Wednesday October 21, 2020 | LANGLEY, BC [Updated 12:55 am October 22, 2020]
by Mary P Brooke, editor | Island Social Trends
With just three days to go until the 42nd General Election on Saturday October 24, today BC NDP Leader John Horgan — who is hoping to return to the BC Legislature with enough elected MLAs to form a majority — told media that “success on Saturday is my objective”.
That success is for sure about the number of seats (there were 41 NDP MLAs at dissolution, but a clear majority requires 44). It is also about bringing the “people first” approach again to the Legislative Assembly of BC.
Horgan noted that 470,000 people have voted in advance voting stations so far over six consecutive days.
The seventh and last day of advance voting is today Wednesday October 21 from 8 am to 8 pm in all 87 electoral districts around the province.
About 2.3 million people yet to vote:
If one supposes that the approximately 700,000 people who requested mail-in ballots have used those for voting (albeit there is the option to destroy your mail-in ballot and instead vote in advance in person, or on general election day October 24), then combined with 470,000 votes cast so far in advance voting, there are still about 2.3 million registered voters who have yet to mark their ballots.
Addressing the undecided or yet-to-vote:
What Horgan says in these last days of the campaign is directed at people who are likely more in need of government support.
Today in Langley on the mainland he reiterated how he and the BC NDP “are about people” and that the “wealthy and well-connected people don’t need breaks at this point”, referencing the pandemic and the impacts on families and small businesses.
The BC NDP campaign has addressed the importance continuation and expansion of suitable and modern health care, child care services, and support for renters.
This morning Horgan talked about earning votes and how to break the cycle of people who have voted the same way for generations without perhaps considering an alternative that would serve their children and grandchildren better.
In the afternoon his campaign announced that a re-elected BC NDP government will introduce accessibility legislation for the benefit of people with disabilities.
In terms of political hopes, this is a time for individual voters to make a shift in their own mindset, as part of shifting the world to a place that functions better for everyone — certainly a test proposed by the pandemic.
Guided by public health advice:
Horgan called BC “the best place in the world to live” and said that this provincial has the best provincial health officer in Canada (that would be Dr Bonnie Henry) who has educated the population in a way that we are keeping the COVID-19 epidemiological curve low compared to most other jurisdictions in the western world.
Horgan did tell media that he wonders why BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson is pushing so hard to mention in recent weeks about his background as a medical doctor. Horgan says that he’s never had any trouble interpreting what Dr Henry has presented.
COVID case count highest today:
The October 21 daily case count for COVID-19 in BC was 203, the highest yet. That also happens to include the first school outbreak, that being in the Interior Health region where Horgan campaigned today.
Pandemic management is a long ways from over, said Horgan a few times this week already.
The total case count for BC for this first year of the pandemic is presently at 12,057.
