The 1986 British Columbia general election was the 34th general election in the Province of
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. It was held to elect members of the
Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia is the deliberative assembly of the Parliament of British Columbia, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The Legislative Assembly meets in Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria. Members ar ...
. The sitting Social Credit government was re-elected.
The election was called on September 24, 1986. The election was held on October 22, 1986, and the new legislature met for the first time on March 9, 1987.
The governing
British Columbia Social Credit Party
The British Columbia Social Credit Party, whose members are known as Socreds, was the governing provincial political party of British Columbia, Canada, for all but three years between the 1952 provincial election and the 1991 election. For fou ...
(Socreds) had seen a leadership change just months before the election, with
Bill Bennett
William Richards Bennett, (April 14, 1932 – December 3, 2015) was the 27th premier of British Columbia from 1975 to 1986. He was a son of Annie Elizabeth May (Richards) and former Premier, W. A. C. Bennett. He was a 3rd cousin, twice removed ...
standing down in favour of
Bill Vander Zalm. Promising a fresh start after the Bennett years, Vander Zalm led the Socreds to a fourth consecutive
majority government
A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats. ...
, although with winning less than half of the popular vote. 12 new seats had been created in the legislature for this election. Social Credit coincidentally won 12 additional seats, while the
social democratic
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party (NDP; french: Nouveau Parti démocratique, NPD) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic:
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, led by
Bob Skelly
Robert Evan Skelly (14 April 1943 – 6 August 2022) was a Canadian politician from British Columbia.
Skelly was born 14 April 1943, at New Westminster, British Columbia. The son of Robert Daniel Skelly and Dorothy Graham, he was educated a ...
, won the same number it had in the previous election. No other parties won seats. In fact the two leading parties together - SC and NDP - took more than 90 percent of the votes.
There were 17 two-member constituencies in this election. Voters in these places were allowed two votes (
Block Voting
Block voting or bloc voting refers to electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected at once and a group (voting bloc) of voters can force the system to elect only their preferred candidates. Block voting may be used at large (in a si ...
), and generally used them both on the same party, with the largest group (even if not a majority) taking both seats.
Only one district elected both a SC and a NDP MLA. This was
Vancouver-Point Grey
Vancouver-Point Grey is a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada. It was first contested in the general election of 1933. It was created out of parts of Richmond-Point Grey, South Vancouver and ...
where two women, an NDP-er and a SC-er (
Kim Campbell
Avril Phaedra Douglas "Kim" Campbell (born March 10, 1947) is a Canadian politician, diplomat, lawyer, and writer who served as the 19th prime minister of Canada from June 25 to November 4, 1993. Campbell is the first and so far only female p ...
, later a Canadian prime minister), were elected.
All other districts elected either two SC-ers (12 districts) or two NDP-ers (four districts), with no representation given to the minority vote in the district. This helped ensure the government's capture of the most seats. (It also makes the "popular vote," the votes cast, not truly reflective of the sentiment of the voters, due to some voters casting two votes and others only one.)
This was the last election to be held with multi-member districts; BC moved to all single-member districts prior to the next election.
Results
Note:
* Party did not nominate candidates in the previous election.
See also
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List of British Columbia political parties
References
Further reading
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External links
Elections BC 1986 Election
{{British Columbia elections
1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
British Columbia general election
General election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
British Columbia general election