Super-polarized BC

British Columbians don’t know who will govern them for the next four years.

But we should recognize this was a bad election for the province.

The current results would give the NDP 46 seats, the BC Conservatives 45 and the Greens two. That could still change. The final vote counting will take a week, Elections BC says.

If the results don’t change, it’s likely the NDP and Greens would negotiate a deal that would allow the New Democrats to have an effective majority in the legislature, as they did in 2017. Neither wants another election when they could lose seats.

The results were within the norm for the last two decades.

The NDP stands with 45 per cent of the popular vote. That’s down from 2020 when John Horgan won 48 per cent in the COVID election against unpopular BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson. But it’s better than the NDP did in the previous four elections.

The Conservatives captured 44 per cent, well up from the BC Liberal support in 2017 but in line with the party’s vote share in the previous four elections.

But while the results were within traditional norms, the campaign wasn’t.

NDP and Conservative campaigns were built on vilifying their opponents as dangerous. B.C. politics has always been rough, but this campaign reached new levels of negativity as parties spoke less about their own plans and records and more about their opponents’ flaws. The Conservative platform mentioned NDP Leader David Eby 50 times and Conservative Leader John Rustad only 11. The NDP platform mentions Rustad even more often, compared with only 29 times for Eby. Voters were told far more about why the other side was a threat than about what the parties would do.

We now have a polarized two-party system, like the United States. And unlike Canadian federal politics, where Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Québécois and Greens compete for votes.

Anyone paying attention to U.S. politics can see how badly the public and democracy are served by endlessly negative, divisive political parties. And how the process quickly spirals downward, making it impossible to find common ground even on issues that shouldn’t be partisan.

That’s very bad news for the next four years, and likely longer.

The B.C. legislature is already too frequently an embarrassment, with rational debate and policy focus replaced by name-calling, shouting and mindless abuse. It is likely to become even worse.

The two parties — especially given the Conservatives’ extreme focus on issues like sexual orientation and gender identity, and harm reduction — are unlikely to find common ground, or even be able to feign co-operation. The Conservatives’ 44 MLAs include people with weird and dangerous views, from anti-Muslim slurs to residential school denialism.

The chances of parties and MLAs working together — even occasionally or ostensibly — to make life better for British Columbians by addressing problems like housing affordability or health-care wait-lists are non-existent.

On election night, Rustad was clear in his intention. It was not to work in the legislature to make life better for British Columbians. It was to make life “as difficult as possible” for the NDP.

Many potential Conservative MLAs, based on the preliminary results, have made comments that suggest any hope of a legislature that puts the public interest first is doomed.

We’re in for an unstable, dangerous period until the next election, which is likely to come far earlier than the legislated 2028 date. Both parties will be looking for the opportunity to force another election as soon as they think they can win.

And the Conservatives will be in a particular rush.

On election night, Rustad offered an explanation for the Conservatives’ strong showing. “This is what happens when you stand on values,” he said. “This is what happens when you stand on principles.”

Which is questionable. The Conservatives did a remarkable job in building support since Rustad took over the party.

But their electoral opportunity came because BC United Leader Kevin Falcon, under pressure from business interests, unilaterally shut down his party’s campaign and fired all the candidates.

That was impossible to reverse mid-campaign. But former BC Liberals seem committed to reviving the party before the next election, giving non-NDP voters a less extreme choice.

What’s ahead? It’s impossible to predict what will happen in the next week, let alone the next four years.

But it is clear British Columbians are in for more turmoil, uncertainty and polarization.