The BC Election Campaign is half-way to E-Day! Edelman Canada shares a post-debate POV on the political landscape.

1. Edelman Vancouver | 1400 – 1500 West Georgia St | Vancouver, BC V6G 2Z6 | 604 623 3007
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
“I’m asking for your vote so I can have a strong mandate to continue to fight for BC jobs and build a bright
future for our kids.”
Christy Clark, Today’s BC Liberals
“After years of B.C. Liberal neglect, we will improve B.C.’s mental health system by increasing access and investing
in early prevention and intervention.”
John Horgan, BC NDP
“Trying to squeeze water from a stone doesn’t work, even if you squeeze it harder. And that is the Liberal approach.”
Andrew Weaver, BC Greens
“Even though the lead for the NDP has increased, we still see the Liberals (strong) in the rest of B.C.”
Quito Maggi, President, Mainstreet Research
BC PROVINCIAL ELECTION 2017
MID-WAY UPDATE
OUR PERSPECTIVE
After a heated televised debate between
John Horgan, Andrew Weaver and Christy Clark
where no punches were pulled, the BC Greens
stand to gain the most from the debate’s public
exposure, but there was no clear winner.
According to a Mainstreet Research straw poll immediately
following the televised debate, John Horgan was viewed as the
night’s victor, but by a very slim margin. Christy Clark stuck to
script, touting her party’s track record on jobs and economic
growth, and positioning herself as the best candidate to
address the softwood lumber dispute. And Andrew Weaver
emerged as a force to be reckoned with, jousting with both
leaders and garnering the largest increase in the night’s social
media conversations.
The BC NDP went into the debate holding onto a 16-point lead
over the BC Liberals in Metro Vancouver, a 2-point lead over
the BC Greens on Vancouver Island, and in a dead-heat with
the BC Liberals throughout the rest of the province, where the
incumbent government held a majority of available seats.
In key lower mainland ridings, the BC NDP are gaining
momentum, while the BC Greens are picking up support
across the Island, which could be the deciding factor between
a new NDP government and a twenty-year reign of the
governing BC Liberals.
We know the polls have been wrong in almost every election
of recent memory, including BC’s 2013 election. And at the
halfway point of this highly anticipated campaign, it is still
anybody’s game.
Bob Richardson
Executive Vice-President & National Practice Lead
416.849.1913 | bob.richardson@edelman.com
Hon. James Moore
Special Advisor, Public Affairs, Edelman Canada
604.648.3401 | james.moore@edelman.com
Bridgitte Anderson
General Manager, Edelman Vancouver
604.648.3403 | bridgitte.anderson@edelman.com
HIGHLIGHTS
Across Metro Vancouver, the NDP are campaigning hard on
affordability promises, including 114,000 new rental and co-
op units, a $400 annual renter rebate, raising BC’s minimum
wage to $15 an hour, and increasing the corporate tax rate
to help pay for it. In an effort to address BC’s public health
emergency, the party has also promised to create a Ministry
of Mental Health and Addictions, and allocate $1.2 billion for
a new hospital in Burnaby.
The BC Liberals’ steady-as-she-goes platform is casting a
wide net across the province with promises of $2.6 billion in
capital spending by post-secondary institutions on campus
upgrades, and a four-year freeze on both income taxes and
BC’s Carbon Tax, but contains few big-ticket items to sway
BC’s millennials, a key voting bloc in the 2015 federal election.
On the contentious softwood lumber dispute, Christy Clark
has pushed back on President Trump’s proposed 20% tariff,
which could become a major election issue moving forward.
On the Island, the BC Greens are gaining speed with their
fiscal policy, including promises to develop a new 10-year
transportation plan for BC, retake government control of
BC Ferries as a Crown Corporation, and double the existing
foreign buyers’ tax to 30% across the province.
THE LANDSCAPE
According to our Insights and Analytics team, using the Edelman Command Centre Platform, the volume of overall conversation on
Facebook and Twitter coming from, and about, Christy Clark and John Horgan is nearly identical since April 10th. When broken down,
however, Christy Clark dominates the share of Facebook conversations (fig.1), with Twitter conversations more evenly divided (fig.2).
fig.1
fig.2