Election 2009
Candidates and Results
The BC Libertarian Party ran six libertarian candidates in the May 12, 2009 provincial election, and we obtained 1444 votes. This is up 44% from the 1003 votes we obtained with the same number of candidates in the 2005 election.
Our star candidate was Dan Cancade who received 533 votes (3.37% of the votes cast) in Burnaby-Edmonds.
- Burnaby-Edmonds: Dan Cancade - 533 votes (3.37%)
- Coquitlam-Burke Mountain: Paul Geddes - 254 votes (1.77%)
- Port Coquitlam: Lewis Dahlby - 170 votes (0.89%)
- Vancouver-Kingsway: Matt Kadioglu - 161 votes (1.03%)
- Vancouver-West End: John Clarke - 180 votes (1.10%)
- West Vancouver-Capilano: Tunya Audain - 146 votes (0.87%)
In the six ridings we contested, we received an average of 1.5% of the vote. This is double the 0.7% of the vote obtained in the 2005 provincial election.
In terms of number of votes received, the Libertarians were the sixth most popular party in BC (of the 15 parties contesting the election):
| Party | Votes | Ridings | Average Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 707,911 | 85 | 8,328.4 |
| NDP | 646,523 | 85 | 7,606.2 |
| Green | 124,567 | 85 | 1,465.5 |
| Conservative | 32,430 | 24 | 1,351.3 |
| Refederation | 3,518 | 23 | 153.0 |
| Libertarian | 1,444 | 6 | 240.7 |
| Reform | 1,186 | 4 | 296.5 |
| Nation Alliance | 754 | 2 | 377.0 |
| Sex | 684 | 3 | 228.0 |
| Communist | 416 | 3 | 138.7 |
| People's Front | 382 | 4 | 95.5 |
| Marijuana | 319 | 1 | 319.0 |
| Your Political Party | 297 | 2 | 148.5 |
| Work Less | 291 | 2 | 145.5 |
| Western Canada Concept | 228 | 1 | 228.0 |
Complete election results are available from Elections BC.
Elections BC Party Statement
Elections BC asked all parties to submit a brief explanation of why the party exists. This was the BC Libertarian Party statement:
Libertarians believe there is too much government interference in our lives. We want more choice in health care, education, car insurance, farm products and in many other areas of life where government regulations restrict voluntary capitalist acts between consenting adults. We seek to end the government monopoly in health care by allowing private citizens to make private, voluntary arrangements with the health providers of their choice. We want to allow more experimentation in education by returning government funds to parents to allow them to purchase the education of their choice. We favour competition in car insurance. We think farmers and retailers should be freed from the marketing boards to provide the type of product that customers wish to buy. We think taxes on productive citizens should be greatly reduced as we replace many services we get from government with private, voluntary and profitable alternatives. We also seek to end government prohibitions on drugs and guns. Driving these activities underground gives an advantage to unsavoury dealers who don't care that their violence injures otherwise innocent bystanders. In short, libertarians want a world where property is safe and citizens are free to trade with each other for mutual advantage.