BC Election 2013

The final count for the Vancouver-Point Grey by-election is available:

Voter turnout was 39.8%, compared to the 56.4% turnout in the 2009 general election.

This result was obviously closer than what Christy Clark wanted it to be – the closest historical result to the by-election was back in 1996 when Gordon Campbell beat out former Vancouver Mayoral candidate Jim Green with a margin of 49% to 43%.

Presumably the get-out-to-vote machine of the BC Liberal Party was better than the NDP’s for this by-election. One wonders how many resources the NDP put into this riding, and if they nominated a candidate with more credentials whether they could have won the seat. When the campaign financing reports are released, it will be a clue as to the answer to this question.

However, the Premier did win the seat and inevitably that is all that matters for now – the next decision, whether to call a general election at the end of summer, looms large – this result would suggest that being returned for a forth straight mandate is not a slam dunk by any means for the BC Liberals and would be a risky decision to give up a nearly guaranteed two years in office in exchange for two additional years. The margin of victory would decrease the chance of a general election this year.

I generally believe that the decision to have the by-election in the middle of the federal election was a smart decision by Christy Clark, compressing the writ period. For a potential general election, the only other available smokescreen would be calling an election before the municipal cycle starts – one potential timing would be to drop the writ at the beginning of September and have a general election at the end of September. Such speculation is a demonstration that fixed election dates are not consistent with how parliamentary systems work – ultimately the Premier has certain executive powers and one of them is to advise the Lt. Governor to dissolve the legislature and hold elections.

I am not making a formal prediction for this by-election. I have not done any analysis whatsoever of the area – one piece of data I wanted to get was the poll-by-poll result in the Vancouver Quadra federal election, but I was not able to obtain this.

Informally, I believe Christy Clark will be able to break the generation-long spell of by-election losses for sitting governments. It wouldn’t surprise me to see her get roughly 50% of the vote.

Since the next general election is speculated to be this late summer or early autumn, if Christy Clark does not win her seat then it will be a foregone conclusion that the next election will occur sooner than later. If she does win the by-election then she has the option of waiting until the May 2013 fixed election date or pulling the plug regardless.

Adrian Dix has undoubtedly been planning some strategy and getting people in positions in anticipation of the general election and it doesn’t appear that too many resources have been spent by the NDP fighting the by-election – they’re saving their cash for later, which is a wise decision I might add.

The Federal election is over!

I am personally in the midst of cleaning up a campaign office (which is much less “sexy” than setting one up) but I can now afford the time to look at the provincial scene.

The writ period has been effectively condensed down to a week – between now and May 11th.

It should also be noted that the preliminary results for the NDP in Vancouver Quadra rose from 8.1% in the 2008 election to 13.9% in 2011; that said, the NDP gain in BC went from 25.0% to 32.5% so this is an under-performance.

While I am not making a formal call on this by-election (yet), the initial indications would suggest that Christy Clark will be able to take the seat.

It looks like that Alex Tsakumis can’t be faulted for being off by a day, with the by-election being called in Vancouver-Point Grey for May 11. Premier Christy Clark managed to get two days of media for this, showing her media savvy (on the prior day, she announced her candidacy for the riding).

Strategically speaking, this is the correct decision for the BC Liberals. The federal election will have concluded on May 2nd, but effectively the media will get over their election hangover by May 4th before steering some interest provincially to Vancouver-Point Grey. This will leave a “real” writ period of about 7 days. In terms of damage control, I can’t see either major party (BC Liberal or NDP) doing anything substantive since the majority of political people will be fighting on the federal battleground. The risk becomes larger for the BC Liberals with a larger writ period. In fact, if they had the option to have the vote tomorrow, they probably would have opted for that instead.

Elections Canada and Elections BC are going to muddy the waters so much that this by-election should end up having a material impact on the federal Vancouver Quadra riding. For the provincial by-election, some residents will be able to vote twice – so there will be a lot of crossover from the federal result to the provincial result.

In the event that there is no change, the BC Liberals win by default – the NDP got to within 10% of the previous election and face an uphill battle turning this by-election into some sort of anti-government and/or anti-HST vote. The NDP’s leaderless status at present also does not help their cause – the first order of duty for the new party leader is to figure out how to win the seat with declared NDP candidate David Eby.

It should be noted that by-elections have not been friendly to the BC Liberals at all – They lost both Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview (to MLA Spencer Herbert and Jenn McGinn, respectively) in the 2008 by-elections (while MLA Margaret MacDiarmid reclaiming Vancouver-Fairview in the 2009 general election). The previous by-election was in 2004 where MLA Mary Polak lost to MLA Jagrup Brar in Surrey-Panorama.

I note that Alex Tsakumis took a good guess when the next by-election in Vancouver-Point Grey would occur – on May 10th. Inevitably his prediction did not turn out, only that Premier Christy Clark stated she would run as a candidate in the riding. The by-election, which is called with 28 days of notice, was not called.

It is possible that polling data was not within the margin of comfort for them to make the by-election call at the moment. Such data will also be extremely muddied with federal election interests.

My political opinion would have suspected that calling such a by-election for May 10th would have been nearly perfect timing for Christy Clark, mainly that it would condense the “real writ” period down to a week. Since the electoral district is Liberal-leaning, this would presumably work to her advantage, in addition to not giving the new NDP leader enough time to mobilize and message. Another tactical consideration is the presence of John Cummins and the BC Conservatives, who would have a spoiler role in the election.

Nothing prevents the provincial government from calling a general election at the same time as the federal election – only Lt. Gov. Steven Point would be able to veto the request by the Premier, presumably citing concerns with the conflict with the senior government, and/or the election readiness of Elections BC.

It is politically clear that the hourglass is ticking away for Christy Clark – she got a couple goodwill political decisions out of the way (the minimum wage, finalization of the HST referendum parameters) and presumably there will be some goodies packed away in the short legislative session starting at the end of April – the question is whether this is a prelude to dropping the writ or whether they will hold back until May of 2013. Not an easy political calculation since the longer she waits, the more time the NDP and the BC Conservatives have to get their act together.

Gordon Campbell has resigned his seat in the legislation, in Vancouver-Point Grey.

The riding is favourable to the BC Liberals, but it is not quite a slam dunk for them, which makes Christy Clark‘s second major decision as premier (the first being the establishment of cabinet) a little tricky. If she loses in the by-election, matters become tricky for her. Although she can still lead the government, she can only do so with the confidence of her caucus.

The timeline has to be considered:

Constitution Act, Section 35 – the by-election must be called within six months of the receipt of resignation by the speaker (which should be today);
Election Act, Section 25 – specifies that the writ period is 28 days for by-elections (same as general elections).

In theory, the by-election could be called as early as April 12th, but presumably the Premier’s handlers haven’t done much with respect to campaign preparation, being busy with the transition.

Notably, April 17 is the date that the NDP leader is elected. Clark is probably thinking of having the by-election before this date as it would greatly increase the chance of her succeeding, but this is not likely to happen.

Until the NDP leader is elected, it would be difficult to project an outcome, but at present I would guess that Clark would win the seat comfortably. The riding demographically is favouable to her support base, probably more so than outgoing Premier Campbell. However, this prediction is very tentative until the NDP leader is elected – then things get a little more interesting.

The other data point on the timeline is the proposed June 24 HST referendum. It is likely that the by-election will be held before this date.

One of the promises that she made, having a general election in 2011, will seemingly vanish if Clark wins a seat in Vancouver-Point Grey, hence saving me from having to find a new domain name. However, if Clark runs and does not win, then her only real next option is either forcing somebody with a safe seat to resign (e.g. former Minister Colin Hansen, or Moira Stillwell), although you can be sure these two will not have much incentive to leave. Another safe seat candidate would be Gordon Hogg in Surrey-White Rock.