Is it possible Prince George voted NDP while other areas voted Conservative (spoiler: no, no it isn't)
Read to the end for a picture of a cougar
Some reaction to yesterday’s election post.
In the comments, Charles Menzies writes:
I suspect the drop in NDP votes since the 1990s in the Prince George ridings could well be place at the foot of the decline in organized labour and a shift in the forest sector away from vertical integration (which created unified unions) toward subcontracting (which created a non-union sea of 'small business'). Some major changes took place in the industrial sector between the 1980s and 1990s that led to reduced labour force throughout the region. I also put some of the responsibility at the door of anti-Indigenous sentiments in the resource extraction sectors wherein First Nations rights are seen as antithetical to the small to medium sized non-Indigenous owned businesses.
On Reddit, a few people started to wonder if Prince George the city had been outvoted by the rural areas it connects to. As I said yesterday, given the breakdown of the ridings and the overall vote result, unlikely. First, on whether those rural areas even could overturn the results from Prince George (ie, could the people who live in Prince George-Mackenzie go NDP while Mackenzie votes Conservative, and then the riding goes Conservative). My simple answer is: no. Even if Prince George, the city, were split into three exactly equal parts, each riding would have more than 25,000 Prince George residents. The population of Mackenzie is about 3,200 — it would take 7 Mackenzies to match 1/3 of Prince George’s voting power. Valemount is just over 1,000 people and McBride is fewer than 600.
The one exception to this is potentially the new Prince George-North Cariboo riding, which includes Quesnel. For one, it actually has the smallest chunk of Prince George — a portion of College Heights, essentially, and for two it has the biggest outlying community — approximately 10,000 people. However, even then, I am not positive the Prince George portion isn’t as big or bigger than the rest. According to the redrawn borders:
Prince George-North Cariboo consists of the southern portion of Prince George, including most of the College Heights neighbourhood, and communities along Highway 97 such as Quesnel, Stoner, Hixon and Marguerite. It is bordered by the Cariboo Regional District in the west. It includes the communities of Wells, Likely and Horsefly in the east. Its northern boundary follows the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16) and the Fraser River. The southern boundary extends to the municipal boundary of the City of Williams Lake and the boundary of Cariboo Regional District Electoral Area F.
Quesnel, as I said, about 10,000 people. Wells is just over 200. The regional districts in that area are a combined total of about 9,000. Add in a few more and you are, at this point, getting to about 2,000-ish so again, depending on how many people from Prince George are there you are getting close to parity. And if it’s a smaller portion in PG, maybe you are seeing the Cariboo region account for more votes than the College Heights part — I guess it also depends on whether you’d consider Red Rock and Stoner part of the city, or not.
But even then, this assumes the entirety of Prince George voted for someone different than the rest of the region, or did so in a large degree. Early indicators show that is not the case. One Reddit user had data they had received as a volunteer showing the results by voting place which, while not currently final or official, do indicate the city was going Conservative, as well:
They did not have North Cariboo, however I did see some of those numbers at one point during the election event, and things were going Conservative there, as well.
One last thing — there are a few folks who've talked about how federally, Prince George votes Liberal while outlying areas do not. This is partly true. I know this because I once parsed these numbers. My findings were that in the modern era in one election — the year Justin Trudeau got elected and there was a big Liberal surge — the city of Prince George did, in fact, favour the Liberals over the Conservatives. However, that was a one-year blip, by the time the next federal election was held the city, along with the rest of the region, was staunchly voting Conservative.
And one last thing — here are preliminary turnout results (estimated total turnout, Elections B.C. says, is about 57.41% which means Mackenzie and Valemount were just below average and North Cariboo just above).
Coldsnap in the fall:
Coldsnap is hosting Dak'et, Shun Inli (Music in the Fall) on Saturday, October 26th at Knox Performance Centre. This will be an evening of roots/soul music featuring performances by both Celeigh Cardinal and AV & the Inner City (both groups are joining us from Treaty 6/Edmonton).
Teacher-librarians win awards
From Joseph Jeffrey, District Learning Commons Teacher Librarian for School District 57:
On Friday two of our local school district 57 teacher librarians (TL) will be receiving awards for their contributions to the profession in Victoria. While both were announced back in the spring they will finally be collecting their awards as part of the annual BC Teacher-Librarian Conference.
Tina Cousins of Vanway Elementary will be receiving the Val Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award for the vast amount of work she has done across her career to promote teacher-librarianship and be a leader for teacher librarians in Prince George. Whether it is as the leader of our Red Cedar book competition, president of the local TL group, a former president of the whole PG teachers union or just a fantastic TL at Vanway, Tina is an inspirational leader for our community.
Rebekah Rustad of Prince George Secondary will be receiving the new Teacher Librarian of the Year Award. This is given to a teacher-librarian in their first 5 years of teaching. Rebekah started during the pandemic and immediately had to hit the ground running during an uncertain time. Championing students right to read, and helping out with the school's nascent e-sports group, Rebekah did all this while juggling being a young mom. She has consistently shown leadership in working towards decolonization of library structures within the school and her paper on her work was featured at the 7th national Treasure Mountain Canada symposium in 2022. Rebekah is currently on maternity leave and will be returning at the start of November.
News roundup:
City Council makes call for psychiatric care facility in the North.
PGMap is a hidden treasure trove of Prince George property information.
Prince George, B.C., hydrogen project plans put on hold, pointing to gabs in provincial strategy.
Hiller captures three-peat at national speed skating championship.
Album release party for Kym Gouchie's new music at Knox Performance Centre Oct. 23.
Fundraising dinner to help children with disabilities in south India.
Playground removal starting at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park.
Prince George RCMP investigating Upper Mud River Road break and enter, injury.
Coroner’s Inquest begins in relation to 2019 death of woman in PG involving RCMP.
Primetime Wrestling gears up for their biggest event of the season.
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Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.
Love that cougar picture. About a week and a half ago, a cougar took a deer right in my neighbors backyard in buckhorn near the sawmill. She watched it take it down.
0 votes at the Civic Center?