Geoff Russ: B.C. is a right wing province. The NDP was merely a chaotic interlude

Conservative Party Leader Lorne Doerkson during Election Night Watch Party at Rocky Mountaineer Station in Vancouver, BC, October 24, 2026. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

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Can people stop using “Left Coast” as a synonym for British Columbia?

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The politics of Canada’s Pacific province are far better than NDP propagandists and eastern critics make them out to be.

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If B.C. is supposed to be the “Left Coast,” it has hardly earned that label. In fact, British Columbians refute it at the ballot box time and again.

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B.C. Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson will become the 38th premier after leading the party to a triumph in the provincial election. Far from the close contest so many critics had hoped for, the election became a rout, with the B.C. Conservatives landing body blows before delivering the knockout punch to the NDP government.

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Cabinet ministers and hopeful young MLAs went down in defeat. The smarter ones did not run for re-election at all. Perhaps they foresaw the disaster that would follow David Eby’s decision to call an early election to extend his political career. By the time the votes were counted, the B.C. Conservatives were nearly 11 points ahead of the shattered NDP in the popular vote, having won support from almost half of voters.

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Even downtown Vancouver, the supposed citadel of socialism and slums, elected Conservative Margareta Dovgal to represent half of the city centre. B.C. needs a better publicity department.

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Since 1952, the right has governed B.C. for 52 of 74 years. Before the NDP’s narrow victory in 2017, that share was about four-fifths. Whether under the banner of the Social Credit Party or the B.C. Liberals, the anti-left coalition has been the natural governing force.

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Out here, the NDP’s spells in office are chaotic, controversial interludes that end in electoral disaster every time. Never has the NDP been cast out of the premier’s office without being devastated at the ballot box. Say what you will about the B.C. Liberals, they came within a hair’s breadth of retaining power in 2017. That began a long nine years in which the right and other anti-NDP factions regrouped around the resurgent B.C. Conservatives.

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What are those factions? They are ordinary people in the suburbs, rank-and-file political conservatives, crunchy cons on Vancouver Island, moderates on Vancouver’s West Side, and the downtown business community. One faction may dominate at any given time, but together they are nearly invincible.

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Yet the B.C. left’s greatest strength is its persistence. Although defeat has often been its default, it has excelled at mythmaking.

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The NDP’s predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, never governed British Columbia. Nearly four decades separated its first provincial election in 1933 from the first NDP government in 1972. The New Democrats have proved far better at agitation and mobilization than at assembling a governing coalition.

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When the NDP does break through, it is generally because of a divided anti-NDP vote rather than its own electoral appeal.

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In 1972, the NDP won a majority with less than 40 per cent of the vote as the Social Credit Party fell victim to a vote split after 20 years in power. That NDP government lasted just three years before Social Credit regrouped and crushed it, launching another 16-year run of dominance that ended with a split in 1991. Another fracture in 1996 ensured the NDP won another majority while losing the popular vote.