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25 seats in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia | |||
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The 1878 British Columbia general election was held in 1878.
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25 seats in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia | |||
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The 1878 British Columbia general election was held in 1878.
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.).
See Notes on the previous election.
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).
These ridings were:
Vancouver Island 3,714 votes, twelve seats 309.5 votes/seat
Mainland 2,271 votes 11 seats (excluding Kootenay's) 206.45 votes/seat :
Note that these figures refer to votes actually cast, not the population per se nor the total of the potential voters' list.
Property requirements for voting instigated for the 1875 election were dropped. 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, 1878 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | Opposition | ||||||||||||
| Member | Riding & party | Riding & party | Member | ||||||||||
| Edwin Pimbury | Cowichan Government | Cariboo Opposition | George Cowan | ||||||||||
| William Smithe | John Evans | ||||||||||||
| Wellington John Harris | New Westminster Government | George Anthony Boomer Walkem 1 | |||||||||||
| Donald McGillivray | Comox Opposition | John Ash | |||||||||||
| Ebenezer Brown | New Westminster City Government | Esquimalt Opposition | Hans Lars Helgesen | ||||||||||
| Preston Bennett | Yale Government | Frederick W. Williams | |||||||||||
| John Andrew Mara | Kootenay Opposition | Robert Leslie Thomas Galbraith | |||||||||||
| Forbes George Vernon | Charles Gallagher | ||||||||||||
| Lillooet Opposition | William M. Brown | ||||||||||||
| William Saul | |||||||||||||
| Nanaimo Opposition | James Atkinson Abrams | ||||||||||||
| Victoria Opposition | Thomas Basil Humphreys | ||||||||||||
| James Thomas McIlmoyl | |||||||||||||
| Victoria City Independent Opposition | Robert Beaven | ||||||||||||
| James Smith Drummond | |||||||||||||
| John William Williams | |||||||||||||
| William Wilson | |||||||||||||
| 1 Premier-Elect and Incumbent Premier | |||||||||||||
| Source: Elections BC | |||||||||||||
As customary, byelections were held to confirm the appointment of various members to the Executive Council (cabinet). In this Parliament, all three such byelections were won by acclamation:
Walkem's byelection acclamation confirmed him as Premier; Executive Council appointments were decided and made by the Lieutenant-Governor in this period, not by the Premier directly, but by the L-G in Consultation with the Premier (as still is the case, though only as a formal technicality, not in practice). The Premier's position itself was technically an appointment, as there were no political parties nor leaders, other than unofficial ones for each faction in the House to whom the Lieutenant-Governor would turn if their known caucus was sufficient to form a government.
Other byelections were held on the occasion of death, ill health, retirement and/or resignation for other reasons. These were won by:
Note: Government/Opposition status applies to candidate at time of election in 1878, not at time of dissolution in 1882.
| Composition of 3rd British Columbia Parliament at Dissolution, 1882 | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | Opposition | ||||||||||||
| Member | Riding & party | Riding & party | Member | ||||||||||
| Edwin Pimbury | Cowichan Government | Cariboo Opposition | George Cowan | ||||||||||
| William Smithe | George Ferguson | ||||||||||||
| Wellington John Harris | New Westminster Government | George Anthony Boomer Walkem | |||||||||||
| Donald McGillivray | Comox Opposition | John Ash | |||||||||||
| William James Armstrong | New Westminster City Government | Esquimalt Opposition | Hans Lars Helgesen | ||||||||||
| Preston Bennett | Yale Government | Frederick W. Williams | |||||||||||
| John Andrew Mara | Kootenay Opposition | Robert Leslie Thomas Galbraith | |||||||||||
| Forbes George Vernon | Charles Gallagher | ||||||||||||
| Lillooet Opposition | William M. Brown | ||||||||||||
| William Saul | |||||||||||||
| Nanaimo Opposition | James Atkinson Abrams | ||||||||||||
| Victoria Opposition | Thomas Basil Humphreys | ||||||||||||
| James Thomas McIlmoyl | |||||||||||||
| Victoria City Independent Opposition | Robert Beaven | ||||||||||||
| James Smith Drummond | |||||||||||||
| John William Williams | |||||||||||||
| William Wilson | |||||||||||||
| Source: Elections BC | |||||||||||||
| General elections | |
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| Municipal elections | |
| Referendums | |
See also: List of British Columbia by-elections | |
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the Canadian province of British Columbia.
The 1920 British Columbia general election was the fifteenth general election for the Province of British Columbia, Canada. It was held to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. The election was called on October 23, 1920, and held on December 1, 1920. The new legislature met for the first time on February 8, 1921.
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 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.
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" United 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 a 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.
