B.C. Election 2024: Maple Ridge, Port Moody voters to choose 3 MLAs

It's election day in B.C. and residents in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows are heading to the polls to choose two MLAs. Follow us for updates.

Published Oct 19, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

It's election day in B.C. and residents in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows are heading to the polls to choose two MLAs. Follow us for updates. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

It’s election day in B.C. and residents in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge East and Port Moody-Burquitlam are heading to the polls to choose three MLAs to represent them for the next four years.

For information on how to cast your vote in Maple Ridge and Port Moody, click here. And here is the list of candidates in each of the cities’ three ridings, including:

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• Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows
• Maple Ridge East
• Port Moody-Burquitlam

If you are still deciding who to vote for, check out our handy guide outlining 12 hot topics and where the three major parties stand on each one HERE. And you can read more about what’s at stake in this year’s election for Maple Ridge and Port Moody residents below.

Follow our live-blog HERE throughout the day and night for the latest election news from around B.C., and we’ll keep this post updated tonight with Maple Ridge and Port Moody election results and reaction. You can also learn more about how the votes will be counted HERE.

Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows 

Incumbent Lisa Beare has held the seat in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows since 2017. Beare was appointed Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills in David Eby’s cabinet in 2024, and previously served as the NDP’s Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, and Minister of Citizens’ Services.

Beare is running on the NDP record, citing falling rents and improvements to B.C.’s economy, and has promised to make life easier for families by supporting NDP promises of construction of new schools and increasing access to health care.

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Conservative candidate Mike Morden was Mayor of Maple Ridge from 2018 to 2022, and former City Councillor. Morden is running on scrapping the carbon tax, and public safety. He has attacked street crime and disorder and criticized the NDP’s supportive housing programs for the homeless and has called for David Eby to be “fired” over his handling of the issue.

Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows is considered a safe seat for the NDP despite having moved back and forth between the former Liberals and the NDP.

The NDP has only lost the riding twice since 1991. From 2001 to 2005 it was taken by Liberal Ken Stewart, and from 2013 to 2017 the riding went red again under Doug Bing. Beare won the riding in 2020 with 15,877 votes, or 63.41 per cent of the vote.

Polling by 338 Canada on October 8 placed Beare ahead of Conservative candidate Mike Morden, with a 98 per cent likelihood of winning the riding.

Maple Ridge East

In Maple Ridge East, NDP incumbent Bob D’Eith is facing a tight race against Conservative candidate Lawrence Mok.

D’Eith, a lawyer and musician, first took office in 2017 capturing 41 per cent of the vote. He won the riding a second time in 2020, beating Liberal candidate Chelsea Meadus with 55.15 per cent of the vote helping to solidify the NDP majority in what had been a Liberal stronghold since 2001.

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Maple Ridge East is a key battleground for the B.C. election, and could provide a breakthrough for John Rustad’s conservatives if they can swing the riding.

Conservative challenger Lawrence Mok is a political newcomer. Mok is an electrical engineer and member of the Salvation Army church who has focussed on key issues important to the riding, like healthcare including closures of Mission hospital.

Mok declined to attend an all-candidates meeting on October 7, saying his time was better spent speaking with voters one-on-one.

Polling as of October 8 puts D’Eith ahead of Mok, with projections suggesting he may take the riding with 50 per cent of the vote, a slight dip from 2020.

Kylee Williams, a social justice advocate and environmentalist and first-time candidate, was motivated to run on a climate action and social justice platform, but is not expected to take a significant number of votes.

Port Moody-Burquitlam

Port Moody-Burquitlam, is the provincial electoral district in Metro Vancouver’s Tri-Cities region formerly known as Port Moody-Coquitlam.

The riding has swung back and forth between Liberals and NDP since it was established in 2008. The riding went to Liberal Iain Black in 2009, then was won by Joe Trasolini for the NDP in a 2012 by-election, before swapping back to Liberal in 2009 under Linda Reimer.

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Incumbent Rick Glumac, an NDP backbencher with a background tech and the environment, took the riding from Reimer in 2017 with 53.5 per cent of the vote, but is facing a challenge from Conservative candidate Kerry Van Aswegen.

Van Aswegen, who immigrated from South-Africa 31 years ago, is a small business owner running on an economic change platform.

Van Aswegen declined to attend an all-candidates event in September but has criticized the NDP’s housing legislation as “not only authoritarian, but quite frankly, hardcore socialist government,” and promised to restore the authority of municipal governments.

Some of Van Aswegen’s election signs were vandalized with slogans calling her a racist and a Republican.

Green party challenger Samantha Agtarap is currently a Port Moody city councillor who has criticized the NDP government’s housing policy for relying on the private sector to fill gaps in the housing market.

Read more of our B.C. election coverage in these municipalities:

• Vancouver
• Surrey
• Burnaby
• Richmond and Delta
• Langley
• North Vancouver and West Vancouver
• Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and New Westminster
• Maple Ridge and Port Moody
• Abbotsford and Chilliwack
• Okanagan and around B.C.
• Vancouver Island

RACE FOR B.C.: Follow our coverage of the 2024 B.C. election campaign HERE. Not yet a subscriber? Please click HERE for a special subscription offer.

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