British Columbia has elected a Conservative government for the first time since 1928, when Simon Fraser Tolmie led the party to a majority. Initial results from Saturday's provincial election put the Conservatives ahead in 64 of the legislature's 93 seats, far past the 47 needed for a majority, and left the party's interim leader, Lorne Doerkson, in line to become premier. The New Democrats led in 27 ridings and the Greens in two, according to the initial count published by Elections BC, which had 99.89 percent of ballot boxes reporting by Sunday afternoon.
The Conservatives drew 862,134 votes, or 48.1 percent, against 670,403 for the New Democrats, or 37.4 percent, and 196,754 for the Greens, or 11 percent. Preliminary turnout was 48.1 percent of roughly 3.74 million registered voters. None of it is official yet. Mail-in, assisted telephone and absentee ballots are counted about two weeks after election day, and the final count is scheduled for Nov. 6. Broadcasters did not wait that long: CTV News declared a Conservative majority on election night, and the win was confirmed roughly an hour after polls closed, CityNews reported.
For Premier David Eby, the result is the opposite of what he sought. He called the election on Sept. 22, two years ahead of schedule, while holding a one-seat majority, arguing that the narrow legislature had stalled and that the trade war with the United States demanded a stronger mandate. On Saturday night, after keeping his own Vancouver-Point Grey seat, he told supporters he would step down as leader of the New Democrats. "This is obviously something I do with a very heavy heart," he said. "But it is time for new leadership within our party." With several colleagues defeated, he added, "I accept full responsibility for that outcome." The loss ends nine years of NDP government, four of them under Eby, and sends the party into opposition for the first time since 2017.
Doerkson's climb took less than five weeks. The Cariboo-Chilcotin legislator, first elected in 2020 as a B.C. Liberal before moving to the Conservatives ahead of the 2024 vote, was installed as interim leader by the party's board after Kerry-Lynne Findlay quit days before the election was called. Findlay had narrowly won the leadership in late May, and 13 members of the caucus quit or were removed in clashes with her. The Conservatives, who won 44 seats in 2024 to the New Democrats' 47, were officially down to 29 when the legislature was dissolved. As recently as 2020, the party had drawn less than 2 percent of the vote.
"Tonight British Columbia made a choice, and it is going to be the honour of my lifetime to serve you as your premier," Doerkson told supporters in Vancouver, who chanted his name. He promised to triple natural gas production over the next nine years, hold an international investment summit in Vancouver and cut taxes and red tape, while keeping health care "fully and publicly funded." The Conservatives campaigned on an income tax cut, quicker approval of new homes, a hybrid system in place of the province's no-fault insurance model and more natural gas and liquefied natural gas development, and the costed platform they released only after advance voting had begun aims to bring the deficit down to $10.8 billion by 2030.
Repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act sits near the top of his agenda. Doerkson argues the law has created needless division, and Indigenous leaders oppose any change to it, the Globe and Mail reported. He addressed First Nations directly on Saturday, saying the province's future would be built "together as partners," and in the same speech said he believed in protecting private property rights and parks open to all British Columbians.
Green Leader Emily Lowan, who won her own seat in Saanich North and the Islands, said her small caucus had "inherited an enormous responsibility" to hold the Conservative majority to account. During the campaign, Eby pointed to Conservative members who, the Globe reported, had been found to espouse racist and homophobic views, and some of the legislators he named were re-elected on Saturday. Adrian Dix, a New Democrat cabinet minister who held Vancouver-Kingsway, told reporters that "clearly, given the results, it was a mistake to call the election." Two leaders of smaller parties, OneBC interim leader Dallas Brodie and CentreBC Leader Elenore Sturko, lost their seats to Conservative candidates.
Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulated Doerkson in a post on X, saying he looked forward to working with him as premier "to get more homes built" and to "unleash our full potential as an energy superpower," CityNews reported.
Doerkson's standing inside his own party is less settled than his hold on the legislature. The Conservative constitution bars an interim leader from running in the next leadership ballot, and changing it takes the support of two-thirds of members, The Canadian Press reported. After the election was called, the party's board said that if Doerkson became premier he would remain leader and that it would pursue appropriate means to make that happen, but how it will do so is unclear. Caroline Elliott, who lost the leadership race to Findlay by a few percentage points and won West Vancouver-Capilano on Saturday, said the general election answered the question for her. "He has earned more votes in this general election than we could ever dream of in a leadership race," she said, "and so, for me, that's mandate enough."