The next provincial election is still 10 months away, but the recent run of candidacy announcements out of the Fraser Valley point to its growing significance and broader shifts in provincial politics.
Perhaps the most intriguing announcement came last week, when BC United announced that Markus Delves, who has thus far donated a combined total of almost $24,000 to the party and Mike de Jong’s leadership bid, will run in Abbotsford-South. The riding’s current MLA is none other than Bruce Banman, who sat with BC United prior to this fall, when he crossed the floor to join the Conservative Party of BC.
While Banman’s new party is surging compared to his old one, current polls place the governing New Democrats far ahead of each, prompting questions and speculations about bringing the two parties together in one way or another. Such a move poses practical questions, including which party would cede its spot to deny the NDP.
But Delves’ candidacy raises the question of whether the cooperation train has already left the station.
Hamish Telford, associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said both parties know they are dividing the right-of-the centre vote.
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“They have to decide if their fear of an NDP government is greater than their dislike for each other,” he said. “However, with the election now 10 months away, there is not a lot of time to organize that kind of arrangement. Certainly, I don’t think there is time to organize a formal merger between the two parties. There seems to be a lot of bad blood between the two parties as well.”
That bad blood would also make it difficult to organize any kind of shared electoral strategy, he added. “In the meantime, both parties have to get candidates in place.”
This immediate conflict with its likelihood of splitting the right-of-the-centre vote is playing out against larger changes.
Regardless of their names, previous right-of-centre parties “could take the Fraser Valley pretty much for granted,” Telford said. “For years now, Mike de Jong has not campaigned in Abbotsford. His seat is so secure, that he has spent most elections campaigning in other ridings, trying to help colleagues get elected.”
Next year, it is he who could need the help following the release of a privately commissioned poll showing him behind the Conservative candidate.
But New Democrats are also gathering strength thanks to demographic changes. They include younger people leaving Metro Vancouver in the search for cheaper housing, a trend COVID-19 has also acclerated, Telford said, adding immigration has also changed the region.
While some immigrants are socially conservatives, “their children are very much integrated into the sort of more progressive political culture of the Lower Mainland,” Telford said. “This sort of Conservative-Christian bedrock part of the Fraser Valley has been relatively shrinking and sort of opened up the possibility for the NDP to have some success here and the little vote-splitting that we saw in 2020 aided that.”
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2020 offered a preview of what could happen again in the Fraser Valley and possibly in places beyond Hope in 2024.
By Telford’s analysis, New Democrats won four out of their five ridings in the Fraser Valley thanks to the split on the right side of the political spectrum. That included the riding of Agriculture Minister Pam Alexis, who recently announced that she will be running in Abbotsford-Mission.
Also running again after winning a close election in 2020 is Chilliwack-Kent MLA Kelli Paddon, parliamentary secretary for gender equity, with both women having defeated incumbent male MLAs, then running under the BC Liberal banner.
To paraphrase a sports cliche, the Fraser Valley is must-win territory for BC United.
“If BC United can’t get these seats back, then they don’t stand a chance,” Telford said. “They have to be able to take back the Fraser Valley if they hope to make any inroads in the (closer-to-Vancouver) suburbs like Surrey, for example.”
Other regions east of the Fraser Valley have remained what Telford called “bedrock (small-c) conservative country.”
“The only question is can BC United hold off the Conservatives there or will the Conservatives supplant them there,” he said. “Of course, if they split that down the middle, then the NDP can pick up seats in the Interior that they wouldn’t otherwise have picked up. Not the last poll, but the previous set of polls, which showed Conservatives and BC United split at 20 per cent…that was a recipe for the NDP to sweep the province.”
But based on the latest poll, “Conservatives would be sweeping that region (Interior).”
Ultimately, Telford isn’t sure either party can heal the rift on the right of the political spectrum, which threatens to bring down both.
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They have charted very different courses, Telford said.
“BC Conservatives have jumped on just about every populist conservative idea that is going around the country at the moment, whereas Kevin Falcon has been much more circumspect about those things,” Telford said. “Kevin Falcon has understood from the outset that what the BC Liberals needed to do, to get back to victory, was to win back more liberal-minded, urban voters that they had lost. So Kevin Falcon wasn’t chasing more conservative voters around the province and I think that is in part why he has lost them to the BC Conservatives.”
Now, however, Falcon seems have to shifted course again by changing his party’s position on the carbon tax.
“My sense was that in effect, without saying so publicly, Kevin Falcon was giving up hope of winning the next election,” Telford said in analyzing the shift. “Rather, he was just trying to ensure the survival of his party through the next election, so it would be in position to fight the election in 2028. This was a battle for opposition and almost giving up on the chance to win the election.”
@wolfgangdepner
wolfgang.depner@blackpress.ca
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