Breaking down the winners and losers across the province
Candidates were adversaries during time spent on opposite sides of city council
The NDP scored a big win with George Chow over Suzanne Anton in Vancouver-Fraserview, a riding that pundits said the party absolutely had to re-capture to defeat the Liberals provincewide.
At deadline, Chow’s win was calculated at about 52 per cent of the vote total with 42 out of 91 polls reporting. An NDP crowd in the Vancouver Convention Centre roared and chanted “NDP!” as results came in.
The south Vancouver riding was one of the closest contests in 2013 and it has been a precise thermometer for the political leanings of the province, choosing the MLA from the winning side in every B.C. election going back to 1991.
In 2013, Anton, a former Crown prosecutor, won by just 470 votes. With a high-profile job for the B.C. Liberal government as minister of justice and attorney general, she was a big target for the NDP campaign.
For Anton, a two-term NPA Vancouver city councillor and 2011 candidate for mayor in the city, the battle reprised a rivalry with NDP challenger Chow, who had his share of clashes with Anton in city hall as a two-term Vision Vancouver councillor.
Chow, a former B.C. Hydro engineer, is active in the Chinese-Canadian community and his background likely helped his chances in Fraserview.
During the campaign, Chow said he felt a strong connection with voters in the riding, in which 67 per cent speak English as a second language and Chinese languages are spoken widely. Chow said the issues that mattered most to voters in the riding were affordable housing, health care, transportation and child care. He also focused on public education and working with B.C. teachers, citing how he benefited from public schools coming from a working-class immigrant family.
In door-knocking with Chow, Vancouver-Hastings MLA Shane Simpson, who was re-elected for the fourth time with 60 per cent of the vote, said they heard “lots of people saying 16 years is enough. It’s not a rah-rah thing, but there is resolve for change.”
The NDP also retained important ground in Vancouver-Fairview, a central city riding where incumbent George Heyman was declared winner over Liberal challenger Gabe Garfinkel, a former aide to Christy Clark. At deadline, Heyman had 51 per cent of the vote over Garfinkel’s 34 per cent with 38 out of 97 polls reporting.
“Nine out of 10 people told us that housing affordability was the reason they voted for us,” Heyman said in an interview. “People said they were just fed up with the Liberal government.”
Heyman’s lead was at about 44 per cent of the vote at deadline.
The riding has flipped back and forth between the two parties in recent elections — Heyman took 47.3 per cent of the vote in 2013 to steal a seat from the Liberals.
As always, the riding’s eastern Shaughnessy portions were untouchable Liberal terrain. But this time, the NDP apparently harvested overwhelming vote totals in the western portion of Mount Pleasant, a stronghold neighbourhood in Vancouver for the party.
In Vancouver-Point Grey, highprofile B.C. NDP MLA David Eby had 53 per cent of the total vote, well above the B.C. Liberal party’s 34 per cent, with 59 out of 86 polls reporting.
Nine out of 10 people told us that housing affordability was the reason they voted for us … they were just fed up.