The 2024 B.C. election has come and gone and once again, Vancouver Island has shown itself to be an NDP stronghold.
It wasn't always this way. In fact, if you go far enough back, polictical parties did not exist and Vancouver Island wasn't part of the B.C. provincial election at all.
The first British Columbia General provincial election was in 1871. But from 1866 to 1871, British Columbia was just a colony after the merger of the Colony of Vancouver Island (1849 to 1866) and the Colony of British Columbia (1858 to 1866). The latter was a further merger of New Caledonia, parts of the North-Western Territory, the Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Stickeen Territories, and parts of Russian America.
The Colony of Vancouver Island had an election in 1856 for its First House of Assembly. At the time of the election, no newspaper was active on the Island, so not much was known about it. However, the Island was represented by four districts: Victoria, Esquimalt, Sooke and Nanaimo.
Victoria had three seats in the assembly, filled by Edward Edwards Langford (replaced by Joseph William McKay on Dec. 3, 1856), Joseph Despard Pemberton, and James Yates. Esquimalt's district was represented by John Sebastian Helmcken (Speaker) and Thomas James Skinner. John Muir was elected to represent Sooke (but resigned on May 5, 1857) and Dr. John Frederick Kennedy represented Nanaimo.
The 1860 Colony of Vancouver Island election was much bigger, with 13 members elected to the Second House of Assembly. Political parties were yet to be a thing, but two factions did exist, representing the Hudson's Bay Colony and a Reform faction. The outcome election did have some political intrigue, with the leader of the losing Reformer faction, Armor De Cosmos (born William Alexander Smith, he is also the founder of the Daily British Colonist, now known as the Victoria Times-Colonist) claiming the election was not run fairly.
Instead of just the four constituencies, there were now nine. Victoria was split into two, Victoria Town (two seats) and Victoria District (three seats). Esquimalt was also split into Esquimalt Town (one seat) and and Esquimalt County (two seats). The Lake, Sooke, Saanich, Saltspring and Chemainus, and Nanaimo districts had one seat each.
The Third House of Assembly of Vancouver Island, elected in 1863, grew to 15 members. De Cosmos, this time won his seat.
After the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia merged in 1866, the First Legislative Council of British Columbia was elected. The nine members elected were represented by three Islanders; De Cosmos, Helmcken, and Pemberton.
British Columbia officially became a province of Canada on July 20, 1871, when it entered the confederation. The lieutenant governor of British Columbia (Sir Joseph William Trutch, a notorious racist who reduced the size of reserves by 91 per cent in 1867) appointed an interim cabinet and signed election writs for the first British Columbia general election, contested from October to December that year.
For the election, 12 new ridings were created: Cariboo (three seats), Comox (one), Cowichan (two), Esquimalt (two), Kootenay (two), Lilooet (two), Nanaimo (one), New Westminster (two), New Westminster City (one), Victoria (two), Victoria City (four) and Yale (three). Every candidate ran as an independent.
The Comox riding stretched to the Yukon border and had very few eligible voters (the majority of the population in the riding were First Nations people, who were not allowed to vote, along with Chinese people). Voting these days was also a little different. Voters would vote by show of hands on nomination day, or an open poll book.
Only 24 people in the Comox riding voted in this election, with 16 people voting for John Ash. Robert Cameron Coleman was the other option. Ash again won in 1875, getting 36 votes while his opponent, Robb James only got 10. The issues of the day were Chinese immigration and railways, particularly a promised railway from the east coast of Vancouver Island to the southern tip of Victoria.
The 1875 general election was also the first one to have a secret ballot.
