While the winner of the provincial election has yet to be determined, NDP candidate Judy Darcy cruised to victory and won a second term as New Westminster’s MLA.
While many had anticipated a tight race between the NDP incumbent and Green party candidate Jonina Campbell, Elections B.C.’s preliminary results showed that Darcy won with 10,860 votes (50.91 per cent), far ahead of Green candidate Jonina Campbell (5,488 votes) and Liberal Lorraine Brett (4,589). Trailing behind were Social Credit candidate James Crosty with 243 votes and Libertarian Rex Brocki with 153 votes.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s going back and forth, back and forth. It is going to be a very long night in the province of British Columbia but we can start by celebrating an NDP victory here in New Westminster,” Darcy told an elated crowd at her election party. “This is a victory for everybody who worked on this campaign and it’s a victory for the people we are fighting for.”
Throughout the campaign, Darcy said she’s been clear that the election isn’t about the candidates, but the people of New Westminster.
“It’s about the seniors in the care homes we visited who said, ‘I am being treated like dirt by this Christy Clark government and I need a government that is going to stand up for me.’ It’s about those parents whose children who have been robbed for 16 years of quality public education and said we need a champion for public education,” she said. “It’s about the renters and the people whose doors we would knock on and said I am going to be evicted and I don’t know what is going to happen to me. With this victory we are going to keep fighting for them.”
Darcy credited her win to her record of working on issues that matter to the community, such as working for better health care, creating a rent bank and addressing affordability issues.
“I work hard every single day. I have never taken the seat for granted. Never. Not for one moment,” she said. “I work hard when I am in the legislature. I work hard when I am in the community. I work hard on the campaign. That’s who I am. It’s my responsibility to the community.”
While Campbell had hoped for a different outcome, she is proud that her campaign inspired people to get involved.
“I think what we are seeing is a real reaction locally to the Clark government and people really wanting in the end to vote Christy Clark out,” she said of the local support for the NDP. “There was a lot of that sentiment about wanting to vote Clark out. I am proud we are the only party, provincially and locally, that ran a positive campaign. I am proud of that. We will stick to that. Positive politics did inspire people to get involved – that is why they wanted to get involved. It’s working. We are going to have to grow and build.”
Campbell noted that her campaign started in a living room with no volunteers and led to a full-out campaign that resulted in a second-place finish.
“There isn’t even a provincial riding association. I didn’t even know who any of the Greens were when I started. I didn’t know a single B.C. Green living in New Westminster,” she said. “We have gone from that to over 200 volunteers. We attracted people from the left and the right, and people who have never been involved before. We raised over $40,000. We ran a competitive campaign. We had well over 500 signs put up. I had people coming up to me saying they voted Green for the first time ever and they were really glad to be voting Green.”
As of midnight, the election was still up in the air, but the Greens’ may play a pivotal role in the event of a minority government.
“We have two deal breakers: proportional representation/electoral reform and campaign financing reform,” Campbell said. “Those things must be met.”
Campbell plans to help the Greens build the brand over the next four years.
“My commitment was always to build the B.C. Greens here in New Westminster. Over the next four years we are going to be working very hard. I will continue my work on the school board and I will continue to work hard on behalf of the kids of the New Westminster School District and I am going to get involved in making sure that I can support things like mental health and addictions here in New West, affordable housing,” she said. “If I heard something in the election, it was that affordability and people on fixed incomes is a serious concern for people in New Westminster and across B.C. We have two big parties that are now going to have to work on behalf of the people and deal with these issues. I am going to be there and the Greens that are elected are going to be there.”
Campbell is looking forward to being involved with the B.C. Greens provincially and building the local riding association.
“I stuck with the high school project - I can do this,” she smiled.
