B.C. Journal: 2013 campaign enters the home stretch in Canada’s third largest province

Good morn­ing from Coquitlam!

As we announced ear­li­er this week, I am vis­it­ing our north­ern neigh­bors this week­end to cov­er the 2013 British Colum­bia provin­cial elec­tions, which will con­clude this Tues­day, May 14th. Whichev­er par­ty wins will most like­ly form B.C.‘s next gov­ern­ment and run the province for the next few years… so the out­come has impor­tant ram­i­fi­ca­tions both here and for us in the Unit­ed States.

That’s why I’m here.

Over the last few weeks and months, I’ve tried to immerse myself in British Colum­bia pol­i­tics (well, at least to the extent I could with­out being there).

Though Wash­ing­ton and Ida­ho share a bor­der with B.C., and though B.C. shares an ecore­gion with us, its pol­i­tics are in many ways more sim­i­lar to the Unit­ed King­dom’s than ours, owing to the province’s British her­itage. (There’s a rea­son it’s called British Columbia!)

In B.C., the two major polit­i­cal par­ties are the B.C. Lib­er­als and the B.C. New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, or BCNDP for short. The Lib­er­als, despite their name, are actu­al­ly the province’s major con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty; the NDP is the province’s pro­gres­sive polit­i­cal par­ty. (Up here, the words lib­er­al and pro­gres­sive would not be equat­ed as refer­ring to the same world­view and val­ues sys­tem as in the Unit­ed States).

The B.C. NDP is affil­i­at­ed with the Cana­di­an fed­er­al NDP (which became the oppo­si­tion par­ty in Ottawa for the first time in the last elec­tion) but the B.C. Lib­er­als have no for­mal affil­i­a­tion with the nation­al Lib­er­al Par­ty, now led by the young and charis­mat­ic Justin Trudeau. As this is a provin­cial elec­tion, the B.C. Lib­er­als and the B.C. NDP are square­ly focused on region­al and local issues; with nation­al issues being viewed through a West Coast lens.

There is a Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty up here, by the way, but it holds no seats in the B.C. Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly and is influ­en­tial only to the extent that it can be a spoil­er in a close elec­tion, like the Lib­er­tar­i­an Par­ty or the Green Par­ty here in the Unit­ed States. And speak­ing of the Green Par­ty, British Colum­bia has a Green Par­ty too — but it shares a sta­tus sim­i­lar to that of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party.

British Colum­bia, like Cana­da and oth­er Com­mon­wealth realms, is a par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy orga­nized accord­ing to the West­min­ster sys­tem. That means the head of gov­ern­ment (called the Pre­mier in British Colum­bia) plus his or her min­is­ters come from the leg­isla­tive assem­bly. When vot­ers empow­er one par­ty to gov­ern as the major­i­ty par­ty, that par­ty forms the gov­ern­ment that runs the province.

Some­times, the elec­torate is so split that no one par­ty wins a major­i­ty of seats in an elec­tion. When this hap­pens, a coali­tion gov­ern­ment of two or more par­ties usu­al­ly forms, and gov­erns joint­ly through a pow­er-shar­ing agreement.

At present, with the excep­tion of two inde­pen­dents, only mem­bers of the B.C. Lib­er­als and B.C. NDP hold seats in the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly in Vic­to­ria, and that is not expect­ed to change on Tues­day when the elec­tion concludes.

This elec­tion is thus pri­mar­i­ly a con­test between the B.C. Lib­er­als and the B.C. NDP. The Lib­er­als are cur­rent­ly the major­i­ty par­ty in the Assem­bly, and the NDP is the oppo­si­tion par­ty. The NDP, led by Adri­an Dix, is cam­paign­ing hard to turn out the Lib­er­als, led by Christy Clark. Clark present­ly serves as Pre­mier; if her par­ty is defeat­ed on Tues­day, Dix will become the next Premier.

In Cana­da and in British Colum­bia, polit­i­cal par­ties tru­ly run what we in Wash­ing­ton State would call a “coor­di­nat­ed” cam­paign. The par­ties pro­vide all sorts of sup­port and logis­tics for their can­di­dates — includ­ing web host­ing, as you can see from brows­ing around the B.C. NDP’s clean and ele­gant web­site.

Because the pre­mier­ship usu­al­ly goes to the MLA (Mem­ber of the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly) who serves as the leader of the major­i­ty par­ty, the par­ty lead­ers are very much the pub­lic faces of their respec­tive par­ties. Their pho­tos are everywhere.

The pre­mier­ship is a fair­ly pow­er­ful posi­tion. Think of it as equiv­a­lent to Jay Inslee and Frank Chop­p’s posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton State (gov­er­nor and speaker).

The per­son serv­ing as pre­mier is essen­tial­ly the exec­u­tive of the province, but is indi­rect­ly elect­ed, unlike Jay Inslee, Butch Otter, or John Kitzhaber.

A B.C. vot­er want­i­ng to see Adri­an Dix as the next pre­mier can’t actu­al­ly vote for Dix unless he or she lives in Dix’s rid­ing (rid­ing is Cana­di­an for dis­trict). Dix’s chances of becom­ing pre­mier thus rest on the suc­cess of the NDP as a whole in the provin­cial elec­tions, just as Christy Clark’s fate is tied to that of the B.C. Liberals.

(Clark’s own rid­ing, inci­den­tal­ly, is hot­ly con­test­ed — the NDP has a cred­i­ble can­di­date run­ning against her and he could be vic­to­ri­ous on Tues­day).

As this is the last Sat­ur­day and Sun­day before the polls close on Tues­day, it’s GOTV week­end up here in British Colum­bia, and all of the par­ties are work­ing to turn out their sup­port­ers. Ear­ly vot­ing (or advance polls) began here last Wednes­day, and con­tin­ues this week­end in all of the province’s eighty-five ridings.

This morn­ing, B.C. NDP leader Adri­an Dix is cam­paign­ing with MLA hope­ful Chris Wil­son in the Coquit­lam-Burke Moun­tain rid­ing, which is one of fif­teen to twen­ty swing rid­ings. The NDP is host­ing a pan­cake break­fast at Wilson’s cam­paign office just off High­way 7; Dix is expect­ed to address sup­port­ers and the press when he arrives in his cam­paign bus. That’s what I’m here in Coquit­lam to cov­er. It promis­es to be a good time; I’ll be post­ing a write­up (with pic­tures!) after it’s over.

Stay tuned for more per­spec­tive and report­ing on the B.C. provin­cial elections.