The election to come: Langley

This October, as Langley voters head to the polls to select representatives in the provincial legislature, the fate of the election may turn on issues like schools, health care, or housing.

But a more fundamental question may influence the which local candidates are successful: Just who is your average 2024 Langley voter anyways?

Over the last 10 years, Langley has welcomed huge numbers of new residents—and voters. Thus far, those newcomers have made the community more welcoming to left-of-centre politics. But it remains to be seen whether that will remain true as Langley continues to attract out-of-towners to its newly built homes.

Today, we look at Langley’s three new provincial ridings, the candidates who will be running for seats, and the campaign to come.

Read our other preview stories on the upcoming provincial campaign in the Fraser Valley: Chilliwack | Abbotsford & Mission

You can see a map of BC’s new electoral districts, and compare it with the 2020 boundaries here.

Langley-Abbotsford

Riding: A brand new riding including a huge swath of rural land west of Bradner Road and east of most of Langley. Includes Aldergrove, Murrayville, Gloucester Estates, and Glen Valley. Map.

Incumbent: None

Candidates: Karen Long (BC United), TBD (others)

Analysis: The riding of Langley-Abbotsford is brand new and its creation by BC’s Electoral Boundaries Commission will influence the shape of provincial politics across the entirety of Langley in the coming years.

Langley had been a BC Liberal stronghold for years, with MLAs Rich Coleman and Mary Polak holding down top ministerial jobs until 2020, when Coleman declined to run and Polak lost her own seat.

Langley’s rapid growth, with thousands of new residents migrating from further west in the region, seem likely to make the community dramatically less friendly to right-of-centre parties in years to come. At the same time, there are reasons to be wary of making firm predictions. Growth is bringing substantial challenges and the NDP will find itself facing hard questions about whether it’s done enough to ensure schools and hospitals can accommodate the flood of new residents. And the politics of the newest of Langley’s newcomers have yet to be measured at the ballot box.

The new riding of Langley-Abbotsford will be one of the best shots for the BC Conservatives or BC United (or some merged version of the two) to regain a foothold in the township. The riding is broadly rural, encompassing a huge swath of land where ballots tend to lean heavily in favour of right-of-centre parties. The NDP should find some success in Aldergrove and Murrayville, but it’s likely to be an uphill struggle. At the same time, should BC United and the BC Conservatives evenly split the vote, the NDP could still very well have enough firepower to claim the seat.

Langley-Walnut Grove

Riding: Langley Township north of 72 Ave, including Walnut Grove and Fort Langley. Map.

Incumbent: Megan Dykeman

Challengers: Barb Martens (BC United)

Analysis: If the NDP can hold together a good chunk of its vote from 2020, the party should be a heavy favourite in Langley-Walnut Grove. But the riding—which includes much of Willoughby—will also be a bit of an uncertain quantity, because of the dramatic change and population growth it has seen. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the province, the riding has welcomed in huge numbers of newcomers in recent years, and all those new people will have brought their politics to the region.

That should largely favour the NDP and Dykeman. Most newcomers are moving from Lower Mainland communities to the west, where homes are more expensive and where the NDP has historically done relatively well. Dykeman appears to have benefitted from that swing in 2021. She won relatively easily that year, and the Langley-Walnut Grove riding no longer contains vast rural swaths where the NDP historically does poorly. But the growth itself will likely shape feelings about political parties, too. Issues like schools, transportation, and health care will be particularly relevant in a community that has seen rapid growth, but the physical and social infrastructure is struggling to keep up.

However, how migration patterns influence politics can be hard to discern until votes are counted, and until election day, no one will know exactly how four years of growth will have changed the political balance in north Langley.

Langley-Willowbrook

Riding: Langley-Willowbrook includes all of Langley City, the rapidly developing Willowbrook area, and the community’s more traditional South Langley neighbourhoods. The riding has the fewest farms of any Fraser Valley electoral district. Map. 

Incumbent: Andrew Mercier (NDP)

Challengers: TBD

Analysis: The riding of Langley-Willowbrook should be one of the most favourable for the NDP in the entire Fraser Valley. Mercier won handily in 2021 and the reconfigured 2024 riding is considerably more urban than the previous district, which stretched south to the US border.

But some unpredictability will arise from questions surrounding NDP policies that emphasize higher-density development in single-family neighbourhoods like those in South Langley. The goal is to to spur more home-building to alleviate the housing crisis, but votes are likely to turn on existing Langley-dwellers will see the changes as a necessary move or an unwelcome imposition. Similarly, schools and health care, and the ability of facilities to keep up with rapid growth, will also play into the conversation.

Still, the riding looks likely to become an NDP stronghold unless BC United or the BC Conservatives can co-operate rather than split the increasingly precious right-of-centre votes in central Langley.