With the conclusion of the 2024 British Columbia General election, the North Island is painted blue, but it hasn't always been that way.
It's the first time since 2005 that the riding has been anything but orange.
The North Island Provincial electoral district, with its current boundaries, was first contested in 1991. Colin Gabelmann won the riding for the B.C. NDP with 8,427 votes, 40.39 per cent of the vote share. Dan Reynen came in second with 5,670 votes. Roger A. McDonell and the now defunct centre-right to right-wing party, British Columbia Social Credit Party, came in third.
The Social Credit Party was one of the strongest parties in the province in its heyday and ran the province from 1952 to 1969 and again from 1975 to 1986 before the party's collapse in 1991. Then Premier Bill Vander Zalm was replaced by Rita Johnston after the former's resignation due to a conflict of interest report found Vander Zalm mixed private business with his public office during the sales of Fantasy Gardens, where he had accepted $20,000 cash from the buyer. Like McDonnell, who captured 2,217 votes, Johnston's Social Credit Party was third overall in 1991.
Colin Gabelmann's victory in the North Island contributed to B.C. NDP Leader Mike Harcourt's success in becoming the 30th Premier of British Columbia.
Michael Mascall, representing the Green Party, came in fourth with only 408 votes. Mascall only spent $142 on his campaign, while Gabelmann spent $40,033, Reynan spent $4,338, and McDonell spent $30,385.
The North Island riding had a total valid votes of 16,722 recorded, with 287 being rejected.
None of the candidates appeared as candidates in the 1996 British Columbia Election, which again was won by the B.C. NDP. The North Island's winning candidate was Glenn Robertson, with 8,385 votes in his favour. A Liberal Party candidate was second again. Gerry Furney had 6,781 votes to his name, a 37.04 per cent share of the vote. Dave Jackson of the Reform Party of British Columbia (Reform B.C.) was third. Reform B.C. is now an unregistered right-wing populist political party that was founded in 1982 but didn't run its first candidates until the 1991 election and its first candidate in the North Island riding until 1996 (Vander Zalm returned to politics in 1999, becoming the leader of Reform B.C. from 1999 to 2001). Mark Grenier of the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA), a centrist party that disbanded in 1997, came in fourth, while the Green Party's Don Malcolm came in last.
Only 85 ballots were rejected this year, with a voter turnout of 18,393 people. Only 18,308 votes counted were deemed valid.
Robertson was the only person to run in the 2001 election that ran in the previous election. There were only four parties represented in the North Island riding. Due to paperwork issues, Reform B.C. was de-registered in February 2001 but managed to re-register in time for the election, but only fielded eight candidates after the foundation of the British Columbia Unity Party, a failed merger with Reform B.C., the Social Credit Party, the Conservative Party of British Columbia, and the British Columbia Party joining up with the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia.
The PDA was already disbanded when Leader Gordon Wilson joined the B.C. NDP.
A new party did challenge the traditional three parties of the B.C. NDP, Liberals, and Green Party though. Noreen Evers was the North Island's candidate for the British Columbia Marijuana Party. Her party, led by Marc Emery, made history by being the first party to have a candidate contest every riding in its first campaign. However, Evers' 1,099 votes only managed to get her a fourth-place finish after Ralph Keller and the Green Party who received 2,871 votes.
Rod Visser, however, beat the incumbent and became MLA. Visser, the Liberal's candidate, received the lion's share of the 24,126 votes cast with 13,781, or 57.12 per cent. Only 6,375 people voted for Robertson.
The 2005 British Columbia general election was the North Island's closest since 1991, with the two top parties only having a two per cent difference (660 votes).
Visser would not be MLA for another term. With only 10,804 votes to his name, it wasn't enough to beat Claire Trevena, the B.C. NDP's new candidate for the riding. Trevana had 11,464.
Philip Stone, representing the Green Party, came in third with 1,874 votes, while Democratic Reform British Columbia (the successor of the PDA) candidate, Dan Cooper, came in fourth. Lorne Scott, running as an independent came in fifth.
Despite Visser's loss in the riding, his party won 46 seats, winning the election and allowing Liberal Leader and Premier Gordon Campbell to remain in power for his second term (he would remain as Premier until 2011).
A total of 25,312 valid votes were cast by the North Island riding, while 101 were rejected.
The 2009 British Columbia General election resulted in another term for Campbell, but Trevena and the New Democrats remained in power in the North Island, with Trevena getting a 52 per cent share of the votes (11,865). New Liberal candidate, Marion Wright, received 8,937 votes from the North Island, while Philip Stone came in third with 1,670 votes (204 less than his 2005 campaign). William Walter Mewhort ran as an independent, landing 333 votes.
Voter turnout was at its lowest since 1996, with only a turnout of 22,907 voters. Of those votes, 102 were rejected.
Trevana once again remained MLA after the 2013 election, winning 50.7 per cent of the vote. Wright, Stone and Mewhort did not run. Instead, Nick Facey represented the Liberals, getting 9,883 votes. Bob Bray ran for the British Columbia Conservative Party, which didn't have a candidate in any of the previous elections for the North Island riding.
Once again, the Liberals won the election overall, with Christy Clark becoming the 35th Premier of British Columbia.
The 2013 election also marked the first and only time since 1991 the North Island riding did not have a candidate for the Green Party.
The voter turnout increased in 2013, with 23,613 people voting, however, 170 of the ballots were rejected.
The Green Party returned to the North Island with Sue Moen in 2017. She had 3,846 votes, which was enough for third place, ahead of BC First's John M. Twigg (543) but behind the Liberal's Dallas William Smith (9,148) and incumbent Trevena (12,355).
Clark remained Premier but as part of a minority government, however, her government lost a confidence vote in parliament's first session. The B.C. NDP, under John Horgan, formed a minority government. Horgan named Trevana as Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.
The 2017 election had the highest turnout for the North Island riding, surpassing the 25,413 record in 2005, with a turnout of 25,979 voters. It also had the lowest amount of rejected ballots since 1996, with 87.
A snap election was held in 2020, the first early election in the province since 1986, after Horgan wanted to stabilize the government, as the B.C. NDP's government was a minority. It was also held amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trevana's replacement, Michele Babchuk, won by a landslide with 12,467 votes and 50.75 per cent of the vote share. Norm Facey, the Liberal's candidate came in second with 5,9054, the Green Party's Alexandra Morton in third (4,731) and Twigg now representing the Conservative Party of B.C. (formally the British Columbia Conservative Party, renamed under the leadership of Trevor Bolin who stepped down in 2023 and replaced by John Rustad).
Horgan won the election, with the New Democrats winning a majority government (57 seats). Horgan became the first leader in party history to win a consecutive term as Premier.
Since the riding's boundaries were reformed in 1991 and before the 2024 election, the North Island has been in NDP hands except from 2001 to 2005, when Visser was in power. Gabelmann, who was MLA in 1991 was also the MLA from 1979 until he retired before the 1996 election.
The very first provincial election was in 1871. What is now the North Island riding was part of the Comox provincial electoral district, which was one of 12 ridings at that time. It included all of the North Island and most of the Central Coast, stretching towards the Yukon. The provincial elections were non-partisan until 1903 with the introduction of the Liberal-Conservative Party and the British Columbia Liberal Party.
The 1871 to 1991 elections will be covered in Part 2.