British Columbia

NDP wins 47 seats, but CBC not projecting a majority, pending judicial recount

B.C. NDP Leader David Eby was asked Monday afternoon by Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin to form the next government.

Austin's request came hours after CBC News projected Eby as the winner of the 2024 provincial election following a day-long recount of razor-thin margins in critical ridings that gave his party a narrow win.

The NDP has been elected in 47 ridings, with the Conservatives elected in 44. The B.C. Greens have won two seats.

A majority requires a party to win at least 47 of the 93 seats in the B.C. Legislature, however, even though the NDP has achieved that number, CBC News is not projecting a majority government pending a judicial recount in Surrey-Guildford which the NDP won by just 27 votes.

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Illicit snacks mimicking real-life candies include 'Reefers' and 'KushKat' chocolates

As Halloween approaches, police on Vancouver Island are urging the public to use caution after officers seized more than 120,000 cannabis-laced edibles, including chocolate and candies with packaging that mimics recognizable treats.

RCMP shared photos showing illicit cannabis snacks with names such as "Reefers" for cannabis-infused peanut butter cups in yellow and orange packaging similar to Reese's Pieces, as well as "KushKat" chocolates in a red wrapper like a KitKat bar.

A statement from the Mounties says the contraband candies resemble professionally manufactured products, but investigators found they were produced in "highly unsanitary and heavily contaminated" modular trailers.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31762027

Signatures is at 22,853.

A tallying of mail-in and absentee voting ballots has widened the B.C. NDP's lead in two ridings, but the outcome for both districts won't be known until a full manual recount is completed on Sunday and Monday.

The election agency also says in a statement that screening of uncounted absentee and mail-in ballots has identified 65,000 votes provincewide that will also be tallied from Saturday until Monday, up from the previous estimate of 49,000.

A group of Black and Indigenous women say they want a national public inquiry into a recent spate of police-involved deaths after nine Indigenous people were killed in interactions with police in August and September.

About two dozen people gathered on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, including the families of eight people who died.

The families say accountability and justice for the deaths of their loved ones is difficult to get and that concrete actions need to happen to address police brutality and to offer support and resources for the people affected.

Laura Holland, a Wet'suwet'en woman and the mother of Jared Lowndes, said police-involved killings are a state of emergency for Indigenous people.

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Record numbers of people in British Columbia are being vaccinated against COVID-19 and flu as the province ramps up its immunization campaign for respiratory illness season.

The health ministry said in a news release that B.C. pharmacies administered almost 82,000 vaccinations on Oct. 15 alone.

It says that was a record for a single day, with about 50,000 shots for flu and about 32,000 for COVID-19 dispensed.

. . .

The first week of the campaign also set a record, with almost 370,000 vaccines administered.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31487063

While British Columbians wait with baited breath for the final results from BC’s provincial election, one thing is clear: First-past-the-post has robbed voters of choice, deeply polarized communities, and when it comes to the biggest issues facing British Columbia, resolved absolutely nothing.

BC Conservative leader John Rustad’s election night speech captured the sorry state of affairs:

“If we are in that situation of the NDP forming a minority government, we will look at every single opportunity from day one to bring them down …and get back to the polls.”

A leader whose party received 44% of the popular vote vowing to do everything in his power to ensure the legislature doesn’t work for the majority, gunning for the next chance to seize all the power with less than half of the vote, is a brutal, yet predictable outcome of first-past-the-post.

If the supposed advantages of our winner-take-all system are its ability to cater to the centrist voter, ensure “strong, stable majority governments”, prevent “backroom deals”, deliver fast results on election night, and keep out extremists, it has failed utterly on all counts―all at once.

BC’s election has exposed these claims for what they are: at best, misleading talking points from those who haven’t reviewed the evidence, and at worst, deliberately dishonest assertions from shallow politicians who consistently put their own ambitions of power ahead of the public interest when it comes to electoral reform...

The NDP candidate for the riding — which encompasses the communities of Sooke, Metchosin and Port Renfrew along with a swath of southern Vancouver Island west of Greater Victoria — is leading by just 20 votes, according to the latest information from Elections B.C.