Who is popular today?

Several seats across British Columbia are expected to come down to razor-thin margins as Liberal, Conservative and NDP candidates make last-minute pitches to prospective voters.

In many of the battleground ridings in the province, the electorate is split down what Simon Fraser University political scientist Stewart Prest describes as a referendum on climate change.

“For the last two electoral cycles, there have been these strong divisions between the parts of the country defined by resource extraction and those that are focused on climate action,” says Prest. “It seems to creep up to the edges of the Lower Mainland.”

That creep is especially acute in places like the Tri-Cities, where two ridings are up for grabs. In 2019, Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam Liberal incumbent defeated his Tory opponent by 390 votes; and in neighbouring Port Moody-Coquitlam, Conservative incumbent Nelly Shin won by 153 votes, the closest race in the country.

Moving deeper into urban Metro Vancouver, the electoral map has traditionally turned orange. Traditional NDP bastions such as Burnaby South — where party leader Jagmeet Singh is running — are not expected to fall.

But in Burnaby North-Seymour, two-term Liberal incumbent Terry Beech is in another three-way race, only this time, the Conservative candidate has not imploded in scandal. Poll analysis and electoral projections site 338Canada gives the NDP a slight advantage.

In what is surprisingly not the longest riding name in the country, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country is thought to be a toss up between Liberal and Conservative candidates, according to 338Canada.

Prest says similar tight races could pop up south of the Fraser River in the ridings of Delta, Cloverdale-Langley City, South Surrey-White Rock and Fleetwood-Port Kells.

And in a pocket of Interior support, 338Canada has given the South Okanagan-West Kootney NDP incumbent candidate a slight lead over the Conservative challenger.

“B.C. by itself is never going to determine the outcome. But we can have these close-fought races,” says Prest.

SCANDAL AND PUNISHMENT?

The political scientist is also paying special attention to the riding of Vancouver-Granville, where Independent and former Liberal Cabinet Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould has decided not to run again.

Will voters punish the Liberals for pushing the popular politician out of the party? Will Liberal candidate Taleeb Noormohamed overcome a campaign scandal after it was revealed the first-time candidate had bought and sold 43 properties at a higher value in a city struggling with housing affordability?

“Certainly it’s been an open question,” says Prest.

According to 338Canada, the latest projections find the Liberals, Conservative and NDP in a near-dead heat.

COULD A GREEN COLLAPSE REACH THE ISLAND?

Controversy has swirled around the Greens since a failed attempt to oust party leader Annamie Paul in June. At a press conference earlier this month, Paul said she was avoiding certain ridings at the request of fellow candidates.

While the Greens hope to pick up the odd seat in Eastern Canada, the party’s poll numbers have been consistently underwhelming compared to the 2019 election.

Even in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, where popular Green incumbent Paul Manly is running again, 338Canada predicts a Conservative, NDP and Green toss up.

“If the Green vote were to collapse in a place like Nanaimo-Ladysmith, we don’t really know where those votes would go,” says Prest.

It’s plausible that some of those votes could go to the Liberals, the party several climate change policy experts say have the most credible plan to limit warming and transition away from fossil fuels.

A FAR-RIGHT WILDCARD

However the election results shake out across B.C., Prest says the People’s Party of Canada is the real wildcard this election cycle.

Polling has Maxime Bernier’s party popularity rising up to 10 per cent, though Prest is skeptical that will materialize. Still, says the political scientist, the PPC is the only party to push back against established science on climate change, as well as mandatory masking and vaccine passports.

“If the Conservative vote starts to break down in some of these key ridings, that could really take us in another direction.”