A number of observers have suggested the federal election's outcome will be "decided" in British Columbia for the first time, as if the results of the province's 42 ridings will determine which party forms government.
I'm not so sure about that - after all, Ontario has many more ridings and suburban Toronto itself is still ground zero for all three major parties - but it does look like B.C. could have an unusually high number of ridings that may change hands come Oct. 19th.
In the past few elections, about three-quarters our province's ridings could be considered fairly safe territory for one of the three major parties. This time around, however, the addition of six new ridings plus the apparent volatility of the electorate suggest almost half of B.C.'s ridings may be genuinely competitive races.
Unless there is some kind of political earthquake the likes of which no one has picked up on, the Conservatives can be considered a lock in regions such as the Fraser Valley and parts of the Interior and North. Likewise, the NDP has a stranglehold on parts of Vancouver and areas of strength on Vancouver Island and the North Coast.
The Liberals can't consider any seat to be particularly "safe" for them, although they do have two incumbents and offer the longest-serving MP in B.C. (Hedy Fry in Vancouver-Centre) as a candidate.
Of those roughly 20 B.C. seats that may be "in play," about 15 of them may keep Easterners up late if it is indeed a close election result across the country, as currently seems may be the case.
For starters, three ridings may be genuine three-way races, which is a rarity in this province. If we transpose the 2011 election results over the new riding boundaries (and the six new ridings themselves) it shows that in Surrey Newton, Vancouver Centre and the new riding of Vancouver Granville the winning party received 35 per cent or less of the votes cast, with the other two parties close behind.
The Liberals, on paper at least, should once again be considered to be competitive in all three ridings and there's every reason to assume the other two parties will hold their ground as well.
In another dozen or so ridings, we can expect tight two-way races between the Conservatives and the NDP (barring a so-far-unseen significant rise in Liberal popularity in B.C.).
If there is indeed an Orange Wave about to sweep through B.C., the NDP could be favoured to steal about seven seats from sitting Conservatives. But if the governing party can hold its voter base, it can expect to hang on to those seats with less than 50 per cent of the vote as the others split up the non-Conservative pool of voters.
In any event, the ridings to keep a close eye on in Metro Vancouver region in the coming weeks (other than those potential three-way fights) include Burnaby North-Seymour, Burnaby South, Port Moody-Coquitlam, Surrey Centre and Vancouver South.
There are five ridings on Vancouver Island that will be interesting: Courtenay-Alberni, Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke, North Island-Powell River and Victoria. And in the Interior, the new riding of South Okanagan-West Kootenay bears watching.
Of course, it's still early days yet and the campaign is only really just beginning (as I wrote here a couple of weeks back, August was basically a dress rehearsal for the real thing). Polls will go up and down and continue to contradict each other.
But if there is indeed a serious shift in voting patterns, things will get much more interesting within the B.C. political landscape.
We may or may not "decide" the election outcome, but in any event I have a feeling the rest of Canada will pay a bit more attention to what happens within our provincial boundaries on election night than has been the case previously.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global B.C.
