Now that election night is over, Sea to Sky Green candidate Dana Taylor says he wasn’t surprised about the high number of votes in the corridor but noted that there was more support than showed up in earlier polling results.
“It was definitely an interesting election all around. It showed that Green is achievable in the Sea to Sky Corridor,” Taylor told The Chief on Friday.
In the 2013 election, 11 per cent of our riding voted Green, while this year it nearly tripled to 29 per cent.
Taylor credits the upswing to both opposition to Woodfibre LNG and dissatisfaction with Premier Christy Clark.
“We got the advantage of this. Our number of votes went up a lot, while the NDP’s stayed pretty much the same,” he said.
The Greens were the only party to oppose Woodfibre LNG and, if elected, promised to ban the facility.
The NDP stayed somewhat consistent at 32 per cent in 2013 and 27 per cent this time, but the Liberal vote took a dive from 53 per cent to 43 per cent.
Sea to Sky Green candidate Michelle Livaja said opposition to Woodfibre LNG hurt support for her party locally.
Unlike the Greens, the NDP supports the LNG facility and received $38,000 from the company in 2016, the latest Elections BC financial disclosures show. The Liberals, on the other hand, received $28,000 from Woodfibre and also support the project.
“We did well and the Greens did really, really well,” Livaja said. “We definitely ran into opposition to LNG around the corridor, not just in Squamish.”
