See also
| General elections | |
|---|---|
| Municipal elections | |
| Referendums | |
See also: List of British Columbia by-elections | |
The 1875 British Columbia general election was held in 1875. Many of the politicians in the House had served with the Legislative Council or Assembly or the Executive Council, or had otherwise been stalwarts of the colonial era - some supporters of Confederation, others not. Some were ranchers or mining bosses from the Interior, others were colonial gentry from the Island and New Westminster, and others direct arrivals from Britain, Ireland or "Canada", which was still considered a different place not only in the minds of the politicians but in the language used in Hansard during this period.
Votes 5,656 Candidates 55 Members 25
Vancouver Island 4,477 votes total in thirteen seats 344.38 voters per seat:
Mainland:
Note that these figures refer to votes actually cast, not the population per se nor the total of the potential voters' list.
The issues of Chinese immigration and the unbuilt railway defined the politics of the period, and were the main topic of debate in the campaign as well as in the House. As ever since in British Columbia politics, a tough stand against the Dominion Government (Ottawa) upon these issues, and over better terms for BC, was a prerequisite for success at the polls. Politicians and newspapermen (often the same thing in the early Legislature) were alarmed that British Columbia appeared not to have a say in the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and that Ottawa had no plans to assist in immigration to the new province in order to build the railway and otherwise populate the former colony. The issue of a promised railway along the east coast of Vancouver Island to its southern tip at Victoria was also of major political importance, especially to voters in the Island ridings (Victoria City, Victoria, Nanaimo City, Comox, Alberni, Cowichan, Esquimalt).
Also occupying the House were capital proposals and expenditures on projects such as improvements to the Dewdney Trail, the Cariboo Road, the Grand Trunk Road (Old Yale Road), and the financing of the Lillooet Cattle Trail, even though its main proponent, Thomas Basil Humphreys, the first MLA for Lillooet, was now MLA for Victoria. Victoria City MLA Andrew Charles Elliott, soon to be Premier, had been a provincial Magistrate in Lillooet and also supported the project, then the largest capital expenditure in the new province to date, and larger than anything outlaid in the colonial period. The trail was finally built and used in its entirety and for its original purpose - bringing cattle from the West Fraser rangelands directly to the Coast - was a financial disaster (as were also the Dewdney, Cariboo and Grand Trunk projects, and as had been the Douglas Road originally.
There were to be no political parties in the new province. The designations "Government" and "Opposition" and "Independent" (and variations on these) functioned in place of parties, but they were very loose and do not represent formal coalitions, more alignments of support during the campaign. "Government" meant in support of the current Premier; "Opposition" meant campaigning against him, and often enough the Opposition would win and immediately become the Government. The Elections British Columbia notes for this election describe the designations as "Government (GOV.) candidates supported the administration of G.A.B. Walkem. Those opposed ran as Reform (REF.), Opposition (OPP.), Independent Reform (IND.REF.), or Independent Opposition (IND.OPP.) candidates. Those who ran as straight Independents (IND.) were sometimes described as Government supporters (IND./GOV.).
Actual governing coalitions were very shaky, and between 1871 and 1903, when parties were formalized in BC, there were sixteen governments (as defined by Premierships) but only ten elections. This was one of the few early elections that produced a stable regime, as the mandate was called for and won by the incumbent government of the popular George Anthony Boomer Walkem, who retired from the office of Premier a year later only to return in 1878 to serve again as Premier for a full four years further - a record in the period. In this election he had already been in office since the previous year, being voted to the position of Premier by the House after the retirement of Amor de Cosmos from the Legislature, as his serving in the provincial House simultaneously with his seat in the House of Commons in Ottawa had been disallowed. Walkem similarly returned in 1878 because of the retirement of Andrew Charles Elliott, who had assumed the reins of power when he retired from his seat in 1876 and had been offered an appointment as a judge. From Walkem's retirement in 1882 to the end of the Prior government and the non-party period in 1903 - eleven years - there were ten governments.
Any changes due to byelections are shown below the main table showing the theoretical composition of the House after the election. A final table showing the composition of the House at the dissolution of the Legislature at the end of this Parliament can be found below the byelections. The main table represents the immediate results of the election only, not changes in governing coalitions or eventual changes due to byelections.
The original ridings had remained twelve in number, electing 25 members of the first provincial legislature from 12 ridings (electoral districts), some with multiple members. There were no political parties were not acceptable in the House by convention, though some members were openly partisan at the federal level (usually Conservative, although both Liberal and Labour allegiance were on display by some candidates). In all there were 55 candidates in the election, competing for 5,656 votes cast.
These ridings were:
The secret ballot had been instituted for the first time, unlike the open poll book and show of hands in the 1871 election. Nomination meetings for candidates, however, still retained the old show of hands method of voting. The election was called on August 30, with polling day on a varying schedule from September 11 to October 25 and the legislature meeting for the first time on January 10, 1876. The varying schedule meant that some returns were in on October 1, on the same day other ridings were voting and still others would vote long after new of the returns elsewhere had come in. Election days varied because of travel difficulties and local work and weather conditions, and even in New Westminster and Victoria the "city" ridings voted a week in advance of those for the surrounding more rural ridings, although no returns (count of votes) were in until after the interval elapsed.
Natives (First Nations) and Chinese were disallowed from voting, although naturalized Kanakas (Hawaiian colonists) and American and West Indian blacks and certain others participated. The requirement that knowledge of English be spoken for balloting was discussed but not applied.
| Results of British Columbia general election, 1875 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | Opposition | ||||||||||||
| Member | Riding & party | Riding & party | Member | ||||||||||
| George Anthony Boomer Walkem 1 | Cariboo Government | Cariboo Independent Opposition | Alexander Edmund Batson Davie | ||||||||||
| John Ash | Comox Government | John Evans | |||||||||||
| William James Armstrong | New Westminster Government Independent/Government | Kootenay Reform Caucus | Charles Gallagher | ||||||||||
| Ebenezer Brown | Arthur Wellesley Vowell | ||||||||||||
| Robert Beaven | Victoria City Government Independent-Government | Cowichan Reform Caucus | Edwin Pimbury | ||||||||||
| James Trimble | William Smithe | ||||||||||||
| Robert Smith | Yale Independent Government | Esquimalt Independent Reform Caucus | William Fisher | ||||||||||
| Frederick W. Williams | |||||||||||||
| Victoria Reform Caucus | Thomas Basil Humphreys | ||||||||||||
| William Fraser Tolmie | |||||||||||||
| Victoria City Independent Opposition | James W. Douglas | ||||||||||||
| Andrew Charles Elliott | |||||||||||||
| Nanaimo | John Bryden | ||||||||||||
| Yale Reform Caucus | John Andrew Mara | ||||||||||||
| Forbes George Vernon | |||||||||||||
| 1 Premier-Elect and Incumbent Premier | |||||||||||||
| Source: Elections BC | |||||||||||||
Two sets of byelections were held to confirm appointments to the Executive Council (cabinet), as was the custom in earlier times. Some ministerial candidates in this series of byelections were confirmed by acclamation, others were contested. These byelections were:
Other byelections were also held due to deaths and other appointments; all were contested:
Note: Government/Opposition status applies to candidate at time of election in 1875, not at time of dissolution in 1878.
| Composition of 2nd British Columbia Parliament at Dissolution, 1878 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | Opposition | ||||||||||||
| Member | Riding & party | Riding & party | Member | ||||||||||
| George Anthony Boomer Walkem 1 | Cariboo Government | Cariboo Independent Opposition | George Cowan | ||||||||||
| John Ash | Comox Government | John Evans | |||||||||||
| William James Armstrong | New Westminster Government Independent/Government | Kootenay Reform Caucus | Charles Gallagher | ||||||||||
| Ebenezer Brown | Robert Leslie Thomas Galbraith | ||||||||||||
| Robert Beaven | Victoria City Government Independent-Government | Cowichan Reform Caucus | Edwin Pimbury | ||||||||||
| James Trimble | William Smithe | ||||||||||||
| Robert Smith | Yale Independent Government | Esquimalt Independent Reform Caucus | William Fisher | ||||||||||
| David William Gordon | Nanaimo | Frederick W. Williams | |||||||||||
| Victoria Reform Caucus | Thomas Basil Humphreys | ||||||||||||
| William Fraser Tolmie | |||||||||||||
| Victoria City Independent Opposition | James W. Douglas | ||||||||||||
| Andrew Charles Elliott | |||||||||||||
| Yale Reform Caucus | John Andrew Mara | ||||||||||||
| Forbes George Vernon | |||||||||||||
| Source: Elections BC | |||||||||||||
| General elections | |
|---|---|
| Municipal elections | |
| Referendums | |
See also: List of British Columbia by-elections | |
George Anthony "Boomer" Walkem was a British Columbian politician and jurist.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the Canadian province of British Columbia.
The 1871 British Columbia general election was held from October to December 1871. Formerly a British colony, British Columbia became a province of Canada on July 20, 1871. An interim Cabinet was appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and election writs for the first general election as a province of Canada were issued to choose 25 members of the first provincial legislature from 12 ridings. These ridings were:
The 1878 British Columbia general election was held in 1878.
The 1882 British Columbia general election was held in 1882.
The 1886 British Columbia general election was held in 1886. The number of members was increased for this election from 25 to 27, and the number of ridings increased to 13.
The 1890 British Columbia general election was held in 1890. The number of members was increased for this election from 27 in the previous election to 33, although the number of ridings was decreased to 18.
The 1894 British Columbia general election was held in 1894. The number of members remained at 33 with the number of ridings increased to 26 as a result of the partition of the Yale and Westminster ridings.
George Cowan was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada, for the riding of Cariboo. He was first elected in a byelection in 1877 at the encouragement of George Walkem, the former and, at the time, future Premier. Cowan defeated the incumbent A.E.B. Davie, also a future Premier, who sought to win a seat in the House via the Cariboo byelection but who unlike Cowan did not have the advantages of Walkem's influence and support in the Cariboo riding. Cowan was re-elected consistently until retiring before the 1890 election.
The Legislative Council of British Columbia was an advisory body created in 1867 to the governor of the "new" Colony of British Columbia, which had been created from the merger of the old Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. The new colony, like its predecessors, did not have responsible government, and while its debates and resolutions carried considerable weight, executive power remained in the hands of the governor, who at the time of the council's founding was Frederick Seymour.
An electoral redistribution was undertaken in 2008 in British Columbia in a process that began in late 2005 and was completed with the passage of the Electoral Districts Act, 2008 on April 10, 2008. The redistribution modified most electoral boundaries in the province and increased the number of MLAs from 79 to 85. The electoral boundaries created by the redistribution were first used in the 2009 provincial election.
The Legislative Council of British Columbia held its first election in 1866. BC was a colony formed by the union of the colony of Vancouver Island and the colony of British Columbia.
An electoral redistribution in British Columbia was undertaken by the BC Electoral Boundaries Commission beginning in 2014 and was formalized by the passage of Bill 42, the 2015 Electoral Districts Act, during the 40th British Columbia Parliament. The act came into effect on November 17, 2015. The redistribution added two seats to the previous total, increasing the number of MLAs in the province from 85 to 87. The electoral boundaries came into effect for the 2017 election. The next redistribution is required to occur following the 2020 British Columbia general election.
The 2022 British Columbia municipal elections were held on 15 October 2022. Municipal elections took place in all municipalities and regional district electoral areas in the Canadian province of British Columbia to elect mayors, school board trustees, rural directors and city councillors. Elections BC administered campaign financing, disclosure and advertisement of candidates; however, voting, ballots and candidate nominations were administered by each jurisdiction's local electoral officer.
An electoral redistribution in British Columbia is underway by the BC Electoral Boundaries Commission. On October 21, 2021, the Government of British Columbia appointed Justice Nitya Iyer, Linda Tynan and Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman to serve as the 2021 commissioners. Justice Iyer was appointed the chair.
