The provincial election campaign begins a little more than a month from now and the political parties seem to be in varying stages of readiness.
One of the striking differences between the parties is the number of candidates each one of them have appointed or have nominated.
There are 93 ridings in the Oct. 19 election — six more have been added since 2020 because of the province’s explosive population growth in the last decade — and it is a challenge for parties to find that many people to throw their hats in the ring.
The B.C. Green Party, for example, has appointed just 21 candidates as of this past weekend. It seems extremely unlikely the party will come even close to filling all 93 riding candidacies.
Indeed, in 2020, the Greens failed to find candidates in a dozen ridings, including two in Surrey and two in Richmond.
So far, according to the party’s website, the Greens have appointed candidates in just seven ridings in Metro Vancouver (there are 52 ridings in that region).
The B.C. United Party, meanwhile, appears also to be struggling to fill 93 ridings with candidates. The party’s web site lists just 57 candidates so far, although party leader Kevin Falcon insists his party will run a full slate.
The NDP is likely cheering for B.C. United to fill as many vacancies as possible, especially in about 15 ridings where even a modest showing by a B.C. United candidate may take enough votes away from the B.C. Conservatives to allow the NDP to win.
Of course, when a political party is hovering around 10 per cent of the decided vote in a steady stream of opinion polls, it can be challenging for it to convince people to drop whatever it is they are doing and dedicate more than a month to campaigning for election.
The B.C. Greens and the B.C. United Party both find themselves in that predicament.
The B.C. Conservatives, a moribund party for decades, is leading all parties with 81 people named as candidates.
The NDP is not far behind, with 74 candidates nominated or named so far and another 13 people in the process of becoming one.
Fielding a candidate is required to win the riding, of course, but the parties have another big motivation to run as many people as possible: money.
Each party gets a public taxpayer subsidy equal to $1.75 per vote received in the previous election (that number is subject to inflation, so it may now actually be higher).
For the NDP that works out to about $1.5 million annually, based on its nearly 900,000 votes in 2020.
While the B.C. Conservatives have received some attention because it raised a lot more money than B.C. United did in the second financial quarter this year, not many people are as aware of the big advantage this election law gives B.C. United.
B.C. United receives about $1.1 million annually because it got nearly 640,000 votes under the B.C. Liberal banner in 2020. Meanwhile, the B.C. Conservative Party gets less than a paltry $60,000 a year because it had so few candidates (and therefore actual votes) in the 2020 election.
As for the B.C. Greens, the party gets about a cool half-million dollars a year.
I suspect both the NDP and the B.C. Conservatives will have no trouble finding 93 people each to run for them in October.
As for both the B.C. United and B.C. Green parties, they will likely install party or caucus staffers as candidates if they need to. The more candidates, the more votes. And that means money.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.
