BC Election 2005: Simulate the election with Premier Forever – BC Edition!
Posted in Commentary, Politics on April 27th, 2005 by Sacha PeterI’ve been spending the last couple weeks working up the scenario design for the BC edition of Premier Forever. Inside the 80soft.com developer diary, there is an interview with me (in the forums, Developer’s Log #5):
80soft.com: What is the basic picture of B.C.’s political landscape leading up to the May 17th, 2005 election?
Sacha Peter: Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberal party was elected in a landslide – 77 seats to the NDP’s 2 – in 2001, after several NDP scandals and perceived mismanagement. The first thing that Campbell did while in office was reduce income tax rates by 25% across the board. This was significantly more than anyone had expected, and this plus subsequent cuts to government programs (other than healthcare and education) made the NDP livid. Campbell was also hostile with the unions, and legislated some settlements that were on quite unfriendly terms. The more prominent labour disputes involved the B.C. Nurses and the B.C. Ferries unions, both of which Campbell managed to fend off while still maintaining significant public support.
The NDP is still mad about the cuts to government spending and the decrease in taxation for all taxpayers. The public to an extent also has the impression that having nearly no opposition in the Legislature has resulted in a government that has been complacent. As a result, this has allowed the NDP to catch up in the polls, despite the fact that the NDP’s leadership had been maintaining a low profile – this low profile appears to have backfired recently as the Liberals have made moves to increase their rapport with the public.
80soft.com: Who are the major political figures this election?
Sacha Peter: BC Liberals – Gordon Campbell, generally representing business and the right-wing of the province. Former mayor of Vancouver, he took over the BC Liberals in 1993 from Gordon Wilson. He doesn’t possess the natural charisma of a Bill van der Zalm [Ed.: former Premier], but he comes off as a competent manager of the province. If this wasn’t the case, then I doubt we’d see Campbell as party leader today – the party is quite willing to put up with the lack of charisma in exchange for competency, especially since the other candidates seem to lack charisma of their own.
NDP – Carole James, generally representing union interests and the left-wing of the province: She has been trying to detach herself from the unions and the 1996 image of the party, but the NDP has always been a party about supporting public labour unions (teachers, healthcare workers and government). This support will be enough for her to take at least 24 seats in the legislature (and official opposition status), but it’s not sufficient to take a majority government. James was on Victoria’s school
board for 10 years prior to her election, and she did run and narrowly lost her Victoria-Beacon Hill riding in the 2001 election. [Ed.: By 35 votes to Jeff Bray.] The two prominent things about James’ background is that she’s female, a first for an NDP leader, and she’s M�tis – one of her parents was half-First Nations.
Greens – Adriane Carr, generally representing the environmentalists and related centre-left parts of the province: Carr has been moving the party to the center, and trying to shed the “environmentalist fringe” (e.g. Paul Watson’s Sea Shepard’s Society) elements of the party. She has been keeping a somewhat public profile between elections, but her big problem is that she needs a breakthrough in this election campaign in order to sustain the Green party in the province. This means that she probably has to fight for NDP voters and disenfranchised BC Liberal voters, both of which are not easy to obtain. Carr has occasionally said some very questionable things in the past (such as her initial opposition to STV [Ed.: Single Transferable Vote, a system of voting which would probably give more representation to Green voters]), but it remains to be seen whether she can hone her oratory skills and make an impact on the province. I think the debate will be critical for Carr.
Democratic Reform BC – Tom Morino is a virtual unknown on the political scene. His past history involves running for his seat for the BC Liberals in the 1991 election, but he lost by about 5% to the NDP. He is trying to position DRBC as a centre alternative (and merged with two other nearly unknown political parties), but he still has to
struggle to get any exposure. The party, however, does have one MLA in the house, Elayne Brenzinger, who was kicked out of the BC Liberal party for making false accusations of sexual harassment against another BC Liberal MLA. I think this was a mistake for the DRBC to make, as they don’t need the baggage of an MLA with a clearly tainted record. The other prominent person in the party, Matthew Laird, who used to run “Recall BC” and his own political party, the “Moderate Democratic Movement,” is worth paying attention to. Just like the Green party, if Morino can get into the debate, he might be able to win himself a seat if there is a Gordon Wilson-type moment where he can resonate with the public [Ed.: Gordon Wilson received significant momentum for the BC Liberal party in 1991 from the election debate].
80soft.com: Who is going to win? By how much?
Sacha Peter: The economy in the province has been performing very well as of late, and this means the election is the BC Liberals’ to lose. Barring any catastrophic scandals that the NDP have hidden about Gordon Campbell, it will be tough for them to pull more than 32 seats in the Legislature. The NDP’s strongholds will continue to be Vancouver Island and East Vancouver/Burnaby.
You can be sure if / when opposition parties pull up the fact that Campbell was convicted for drinking and driving in January 2003 that the BC Liberals have the election locked up. Also look for a theme of “Campbell’s hidden agenda” or to the tune of that since it seemed to work really well for the Federal Liberals in their 2004 election campaign when they used it on the Conservative party.
Actual prediction: BC Liberals 49, NDP 29, Green 1
80soft.com: What is the difference between this election and the last one?
Sacha Peter: The last election the public wanted the NDP not to get elected. The public was sick of 10 years of NDP rule and the final result was not surprising. This election appears to be more of a balancing act in that the public wants to see a credible opposition, but they are not going to give the NDP the reins to the province like they did for the entirety of the 1990′s.
80soft.com: What will the major themes or issues in this election be?
Sacha Peter: Healthcare, healthcare and healthcare. This campaign is going to be dominated by topics that will be friendly to the NDP, mainly social issues and the issue of government spending. The BC Liberals don’t want to talk about taxation, and the only finance-related issue will be the fact that they did the ‘largest debt repayment in B.C. history’. I don’t anticipate anything remotely innovating coming from the campaign headquarters of either side – the electorate clearly know they are getting a pro-business government with the Liberals (who haven been trying to soften up their image over the past 6 months to appeal to women voters), while the NDP are still on with their rhetoric about the spending and tax cuts the government performed nearly 3 years ago. Did I mention healthcare?
You’ll notice that most of the issues are geared towards security for older-aged British Columbians – this is because they’re the ones that actually vote in elections. Not only are there a lot more baby boomers out there, but they vote more per-capita than any other age group. So the theme for this election (and probably future ones) will be healthcare, drug benefits, security and the like.
80soft.com: What is STV? What other places use it? Does it look like the referendum will pass? [Ed.: In addition to voting for members of the province's Legislature, British Columbians will also be voting on whether to adopt a new voting system.]
Sacha Peter: STV is Single Transferable Voting. Right now in B.C. (and the rest of the country), the person that receives the most votes in a riding will win the seat. With STV, you will have a choice of individuals and get to rank them in order. This might not seem all that significant, but the impact is that it should result in a weakening of party power as candidates from the same party have some incentive to compete against each other, in addition to competing against other parties’ candidates. Ireland elects their equivalent of Parliament [Ed.: the D�il �ireann, which is the lower house of their National Parliament, or Oireachtas] with the system, and the Australian Senate uses a bastardized version of STV. The referendum requires 60% of the province to vote ‘yes’, and at least 60% of the ridings (48 out of 79) have to have voted more than 50% for the measure. Right now, I think the referendum is a coin toss. As there is more exposure in the media, this issue should have a higher profile. The established political parties (the Liberals and NDP) have absolutely no incentive to support this referendum, but they will smartly keep their mouths shut – if it’s off the headlines, it’s better for them.
80soft.com: What are the seats to watch this election?
Sacha Peter: Powell River-Sunshine Coast: Maureen Clayton (LIB) vs. Nicholas Simons (NDP) vs. Adriane Carr (GRN) – The leader of the Green Party, Adriene Carr, is running in this riding against two relatively unknown candidates. Traditionally this riding has been very volatile in the past, having elected Gordon Wilson in 1991 – he was a complete unknown until his spectacular debate performance single-handedly brought the BC Liberals into the political scene. After Wilson was kicked out of the BC Liberal party, he formed a new party called the Progressive Democratic Alliance and was the sole member in his party to be elected in 1996 (inadvertently, this caused the NDP to obtain their second majority government). In 2001, this riding went back to the BC Liberals, but Carr managed to collect 27% of the vote, just barely behind the NDP incumbant. It will be really interesting to see if she can take another 10% of the vote, as I expect the winner of that riding to win with just 37% of the vote. The real question is whether the Green party peaked in the last election – were they just riding a wave of anti-NDP sentiment, or were they actually creating a new political movement in the province? Carr has been moving the Greens away from the “left wing fringe” that many associate with environmentalist protestors, and has moderated this into a platform they believe will resonate with the public. Will this work? This one will be really close and I think she has a 50/50 chance of taking it. The NDP will be campaigning hard, but the Liberals probably want Carr to win so they can continue the left wing vote splitting (as long as the STV referendum fails, anyway).
Vancouver-Burrard: Lorne Mayencourt (LIB) vs. Tim Stevenston (NDP) – bitter rivals, and they fought in the 2001 election. Stevenston was the MLA for the riding in 1996 to 2001 and has been on the Vancouver city council since 2002. Assisting Mayencourt is that the Green candidate has enough of a profile to siphon 10% of the vote away from the NDP, so I would estimate that Mayencourt’s chances are 60%.
Vancouver-Kensington: Patrick Wong (LIB) vs. David Chudnovsky (NDP) – Chudnovsky was the president of the BC Teacher’s Federation and this is going to be a really tough battle. In 1996, Vancouver-Kensington went for the NDP, but this was former Premier Ujjal Dosanjh’s riding. Demographics might have a play in this, as according to the 2001 census, about 60% of the riding is Chinese. Patrick Wong, however, has not been able to maintain a high enough profile in the riding, so whether he’ll get enough voters is another matter. This contest is 50/50.
Surrey-Newton: Daniel Igali (LIB) vs. Harry Bains (NDP) – Igali is one of Campbell’s star candidate nominations (having won a gold medal in the 2000 Olympics for Wrestling), which isn’t going to hurt his campaign – he will be a shoe-in for some role in the government planning for the 2010 Olympics, assuming he gets elected. Just like in Vancouver-Kensington, there is a demographic play in that nearly 70% of the riding’s population has a mother tongue of Punjabi, and the NDP and DRBC are both running candidates that can speak the language. Also working against Igali is that Surrey-Newton has traditionally been strong for the NDP and I doubt that the Liberals can take enough of the NDP vote away to prevent them from taking the seat by less than a 5% margin. I’d say Igali’s chances are 30%.
Nelson-Creston: Blair Suffredine (LIB) vs. Corky Evans (NDP) – This riding in the past traditionally has went NDP, because Corky Evans has a reputation for shooting from the hip, which made him popular. He smartly bailed out from the 2001 election, but is back for his seat. I think this is his riding to lose, but will the people associate him too much from the Glen Clark past? I think he has a 75% chance of winning this one, but both parties will be spending their legal maximums in this riding.
Malahat-Juan de Fuca: Cathy Basskin (LIB) vs. John Horgan (NDP) vs. Klaus Solterbeck (GRN) vs. Tom Morino (DRBC) – This will be a real test of how high Tom Morino, leader of the DRBC, can raise his profile. It is entirely possible that the Liberals can get the right-wing vote, the DRBC the centre-right, the Greens the centre-left and the NDP the left wing vote, which means that anybody can take this seat in a heavily split riding. Traditionally, the riding typically goes for the NDP, but Rick Kasper tried his own campaign as an independent in 2001 and managed to receive a second place standing with about half of the votes (22.6%) of the winning Liberal candidate (42.3%). The Green party had an impressive showing with 14.3% of the vote. If Morino can suck up enough votes from the Liberal candidate (who is not an incumbant) and if the Greens can step up their campaign and suck up enough NDP votes, the riding could conceivably go to anybody. Expect the legal maximum to be spent in this riding. My prediction is that the Liberals will take it due to the vote splitting, about 30% to 28% for the NDP, and 24% for the DRBC, and 18% for the Green party.