Juno News - BC NDP eke out a majority government after mail in ballots counted

00:00:00.000 We finally have the results of the BC election and the NDP will form a majority government after

00:00:06.240 narrowly winning in a number of ridings. Late ballots have played a significant role in this

00:00:11.920 election. With over 54% of those votes favouring the NDP, that was crucial in tipping the scales

00:00:19.240 in their favour in several ridings. Meanwhile, over in the prairies, Scott Moe's Saskatchewan

00:00:24.940 party has held onto power. Joining me today to discuss is my true North colleague, Cosmin

00:00:30.640 Jerja. I'm Rachel Parker, and you're watching The Rachel Parker Show.

00:00:34.460 Hey everyone, I'm Rachel Parker. Welcome back to The Rachel Parker Show. I know we spent

00:00:56.080 an extensive amount of time on the BC election last week. However, at that time, we were still

00:01:01.900 waiting to know the final results of the election. As you guys know, it took a week to get the

00:01:07.720 results, and in some cases, there is still recounts ongoing. We now have those results. The BC NDP

00:01:15.640 squeaked out a majority government with, as I said in my opening, many of those late ballots

00:01:21.400 swinging in their favour. Joining me today to discuss is my colleague, Cosmin Jerja. Cosmin

00:01:26.380 is based in BC, and he's been doing a fantastic job reporting on the election thus far. Cosmin,

00:01:32.540 thanks so much for being here today. Thanks for having me, Rachel.

00:01:36.520 So I want to start a little bit by talking about those late ballots. We talked about how those

00:01:41.660 played a significant role in the election, swinging a bunch of ridings in favour of the BC NDP.

00:01:48.480 Did you feel like there was more late ballots this year than they had been in previous years,

00:01:53.680 and that their impact was more extensive than it's been in the past?

00:01:57.700 Well, we actually had an election in the middle of the pandemic here in BC. There was a snap election

00:02:03.520 called by then Premier John Horgan. And I don't recall it taking this long, but they did have more

00:02:11.380 mail-in ballots at the time, just naturally from the pandemic situation. So it's been over a week,

00:02:17.880 about 10 days now, and now we finally have a little bit of certainty moving into the next legislative

00:02:25.160 session, knowing that there's an NDP minority. But the fact that it took this long, and you just look

00:02:32.380 at elections BC, they communicated so poorly on the mail-in ballots. They changed their estimates quite a

00:02:39.880 few times. They underestimated by about 15,000 ballots. And then we have the situation with the

00:02:47.080 absentee ballots as well. So it just doesn't make sense how poorly they spoke to BC British

00:02:56.420 Columbians throughout this whole election. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about those

00:03:00.640 estimates, because that was something that I saw blowing up online on Saturday. So my understanding,

00:03:06.360 the initial estimate was somewhere around 45,000 mail-in ballots that they were expecting.

00:03:11.240 And then basically, it ended up being an additional 15,000 ballots. Do I have those numbers correct?

00:03:15.960 Yeah, I think it was around there. It might have been 49,000. And then now it's at 65,000. They might

00:03:22.880 have actually added another 1000 in the last few days. So it's just been all over the place. They

00:03:29.440 can't get their numbers right. And it doesn't really spur the confidence people should have in the people who

00:03:38.720 oversee their elections. So basically, those mail-in ballots were being counted. And contrary to sort of

00:03:46.300 what we thought was going to happen with the polling, a lot of people thought that those ballots would

00:03:49.860 show support for the Conservatives. The Conservatives, you know, I talked to Angelo Isaduro. I talked to

00:03:55.360 him last week. He said, there's still a chance we can squeak out a win. Those ballots primarily favored

00:03:59.860 the NDP. And we saw a bunch of writings swing in their favor. So now we feel fairly confident that it is

00:04:05.520 going to be an NDP government. We know that the Governor General has asked the BC NDP to form

00:04:10.760 government. What writings are we still waiting on? Is there still areas that recounts are needed?

00:04:17.100 So yes, there's a writing in Surrey. I think it's Surrey Centre or Surrey Guildford. And then there's

00:04:24.100 also a writing in Kelowna as well that needs to be recounted. There were so many close, like super

00:04:30.020 close writings. There was one in Juan de Fuca, Malahat here on the island within 20 votes. Like

00:04:35.440 we're talking about the narrowest election possibly in BC history. Everybody knew it was going to be

00:04:42.780 close, but we had no idea it was going to be within a few dozen votes in some writing. So that

00:04:49.920 automatically triggers a recount. And there's also the possibility of judicial recounts, which would mean

00:04:58.660 that if that process goes underway, we wouldn't actually see the final decision until sometime

00:05:05.360 in November, when a court gets to actually look and oversee that process.

00:05:11.840 What is sort of the momentum on the ground right now when we talk about, you know, you've mentioned

00:05:16.840 that it's like one of the closest elections we've ever seen in BC with many writings being decided by

00:05:21.680 less than 20 votes. And, you know, there's been a lot of concern about the way that elections BC has

00:05:26.440 handled this. As you mentioned, you know, we thought there was somewhere, there was less than

00:05:30.100 50,000 mail-in ballots. All of a sudden, you know, elections BC announced that there's actually

00:05:34.380 another 15,000. That was not communicated very well. I think a lot of people have a lot of distrust

00:05:39.720 in elections BC right now. Are people that you're talking to in BC, are they feeling confident in this

00:05:45.800 election or is there concern that there was cheating or even just that it was simply communicated

00:05:51.280 poorly and people are unhappy with elections BC? What's sort of the momentum on the ground right now?

00:05:56.440 Sure. So I don't think there's anybody with a horse in this race who is doubting the election

00:06:05.200 outcome. We've seen John Rustad come out with a statement accepting the results. You know,

00:06:12.620 everybody seems to realize that this is what happened. I think the issue is with elections BC,

00:06:19.420 how poorly they communicated throughout this whole process to British Columbians. They didn't really,

00:06:25.780 like I said, they didn't inspire confidence in people in the way they handle this entire thing.

00:06:31.820 So yeah, I think people have accepted the outcome. I think the parties themselves are gathering. I know

00:06:38.460 from Angelo, he said that the conservatives have had a preliminary caucus meeting and they're getting

00:06:45.180 prepared to act as the opposition. But the question remains, how long will this government last?

00:06:51.760 How long will the BC NDP majority last? Because we're talking about a 47 seat majority. If they

00:06:59.560 lose one person, you know, somebody misses a vote, somebody doesn't show up to work,

00:07:05.680 then there's a potential of an election of a non-confidence vote. And we have those two deciding

00:07:12.920 green MLAs who were also elected who could play a role. So and John Rustad himself in his speech on

00:07:22.180 election night said he is looking to trigger an election as soon as possible. So it's definitely

00:07:27.820 a possibility. And I think a lot of people are feeling election fatigue. We know we just had an

00:07:33.440 election in New Brunswick. There was an election in Saskatchewan. There's another election coming up.

00:07:38.640 You know, you would know very well with your show on the United States. So there's a sentiment that

00:07:45.420 all these elections are happening all at once. It's crazy.

00:07:49.500 Yeah, definitely. I think you said it very well when you said there's no one with a horse in this

00:07:55.040 race that's doubting the results of the election. I think people are more, you know, the people,

00:07:59.440 the players, I should say, maybe not so much individual people that are observing or even some

00:08:03.860 of the residents of BC. But certainly the people who are vying to form government right now have

00:08:10.220 said publicly that they trust the results of the election, despite some of the poor communication

00:08:14.420 from elections BC. I know my viewers will probably disagree with that. My viewers tend to not be,

00:08:20.640 you know, very pleased with the mail and ballot process and just how long it takes to get election

00:08:24.660 results these days. We've discussed it on the show extensively, both the show and some of my other

00:08:29.040 shows. But one other thing that I wanted to ask you about on the topic of elections BC was something

00:08:33.880 that I saw online on Saturday that you actually tweeted about was that elections BC allowed

00:08:41.400 supervisors to keep sealed ballot boxes in their homes. Can you tell me a little bit about what

00:08:46.520 happened there? Yeah, so it was Breaker News that reported this story. They contacted elections BC

00:08:53.680 and essentially their spokesperson said that in certain rural ridings, election supervisors are

00:09:00.720 able to take sealed ballot boxes to their homes in order they claim, you know, to ensure the security

00:09:08.040 of the election outcome. It is it's a crazy thing. I think this has been happening for some time,

00:09:14.280 but it's only coming out now. And it makes me wonder like how many ridings like how many poll stations

00:09:20.900 did this actually happen? Who were the individuals like what sort of guarantees were in place with

00:09:26.980 the seals to prevent any election tampering? That's yet to be seen whether there I don't think

00:09:34.820 there's been any investigation from the RCMP like there has been in the past into election tampering.

00:09:40.500 But it is a crazy thing to admit that there's people working elections taking ballot boxes home with

00:09:46.180 them. Yeah, as you mentioned, it seems like there's still more questions that need to be answered. I know

00:09:50.680 you're very busy. But if you, you know, had some time to put in information requests, I feel like

00:09:55.800 that would be sort of a right for opportunity, because I think that won't sit well with people,

00:10:01.000 you know, election officials, why can't these be locked up in a safe somewhere? I don't think they

00:10:04.520 should be and not even necessarily to criticize the supervisors themselves. But I think, you know,

00:10:10.360 just having it in your home, people are coming and going, you don't know who's there. I think it would

00:10:15.240 leave it leaves me with a sense of unease. And I know for a lot of BC residents from what I've been

00:10:19.400 seeing online, I think it leaves a lot of other people with a sense of unease.

00:10:23.080 Cosmin, thank you very much for your time today. We'll look forward to following your coverage on

00:10:27.080 this issue further. Thanks, Rachel. All right, everyone. So there you have the results of the

00:10:32.360 BC election. It did not go the way of the Conservatives that we were hoping for. However,

00:10:37.400 that being said, I don't think we can really underestimate the impact of the BC Conservatives.

00:10:42.600 You know, Angelo talked about this extensively last week, but they really went from a party that,

00:10:46.840 you know, no one took seriously. They didn't really even have a horse in the race. They

00:10:50.840 weren't even considered as a viable option. And, and now they're just a couple of seats

00:10:55.400 away from being able to form government. And with things so close in BC right now,

00:10:59.880 it seems like it'll be very difficult for EB to hold on to, to power for another four years.

00:11:06.040 Certainly my sympathy to the residents of BC. I mean, it seems like things there are worse than ever. I

00:11:11.640 can't imagine how it would be very easy to live under that government right now. I've seen,

00:11:16.760 I've seen some funny memes. I feel like maybe we should throw one or two of them in for you guys,

00:11:20.040 but, um, of people being like, it's finally time to leave Vancouver for the prairies. So

00:11:25.560 I expect in the, in a number of, and then the number of weeks, I'll be meeting more people

00:11:30.040 who've moved here from BC and actually meet people in Alberta all the time who have moved not only from

00:11:35.400 Ontario, but from BC, I think because in both of those places, young people are getting priced out.

00:11:41.160 We know that was a big problem for the EB government and they tried to basically go after the true 0.86

00:11:46.600 liberals for young people feeling the pressure. And so I think we'll continue to see that flow.

00:11:53.240 Essentially it's brain drain, right? Cause all the young talented working individuals who should be

00:11:58.200 filling jobs in the labor market are leaving for other provinces because they can't afford to live

00:12:03.880 where they grew up. And it's actually a very sad thing. I've, um, you know, I've come to love living

00:12:08.600 in Alberta, but the primary reason that I moved here was simple because I didn't see a opportunity

00:12:14.920 in Ontario. I didn't really see a future for myself just because of how unaffordable it was and how

00:12:20.360 difficult it was to get by. And it's just a different situation in Alberta. I think even in Alberta, prices

00:12:26.120 are going up, but your money still gets you so much further than it does in Ontario. And so I think

00:12:31.800 that'll ultimately be the impact of this win from the EB government, unless they see how close they

00:12:36.840 were to losing. And they take that as indication from the voters that things do need to change.

00:12:42.760 But I think with these left leaning politicians, it doesn't seem to usually be the way that it goes.

00:12:49.080 Now over in Saskatchewan, they also had an election. Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan party pulled

00:12:55.160 out a win again. Premier Scott Moe, um, will remain the premier. And it was sort of a similar

00:13:00.920 situation to what we saw in BC where he did lose a number of seats. Basically the polling hinted at

00:13:08.280 a surge in NDP support late in the campaign. Um, however, you know, the Sask party was able to hold

00:13:14.360 on to and hold on to government. That being said, they have a much smaller presence. And like we've

00:13:21.000 seen elsewhere in BC, that presence is separated along an urban rural divide. So Saskatchewan Premier

00:13:27.880 Scott Moe acknowledged the message that the voters have sent him that many of them chose not to vote

00:13:33.480 for his party again this election season and hinted that they are looking for change. Here's what he

00:13:38.200 had to say about it in a press conference in the early hours of Tuesday morning following the Monday

00:13:44.600 election. Take a listen.

00:13:45.880 And I thank those that supported or voted for another party this election for the message that was delivered tonight.

00:13:51.160 I've heard that message. And our team has heard that message. And we must do better. And we most certainly will.

00:13:59.400 When you look at the results tonight, there are many people who voted for the Saskatchewan party in the past,

00:14:03.800 but chose not to in this election. We have lost your support, whether it be due to the management of

00:14:11.080 health care or education or the cost of living pressures that we're all feeling in this province and across this nation.

00:14:17.240 All of us in government. And it starts with myself. We're going to take a little bit of time.

00:14:23.240 We're going to reflect on the message that was sent here this evening to reflect on what exactly that means.

00:14:29.480 As far as messaging goes, I think that those remarks by Scott Moe were very strong. I think that it addressed

00:14:37.320 the voters who left the party. And he acknowledged, you know, I was I am forming government. Once again,

00:14:42.440 I am still the premier, but there's a number of you who have voted for me in the past that chose not to

00:14:47.080 vote for my party this election season because we have lost your trust and we lost your vote.

00:14:52.280 I think that that is a strong message. And it also hints that he recognizes that things have changed.

00:14:58.200 There's nothing worse than when a politician loses a number of seats and they act like everything is all

00:15:05.000 fine and dandy when, you know, it's like, oh, you actually you've you've slipped heavily in your

00:15:10.280 numbers. You know who does this all the time? Jagmeet Singh does this every federal election cycle.

00:15:15.320 His party loses seats and then he trots himself on stage on election night and he talks about what

00:15:21.000 a victory it was for his party. You know how the people have spoken, how they're going to they're going

00:15:25.640 to form government in the next season. They're coming for the conservatives and they're coming for the

00:15:29.320 liberals. And the reality is something totally different. It's like you guys continually lose

00:15:34.680 seats every single federal election and you never acknowledge that reality. You act like it's a

00:15:39.960 victory every election season. I think it's because he knows he's not really cut out for the job. And so

00:15:45.960 long as he can maintain leadership of the party, he sees that as a victory somehow. Like that's my take

00:15:51.560 on Jagmeet Singh is he deep down he knows that he doesn't know what he's doing. And so as long as he's,

00:15:57.560 you know, staying on his leader, he's winning because he thinks he's convinced people that he

00:16:01.000 knows what's up. Obviously, that's not the reality. But I think this message from Scott Moe

00:16:06.840 really hit the nail on the head. It's that people are struggling and, you know, there were some voters

00:16:11.000 that were unhappy with with Scott Moe. And I think that addressing that from day one is the best way to

00:16:17.080 go about things to continue. You know, you really want to win those voters back over. He doesn't want

00:16:22.760 to continue to see this trend of more voters leaving. And obviously, this is a big problem

00:16:28.040 with the urban rural divide that we see basically everywhere. But it's especially strong in the

00:16:32.840 prairies. We see here in Alberta as well. You know, with the UCP, they struggle in Edmonton.

00:16:39.000 Sometimes they even struggle with the dome outside of Edmonton. We lost a number of seats in the last

00:16:44.040 Alberta election to the NDP in Calgary specifically. And of course, those are all places that the Smith

00:16:50.760 government is going to be looking to pick up votes in the next general election, especially in

00:16:55.160 Calgary. So that is the update for you. As Cosmin mentioned, it does seem to be a bit of an election

00:17:00.920 cycle. I'm wondering if you guys at home are feeling that election fatigue. Is it hard to pay

00:17:04.760 attention to all the different elections going on? Maybe you just pick like the one that you're

00:17:09.640 interested in follow that one pretty closely or maybe you're just someone who loves politics so

00:17:13.640 much and follows all of the elections very closely. I think the BC was one of particular interest

00:17:18.600 for me personally, just given the resurgence of the BC conservatives that kind of came out of

00:17:24.920 nowhere. You know, big credit to the party, to the leader and to my friend Angelo Isaduro and his

00:17:31.240 strong leadership there. And then of course, the election in the States, I'll have a show for you

00:17:36.760 guys tomorrow on what we can expect on election day if we will know the results of the election and

00:17:42.200 maybe some of the nefarious activities to pay attention to that have already been going on

00:17:46.280 and will absolutely continue to go on until election day. So you guys will want to catch

00:17:50.680 Rachel and the Republic tomorrow for an update on the US election. That is, if you're not already

00:17:55.320 feeling election fatigue. Now, unfortunately, Sean is under the weather, so he didn't pull a clip of

00:18:00.520 the week for us today. So we're going to skip that segment this week. However, I am going to respond

00:18:04.840 to some of your comments from last week's episode. So starting with, uh, at ordinary average guy,

00:18:11.960 he wrote, it's mind blowing that in these dark times, we're all living in that people would be

00:18:17.080 supporting the NDP and BC carbon taxes, cost of living and homelessness everywhere. We can only

00:18:23.960 conclude that most of the NDP supporters are publicly sector unions. It is mind blowing when

00:18:31.880 things seem worse than ever. And people don't recognize that the way to affect change is well,

00:18:36.760 the bare minimum thing you can do is voting. I often say that if you're voting once every four

00:18:41.720 years, you're really doing the bare minimum for democracy. There's so much more you can do in

00:18:46.840 between that period, like organizing, like writing letters to your MLAs and your MPs,

00:18:52.600 like writing op-eds, like, you know, encouraging other people to come out and vote, all those things.

00:18:58.200 Um, but this is something that I, I want, I thought about a little bit when I read this comment,

00:19:02.120 because it's something that is a bit of a fear of mine is that in B so in, in Alberta, as I've

00:19:08.600 mentioned, given how difficult life has gotten for young people in places like Ontario, NBC,

00:19:15.400 we're seeing a number of people move to Alberta and this has happened in other jurisdictions in

00:19:20.200 the world, but I don't know that everyone who's moving here recognizes why things were more difficult

00:19:26.440 in the province they came from. And I do have a bit of concern about how these newcomers to Alberta 1.00

00:19:32.680 will be voting. You know, do they recognize that life was more difficult in Ontario because of policies

00:19:38.280 from the wind government and eventually the Ford government? Do they recognize that life was

00:19:42.040 difficult in BC because of BC premier David Eby? Do they recognize that conservative policies,

00:19:47.400 and I mean like actual conservative policies, not like populist Doug Ford conservative policies,

00:19:52.120 do they recognize that conservative policies should typically make life more affordable,

00:19:56.120 make life better and easier for you? I don't know that everyone always recognizes that. I think we've

00:20:01.080 seen that sort of in the States, you know, people flee California because it's become ex like California

00:20:07.640 is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it is so expensive to live there. If you can afford

00:20:12.680 to live there, I think that you have a very high quality of life, but most people that I know that live

00:20:17.400 there, their families have lived there for generations and now they are struggling to hold

00:20:22.760 on to their house and everything they earn is going to taxes and there's crime everywhere. And so these

00:20:27.400 people are getting up and they're moving to places like Tennessee and Texas. And you know, there's sort

00:20:32.440 of that famous sign in Texas, you know, don't vote for what you fled because not everyone recognizes

00:20:38.600 what they actually left and, and why they had to leave. And so that'll be something that's interesting

00:20:44.120 to watch. I know Alberta premier Danielle Smith is always talking about how she wants

00:20:48.200 all these people to move to Alberta because it will give us more voting power and more say

00:20:53.320 across in federalism. You know, if more people live here, we'll have sort of a heavier weight to throw

00:20:58.040 around like vote rich Ontario and Quebec. But I think that could potentially bring along a host of other

00:21:04.200 issues. All right, everyone, that's all we have time for today on the Rachel Parker show. I believe

00:21:10.040 next week I will be in the state. So hopefully I can do something there for you guys might be on the

00:21:15.720 US election. I'm not sure yet. We will have a show for you next week, Tuesday, either way,

00:21:20.840 just might be something on the US election. We'll see. All right, everyone. I hope that you guys have

00:21:25.880 a great week. I'll see you later. God bless.

Juno News - October 29, 2024

BC NDP eke out a majority government after mail in ballots counted

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