Completing the ‘Three-Peat’: Recent Provincial Elections in British Columbia

Abstract

British Columbia held its 39th General Election on May 12, 2009. It produced a result very close to the previous election in May, 2005, with Gordon Campbell’s Liberal Government returned with 48% of the popular vote and 49 of 85 seats (or 57.6% of the MLA’s) in an expanded British Columbia legislature. For Gordon Campbell, his victory to a third term made him only the fourth Premier in British Columbia to be elected for a third term, and the first since William Bennett and the Socreds from the mid 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. Until Gordon Campbell, all First Ministers since 1986 had served no more than one term, some considerably less. (VanderZalm, Johnston, Harcourt, Clark, Miller and Dosanjh (between 1986 and 2001 – an average of 2.5 years each), During this decade and a half of electoral turmoil, British Columbia became the first Canadian jurisdiction with Recall and Initiative legislation, as well as adding a separate Referendum Act. To understand the 2009 result, having an idea of its prelude is helpful. That prelude included two General Elections – in 1996 and 2001 which were controversial and resulted in British Columbia’s shift to fixed election dates for 2005 and 2009. The latter two elections both also included a referendum on electoral reform. Both of these failed.