Was BC United dropping out of the provincial election and endorsing the BC Conservatives a holy [expletive] moment or just another day in B.C. politics?
Crazy things happen in this province, but the virtual demise of a party that held power for the better part of two decades until the NDP formed government in 2017, has got to rank up there with the bizarro moments in B.C. political history.
Prior to the announcement by BC United party leader Kevin Falcon on Aug. 28, the Conservative Party of B.C. had relegated the once mighty former BC Liberals to third or fourth place.
The political poll aggregator 338 Canada had the Conservatives trailing the NDP by about two percentage points with a 4 to 5 per cent margin of error.
Still, in the first-past-the-post system, the NDP was predicted to easily cruise to victory with a majority of the seats in the legislature.
It's hard to say if BC United dropping out and asking its supporters to vote Conservative will change that likely outcome. Small-l liberals are just as likely to shift left as they are to shift right.
In northern B.C. it is unlikely to change the landscape of the election much.
The Conservatives were already poised to take six of the nine ridings comfortably. Two of the other three, North Coast-Haida Gwaii and Stikine are NDP strongholds. And Skeena, the only one predicted to be a toss-up, lost its BC United incumbent Ellis Ross to the federal Conservatives last year.
Provincially, though, it could make things interesting.
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Important dates:
Sept. 28: Nomination period closes.
Oct. 9: Online and telephone voter registration closes.
Oct 10-13: Advance polling.
Oct. 13: Final day for requesting a mail-in voting package.
Oct. 15-16: Advance polling continues.
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