Friday - Oct. 18, 2024 - Clean campaign, messy election: the 1924 Chilliwack vote

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Good morning!

Well folks, we made it. Tomorrow is the 2024 BC Election, where we all will come together to decide who will govern our province for the next four years. Some of you have voted already, and others (like myself) are waiting for tomorrow to participate. Some of you may be considering not voting at all.

I get it. I never used to be interested in voting. It felt like an exercise in futility—and I never liked any of the candidates anyways. But in 2015, with the federal election looming, one of my university professors said something I found revolutionary: spoil your vote.

Don’t like the candidates? Go to the polls anyways, and spoil your vote. Think our current parties are all beholden to lobbying interests? Go spoil your vote. Even if you choose not to support anyone on the ballot, it is still better to engage in the process.

If you do want to choose someone on your ballot, we have links to all our election coverage in today’s newsletter, so you can be as informed as possible. And if you still don’t like what you see? Go out tomorrow anyways, and write down exactly how you feel on your ballot.

– Grace

NEWS

2024 BC Election roundup

The 2024 BC Election is just one sleep away. General voting will take place on Saturday, Oct. 19 from 8am to 8pm across BC.

Where do I find tomorrow’s election results?

We will be covering the results as they come in Saturday night. With its new counting technology, Elections BC is expecting half of all ballots to be counted within half an hour. Save this email (or just head to our website) so you can follow along as the votes are counted on our results pages:

Langley | Abbotsford and Mission | Chilliwack and beyond

We will send out a newsletter Saturday night once the results are final—or as final as they are expected to get that night. We’ll have a more comprehensive story about the outcome in our Monday morning newsletter.

How do I vote?

You’ll be able to vote at any polling station in British Columbia between 8am and 8pm on Saturday, Oct. 19. If you are looking for the polling station closest to you, you can find a list of them in each of our local election hubs: Langley | Abbotsford and Mission | Chilliwack and beyond 

You can also visit Elections BC and type in your address. (The site will also tell you if a polling station is wheelchair accessible.)

When you vote, you will need to bring either one piece of government-issued photo ID that has your name and address (like a driver’s license) OR a piece of ID that has your name and another that has your name and address (like a bank statement or passport). If you don’t have any ID, you can get someone to vouch for you. A full list of acceptable ID is available on the Elections BC website.

You can find more details on how to vote in our general election hub.

Who are the candidates?

You can catch up on who is running for MLA in your riding by visiting one of our local election hubs: Langley | Abbotsford and Mission | Chilliwack and beyond

You can see how your local candidates responded to our questionnaire here: Langley | Abbotsford and Mission | Chilliwack and beyond

You can also read our story on why five BC Conservative candidates chose not to attend all-candidates meetings during the campaign period.

What do the parties want?

We wrote about what the BC NDP, BC Conservatives, and BC Greens have promised the Fraser Valley in their election platforms. Many of the pledges centre on better transit—including a new regional rail system. Others focus on healthcare, housing, and agriculture.

You can read their Fraser Valley promises here. The story also includes links to analyses of the three platforms more generally.

You can find the parties’ full platforms here: BC NDP | BC Conservatives | BC Greens

Need to Know

☔ An atmospheric river is set to hit the Fraser Valley this weekend, with 70mm of rain expected in the valley between Friday and Sunday [CBC] / By comparison, the 2021 atmospheric river dumped more than 200mm of water in one day [FVC]

💔 A Chilliwack man who went missing while driving to Clinton over Thanksgiving has been found dead; a fundraiser has been launched for his family [Chilliwack Progress]

⚖ Homeless Abbotsford residents camped in front of city hall will have to go, the courts have ruled,; the city will store people’s belongings and not take down shelters when residents are away [Abbotsford News]

🚔 Mission residents who had their home searched by RCMP are criticizing how the cops undertook the search, saying it left them confused and scared [Mission Record]

🗳 Election 2024

The BC Election is happening tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 19) from 8am to 8pm. Find everything you need to vote and see the results in our main story above.

The latest

👉 For weeks, the BC Conservatives’ hasn’t responded to many outlets’ media requests (including ours); In a reply to a tweet from Tyler on Wednesday, a candidate said the campaign’s email inbox may have been broken [Dale Parker/X]

👉 The BC NDP have promised to create a mobile mental health response team in Langley if elected [Langley Advance Times]

👉 Fraser-Nicola candidates share their views on Agassiz-Harrison issues in advance of the election [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

SPONSORED BY THE TYEE

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The Agenda

1924 Chilliwack campaign clean, despite messy provincial election

An election campaign peppered with sensational allegations. A three-party race, featuring a rising group of right-leaning candidates.

We’re not writing here about the 2024 BC election, but rather the provincial campaign that took place 100 years earlier, in the spring of 1924.

In May of 1924, the Liberals had been in power for eight years (the same as the BC NDP today), following a 13-year Conservative tenure. That year, after Liberal Premier John Oliver dissolved the legislature, he toured Abbotsford with Minister of Agriculture Edward Dodsley Barrow.

Barrow was first elected in 1916 with the Liberals in the Chilliwack riding (which covered most of the Fraser Valley). He had emigrated to Canada in the 1890s, and was a farmer in Chilliwack’s Camp River area when he was elected. He won his first campaign with nearly 56% of the popular vote, and was appointed minister of agriculture in 1918. Barrow was responsible for overseeing the draining of Sumas Lake. (You can read more about that in our award-winning feature here.)

In 1924, Barrow returned to the campaign trail. He faced off against Conservative candidate John McPhee, an Abbotsford immigration officer, and Township of Chilliwack Reeve John MacLeod, who was running for the newly established Provincial Party.

The previous year, 100 dissidents split from the Conservatives to establish their own party: the Provincial Party. MacLeod, who had been first elected by acclimation to lead Chilliwack’s council nine years earlier, was chosen to represent the fledgling party in the Chilliwack riding. MacLeod said there was “evidence of collusion” between the leaders of the other parties, and felt the province suffered as a result.

Despite mudslinging between leaders, the campaign was a clean one in Chilliwack, the Chilliwack Progress reported in its post-election coverage. Strife and “personalities” were notable only by their absence.

The final result was a close race between MacLeod and Barrow, who were both well-known and well-respected in the riding. Election day saw the largest turnout in the riding’s history, and incumbent Barrow edged out Reeve with just 83 votes. (Abbotsford’s McPhee was well supported in his hometown, but trailed behind in the rest of the district.)

After the votes were counted, Barrow emerged on the balcony of the Empress Hotel wrapped in blankets, with cheers and applause from his supporters.

The rest of the Liberals, however, were not so celebratory. Although the party secured victory with 23 seats in the 1924 election, Premier John Oliver lost in his own riding. The party garnered 31% of the provincewide vote, with the Conservatives collecting 29.5% of ballots and winning 17 seats—compared to just eight in the previous election. (The Provincial Party finished with only three seats, but 24.2% of the vote. It never ran candidates again.)

“There was a peculiar mingling of joy and grief among the frequenters of the trio of committee rooms,” the Progress reported. “A shower of rain tended to dampen any noisy enthusiasm that might have been budding, and it was a perfectly orderly and sober crowd that drifted off home between eleven and midnight—and another election was over.”

🗓 Things to do

Tina Turner: Feeling Alright and Truly Tina come together for a Tina Turner and Joe Cocker tribute concert on Saturday, Oct. 19 at the Clarke Theatre in Mission. The show begins at 7pm. Details and tickets online.

Grape stomp: Township 7's Grape Stomp takes place on Saturday, Oct. 19. Teams of six to eight people can compete to squish grapes the best, all while wearing silly costumes and enjoying tasty treats. Details and tickets online.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

That’s it!

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