Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons says Wednesday night’s byelection win in Nanaimo is a sign that “people like what the government is doing.”
Sheila Malcolmson, who stepped down as the NDP MP for Nanaimo to run in the provincial byelection, captured 49 per cent of the vote, leaving her with a 1,858-vote margin over Liberal candidate Tony Harris after the preliminary count.
The vote count will be finalized after Feb. 6, when absentee ballots will be tallied.
“Sheila Malcolmson will be a really good MLA and I’m glad the fear that people were putting out there about various issues didn’t resonate and people voted for who they think will be the best representative,” said Simons.
The Green Party saw its support drop dramatically from the 2017 provincial election.
Green leader Andrew Weaver told CBC as the vote count was coming in that he expected an NDP win based on what he heard from people who voted Green in the past but planned to support the NDP.
Simons, who spent some time campaigning with Malcolmson, said he got the impression that voters were motivated by a mix of provincial and local issues, as well as the possibility that a Liberal win would have left the NDP and Greens tied in seat count at the legislature with the Liberals.
“Nobody said specifically that they had voted Green and were planning to vote NDP or anything like that. I think people consider their vote very carefully and people are very aware of the circumstances of the vote… People knew that there were provincial implications involved.”
Simons said the chance to mix with voters in a different riding in a campaign setting also gave him a sense of the concerns Nanaimo residents have in common with the Sunshine Coast.
“The issues that we hear of here have to do with homelessness, housing, ferries and transportation – there were a lot of commonalities,” he said.
The Nanaimo seat opened up when veteran NDP MLA Leonard Krog resigned to run for mayor of the city, a race he won easily.
“We have returned a New Democrat to Nanaimo,” Premier John Horgan told cheering supporters at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. “The project continues.”
Horgan also said he does not expect the byelection result to change the working relationship between the NDP and Greens. “I’m confident our relationship will continue to be as it has been – rocky some days, but at the end of the day we focus on what’s best for people.”
Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said Harris – who received 40 per cent of the vote – ran a principled campaign and praised him for increasing the party’s share of the vote.
With files from Cindy E. Harnett and Carla Wilson, Victoria Times Colonist
