiene education in schools, requiring school districts to establish professional support programs to address discrimination of sexual minorities, providing provincial funding for institutes studying and teaching human sexuality or researching sexuality policy issues, reserve designate areas for nudists on all public parks and beaches larger than one hectare, establish a Sex Worker Empowerment Program as an agency providing counseling, education, and advocacy to sex workers, requiring municipalities to treat sex toy businesses as other retail businesses, repeal sex negative regulations, requiring all long term care institutions to articulate a sexuality policy that is non-judgmental about residents' sexuality, creating a Sex-Positive Press Council to expose overt and subtle censorship in BC media, changing Victoria Day to Eros Day to celebrate and encourage sex-positive expression, and proclaiming Valentine's Day a statutory holiday.[15]
The Western Canada Concept had one candidate running in this election, down from two candidates in the 2005 election. The party strongly advocates independence for western Canada, and amongst other points advocates for anti-abortion legislation, strong private property rights, balanced budgets, promotion of cultural assimilation rather than multiculturalism, and compulsory public service with a volunteer armed forces.[16]
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, 32-hour work-week.[17] The party had 2 candidates down from 11 in 2005. The 2005 BC election marked the debut in Western politics of any registered party expressly driven by the ideology of voluntary simplicity.
The party nominated one candidate in 2005 and two in 2009. Among other points, it advocates publishing reports explaining where every tax dollar is spent, free votes in the legislature, making all campaign promises legally binding, requiring MLAs hold public townhall-style meetings at least once every four months, labelling products sold in BC indicating environmental standards, adding generating capacity to existing dams, opening run-of-river dam project areas to recreational use, providing periodic written statements detailing the cost of each citizen's use of the health care system, provide forgivable loans to post-secondary students who continue to live and work in BC after graduation, permit more private post-secondary institutions, requiring all people serving time in jail to work to pay for the cost of their incarceration, legalization of marijuana, eliminate the property transfer tax, disallow restrictions on secondary suites and minimum home sizes, harvesting all Pine Beetle affected timber immediately, limiting the total allowable yearly fishing catch (rather than regulating length of the fishing season), require weekly educational programs for anyone receiving welfare payments, provide before and after school childcare, permitting private insurance companies to compete with ICBC.[18]
Timeline of the campaign
April 10, 2008, passage of the Electoral Districts Act, 2008 moving BC from 79 to 85 constituencies.
April 14, 2009, the campaign will officially begin when the writ is issued.
April 24, 2009 1pm close of nominations for the election.
May 12, 2009, Election day.
Debates
There was one TV debate featuring the leaders of the three major parties: Gordon Campbell, Carole James, and Jane Sterk on all three major BC networks on Sunday May 3 at 5:00 p.m.
CKNW had a debate of the three leaders on April 23 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
CBC Radio One had a debate of the three leaders on April 21 at 7:30 a.m.
Opinion polls
Evolution of voting intentions at provincial level
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