British Colum­bia Pre­mier John Hor­gan has called a snap elec­tion for Octo­ber 24th, hop­ing his pop­u­lar­i­ty will pro­pel the left-lean­ing New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to a major­i­ty of seats in the B.C. Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly and four more years in power.

As with gov­er­nors in the Unit­ed States’ pre­miers in Canada’s ten provinces have seen their pop­u­lar­i­ty soar dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.

British Colum­bia has seen dai­ly, accu­rate brief­in­gs by Health Min­is­ter Adri­an Dix and provin­cial health offi­cer Bon­nie Henry.

British Colum­bia has expe­ri­enced few­er than 11,000 cas­es of the coro­n­avirus and few­er than two hun­dred and forty deaths.

Wash­ing­ton, mean­while has been hit with more than 86,000 cas­es with 2,131 deaths. The B.C. gov­ern­ment pushed ear­ly to close the U.S.-Canada bor­der, uneasi­ly watch­ing the pandemic’s spread in the Ever­green State.

(The province, Canada’s west­ern­most, is home to over four mil­lion peo­ple, where­as Wash­ing­ton State is home to over sev­en million.)

Hor­gan has gov­erned since the spring of 2017, thanks to sup­port from the B.C. Green Par­ty. In May of 2017, the NDP cap­tured forty-one seats, the Greens three seats, and the long-rul­ing (not-so-lib­er­al) B.C. Lib­er­al Par­ty forty-three seats.

Andrew Weaver and John Hor­gan (BCNDP)

The New Democ­rats and Greens had a con­fi­dence and sup­ply agree­ment in place that was sup­posed to last through Octo­ber of 2021. But Hor­gan cit­ed the unprece­dent­ed pan­dem­ic as his rea­son for call­ing the elec­tion. “I’ve strug­gled might­i­ly with this deci­sion and it did not come eas­i­ly to me,” said Horgan.

“The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has changed every­thing – the peo­ple of British Colum­bia deserve a say in the direc­tion of our recov­ery and the future of our province,” added the Pre­mier, whose request for a snap elec­tion was grant­ed by Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Janet Austin, the Queen’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

Hor­gan is the anti-Trump when pre­dict­ing the future of the pandemic.

British Colum­bia will be liv­ing with it and recov­er­ing from it through next sum­mer and into the fall, he pre­dict­ed Tuesday.

Geo­graph­i­cal­ly speak­ing, British Colum­bia is larg­er than Texas.

The provin­cial gov­ern­ment has great pow­er and owns much of B.C.’s land.

“When the Queen calls you, she gives you the whole bag,” the late Pre­mier Dave Bar­rett once said, explain­ing pow­ers of the provin­cial government.

The New Democ­rats, B.C.‘s equiv­a­lent of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, have gov­erned for just six­teen and a half of the past forty-eight years. Hor­gan is seek­ing to be the first two-term NDP pre­mier in British Colum­bia history.

The NDP have been the province’s reform­ers, from insti­tut­ing gov­ern­ment auto insur­ance to pro­tect­ing farm­land to vast­ly expand­ing B.C.‘s provin­cial parks.

The province has tra­di­tion­al­ly split between the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly social­ist NDP and a busi­ness-backed free enter­prise par­ty, once Social Cred­it and since 1991 the B.C. Lib­er­als. The Greens, under Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria cli­mate expert Andrew Weaver, became a fac­tor in 2017 prin­ci­pal­ly on Van­cou­ver Island.

Sev­en of the NDP’s cab­i­net min­is­ters have announced they will not seek reelec­tion. Three of the New Democ­rats’ for­mer Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) in Ottawa are run­ning provin­cial­ly. They were part of a small fac­tion in the House of Com­mons, while cab­i­net posts beck­on out in B.C.

Hor­gan heads into the elec­tion with a six­ty-nine per­cent approval rat­ing, the high­est of any pre­mier in Cana­da, accord­ing to a recent Angus Reid poll.

A recent poll by the same firm showed the New Democ­rats with forty-eight per­cent sup­port, the Lib­er­als at twen­ty-nine per­cent, and the Greens (who, as men­tioned, made Hor­gan’s minor­i­ty gov­ern­ment pos­si­ble) at four­teen per­cent.

The Lib­er­als’ leader, Andrew Wilkin­son, argued that the snap elec­tion is unnec­es­sary. “John Hor­gan chose pol­i­tics over peo­ple,” he said.

“For no good rea­son what­so­ev­er, we’ve now been forced into a gen­er­al elec­tion that nobody in British Colum­bia wants, except the NDP.”

Andrew Weaver has left the Green Par­ty and now sits as an inde­pen­dent in the Leg­is­la­ture. New par­ty leader Sonia Furstanau, a Van­cou­ver Island leg­is­la­tor, denounced the elec­tion call and argued that Hor­gan is just try­ing to con­sol­i­date pow­er. She won­dered whether he can be trust­ed in the future.

Pre­ced­ing Hor­gan, New Brunswick Pre­mier Blaine Hig­gs called a snap elec­tion ear­li­er this month, based on his han­dling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

His Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty (yes, that’s a thing!) won a majority.

Hor­gan has found com­mon cause with Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to pro­tect­ing the Sal­ish Sea.

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and Pre­mier John Hor­gan take ques­tions from reporters in Seat­tle (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Both have opposed the Trans-Moun­tain Pipeline expan­sion. The tripling of an exist­ing pipeline would car­ry 890,000 bar­rels of oil a day from Edmon­ton in Alber­ta down to an oil­port at Burn­a­by just east of Vancouver.

The oil would be export­ed, bring­ing thir­ty-four oil tankers a day through Bur­rard Inlet, Haro Strait (sep­a­rat­ing the San Juan and Gulf Islands) and out the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The project is backed – and owned – by the gov­ern­ment of Cana­da, thanks to the efforts of cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau.

It has sur­vived chal­lenges in Cana­di­an courts.

Cana­di­an elec­tion cam­paigns are short, usu­al­ly just four weeks at the provin­cial lev­el. Under par­lia­men­tary gov­ern­ment, the exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive branch­es are com­bined. Any par­ty that wins a major­i­ty of seats gets to form the gov­ern­ment and its leader becomes pre­mier, Canada’s equiv­a­lent of the posi­tion of governor.

At times, as with Hor­gan, a minor­i­ty par­ty sup­plies votes that keep a gov­ern­ment in pow­er. The Trudeau gov­ern­ment in Ottawa war­i­ly watch­es whether the fed­er­al NDP or the sep­a­ratist Bloc Que­be­cois will sup­port a no-con­fi­dence motion.

The Hor­gan gov­ern­ment has won wide­spread sup­port for clos­ing off British Colum­bia, despite dire con­se­quences to the province’s tourism industry.

What­com Coun­ty, just south of the bor­der, has expe­ri­enced 1,274 cas­es and fifty deaths. The first out­break of COVID-19 in North Amer­i­ca was a lit­tle fur­ther south, in Sno­homish Coun­ty, which is six­ty miles away.

The gov­ern­ment has used the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to urge its cit­i­zens to stay at home and expe­ri­ence their own province. Only British Columbians have been allowed to camp this sum­mer at B.C. provin­cial parks.