NDP victory is a black eye for Green partners
Malcolmson benefits from hundreds of Green supporters who abandoned ship
It was a crucial win for Sheila Malcolmson and the governing NDP in the Nanaimo byelection and she had more than loyal New Democrats to thank for it.
Yes, the NDP is a well-oiled machine in Nanaimo, where the party has lost only two elections over the last 50 years. That’s why Malcolmson was a big favourite going into the pivotal contest.
But, as the votes started flowing in Wednesday night, it was clear Malcolmson also owed thanks to hundreds of former Green party supporters who clearly swung back to the NDP.
The Greens took an eye-popping 20 per cent of the popular vote in the 2017 general election. The party had high hopes of making another big impact in this byelection with candidate Michele Ney, the daughter of the city’s most beloved mayor, Frank Ney.
But it appears a lot of those Green voters weren’t prepared to stick with the party if it meant Liberal challenger Tony Harris might sneak up the middle and steal the seat away from the New Democrats. More than half of the Green party vote evaporated Wednesday night.
The Greens and the NDP currently form a governing alliance in the minority parliament in Victoria. If the Liberals had snatched the Nanaimo seat away, it would have produced a tie in the legislature and likely a collapse of the NDP-Green team-up and an early general election.
Green party Leader Andrew Weaver said he knew what was going on as he knocked on doors in the riding in support of Ney. “So many people told me, ‘Look, we love what the Green party is doing in the legislature. We’re thrilled and we want it to continue. But that’s why we’re voting for Sheila.’
“It’s not because they were NDP supporters. It’s because they were afraid of the Liberals winning. They didn’t want to take that risk, so a lot of our voters went with the NDP.”
While it certainly looks like strategic voting by Green supporters helped put Malcolmson over the top, the result also shows the NDP remains strong on Vancouver Island, especially on its traditional turf.
The New Democrats threw everything they had at this byelection and managed to secure the win, despite some strategic mistakes.
It was astonishing that the NDP government decided to reveal the unpopular negative-option billing system for its new speculation tax right in the middle of the byelection campaign. If the New Democrats had lost this thing, that decision would have gone down as one of the biggest blunders in B.C. political history.
It didn’t matter in the end, as Malcolmson bucked the usual losing trend by governing parties in byelections.
Parties in power typically perform poorly in B.C. byelections. Malcolmson’s win was just the third time in the last 38 years that a governing party actually won one (the other two wins were by Liberal Christy Clark, and she was premier in both contests.)
For Premier John Horgan, it’s a huge sigh of relief.
“We had a good story to tell people,” Horgan said, pointing to government spending on child care and housing while keeping the budget balanced. “The other party could only tell a story of neglect.”
That was a shot at the Liberals’ 16 years in power, where priorities in NDP-loyal Nanaimo were typically ignored.
The timing of last week’s spending scandal at the legislature was also brutal for the Liberals, as the party took much of the brunt of the public’s anger.
Still, Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson insisted both parties are to blame for the spending scandal and he said the Liberals want to take the lead in cleaning it up.
“We’ll introduce a comprehensive ethics package,” said Wilkinson, who took a bitter shot at the NDP’s campaign tactics in Nanaimo. “We saw a very toxic, nasty campaign from the NDP,” he said.
Get set for more of that. With the byelection win, the NDP-Green alliance has preserved its two-seat governing edge in the legislature, all but assuring the minority government will remain stable and functioning.
With the NDP passing its test in Nanaimo, you can bet the party will continue to heap scorn on the Liberals and their 16-year record in power. The Liberals will try to blunt the attacks by returning fire. Things are going to get rough.
Horgan and the New Democrats, though, couldn’t be happier. The government is holding up well and has already lasted beyond the usual shelf life of most minority governments.