40th British Columbia general election

40th British Columbia general election

2009 ← members On or before May 14, 2013 (2013-05-14) → 41st

85 seats in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia 43 seats are needed for a majority Opinion polls   Leader Christy Clark Adrian Dix Party BC Liberal New Democrat Leader since February 26, 2011 April 17, 2011 Leader's seat Vancouver-Point Grey Vancouver-Kingsway Last election 49 seats, 45.82% 35 seats, 42.15% Current seats 46 36   Leader John Cummins Jane Sterk Party Conservative Green Leader since May 28, 2011 2007 Leader's seat TBA TBA Last election 0 seats, 2.10% 0 seats, 8.21% Current seats 1 0

Incumbent Premier Christy Clark BC Liberal

The 40th British Columbia general election is tentatively scheduled for May 14, 2013, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The BC Liberal Party formed the government of the province prior to this general election under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell. The New Democratic Party under the leadership of Adrian Dix is the Official Opposition.

Timing

Section 23 of British Columbia's Constitution Act provides that general elections occur on the second Tuesday of fourth calendar year after the last election.^[1] As the most recent election was on May 12, 2009, the next election would be held on May 14, 2013, under that provision. The same section though makes the fixed election date subject to the Lieutenant Governor's right to dissolve the Legislative Assembly as he or she sees fit.^[1]

Background

After leading the BC Liberals for 17 years, Gordon Campbell announced he would resign as Premier and party leader in November 2010. This was seen as the result of opposition to the Harmonized Sales Tax, which was very unpopular with voters.^[2]

In the ensuing leadership campaign, Christy Clark, the eventual winner, suggested she would prefer to hold an election earlier than 2013 to secure her own mandate.^[3] She was believed to be preparing her party for an election as early as autumn 2011.^[4] However, due to the unfavourable result from the HST referendum, she decided to rule out an early election.^[5]

Issues

Several extremely contentious issues have emerged that will almost certainly be factors in the election, including

• Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines and the intense First Nations and coastal opposition to them, including vows to sabotage the project [1][2]
• The harmonized BC HST
• Poverty reductions and welfare

Registered political parties

This is a list of currently registered political parties.^[6]

Opinion polls

References

External links

• Elections BC
• Election Almanac – British Columbia Provincial Election 2013
• TrendLines Research Weekly chart tracking of the Federal & BC seat projection models
• Legislative Assembly Library Election Weblinks

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