A stunning and historic night in politics unfolded across this province on Tuesday night.
The B.C. Liberals, left for dead and all but counted out by the pollsters and media pundits, staged a comeback for the ages forming a majority government and stealing away what many considered a certain victory for the New Democrats.
It was an incredible night of drama and intrigue that left many television reporters at times speechless, wiping the egg off their face and apologizing for being so wrong in calling the election outcome.
So how did this happen?That will be the million-dollar question in the weeks to come as we all try to analyze what happened and what went wrong -and in the case of the Liberals - what went right.
The Liberals made a lot of mistakes over the past few years, but so did the NDP and the years of past NDP mistakes were just too much for the voters across this province to forget we think. At the end of the day, people didn't want to take the risk and Liberal leader Christy Clark's message of jobs and the economy resonated with the voters.
NDP leader Adrian Dix in his concession speech Tuesday night simply said elections belong to the voters. And he is right. No matter what the polls say, the ultimate decision rests in all of us that went into our polling station and made our choice.
Dix was all class in his speech, but even he could never have imagined what happened on Tuesday. And as the polls clearly showed, he just didn't run an effective enough campaign.
One thing that all the parties have to take a look at is the low voter turnout. There are three million eligible voters in this province and only 48 per cent came out to the polls. That is a shockingly low number. Being able to cast your ballot is a right and a privilege and we're appalled that so many chose not to exercise that right.
Here in our riding of Powell River-Sunshine Coast, incumbent NDP Nicholas Simons was easily re-elected and was in fact one of the first elected on election night.
Simons has had a solid eight years in government and has represented us well in this riding. But once again he will be on the other side of the legislature fighting to represent the riding and help secure funding and programs from the opposition side of the floor.
It will continue to be a challenge for Simons that's for sure.
Politics are always interesting in this province. But what happened on Tuesday night will go down in history. It was one for the ages.
