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Sturdy claims victory in Sea to Sky

Liberal minority government likely
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RE-ELECTED The BC Liberals' Jordan Sturdy will serve a second term after being re-elected in the West Vancouver-Sea to Sky riding on Tuesday night. Photo by David Buzzard/www.media-centre.ca

The Sea to Sky is staying blue.

BC Liberal incumbent MLA Jordan Sturdy secured himself a second term in the provincial election on Tues., May 9, defeating the Green Party's Dana Taylor, the NDP's Michelle Livaja, Libertarian Michael Cambridge and independent Tristan Galbraith.

Sturdy took 9,649 votes, besting Taylor's 6,447, Livaja's 6,068, Cambridge's 168 and Galbraith's 135.

Reached by phone just before midnight, Sturdy noted there were still advance ballots to be counted in the riding.

"We'll see how it all plays out in the end. It looks pretty good for me, but it's hard to say," he said.

"It was obviously tighter than (in 2013), and there was a number of issues that were galvanizing people, and I certainly appreciate that.

"I want to be out there. I want to have conversations with people, I want to find out from people how I can do a better job, and obviously we're not all going to agree on everything — it just doesn't seem possible — but it is up to me to pay attention and to do what I can to listen and learn and represent the people of West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, and it is truly a privilege."

The 6,447 votes garnered by Taylor were impressive, given that the Green Party took only 2,359 in 2013.

"I'm disappointed, of course, but on the other hand I think we did pretty well," Taylor said.

"I think that it kind of shows that the riding itself is in flux, and we've got — I wouldn't go so far as to say it's momentum — but I think there's a change in the air, and I think the vote tonight reflected that."

Provincially, the only thing that was decided as of midnight on Election Day was that the next government will likely be a minority.

The Liberals held 43 seats to the NDP's 41, with about 20 ridings yet to be confirmed one way or the other.

The Green Party was sitting at three seats, up from one in 2013.

How it all shakes out when all the votes are counted is anybody's guess, Sturdy said.

"At this point I don't know that anybody knows what that's going to look like," he said.

"There's certainly not a majority, that's for sure, so we're in an at best a minority situation... I don't really know that we know what the outcome of this election is yet."

In 2013, the BC Liberals won 49 seats, the NDP won 34, the Green Party took one and one seat went independent.

When Sturdy was first elected in 2013, he garnered 11,275 votes — more than 52 per cent of the vote.

The closest runner up was the NDP's Ana Santos with 6,966 votes.

The Green Party's Richard Warrington had 2,359.

According to Elections BC there were 3,156,991 registered voters in B.C. as of April 11, 2017 — 614,389 of which voted in advance polls before the May 9 vote.

In West Vancouver-Sea to Sky there were 38,470 registered voters, 7,634 of which voted in advance polls.

Pick up Thursday's Pique for the full story.