British Columbia general election, 1996

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The British Columbia general election of 1996 was the thirty sixth provincial election in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. It was held to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. The election was called on April 30, 1996, and held on May 28, 1996.

New Democratic Party leader and provincial premier Mike Harcourt had resigned as the result of a fundraising scandal involving one of the members of his caucus. Glen Clark was chosen by the party to replace Harcourt. Clark led the party to a second majority government, defeating the Liberal Party of Gordon Campbell. Campbell had become leader of the Liberal Party after Gordon Wilson had been forced out of the position because of his relationship with another Liberal member of the legislature, Judi Tyabji. Campbell is believed to have lost the election because of a promise to privatize BC Rail.

After Wilson was defeated by Campbell in the convention to chose a new leader, he and Tyabji left the Liberal Party to establish the Progressive Democratic Alliance. Wilson was able to win re-election, but Tyabji was not, going down to defeat with all of the other candidates fielded by the new party.

Reform BC, a splinter group from the once-dominant Social Credit Party, won two seats.

Although the Liberal Party won a larger share of the popular vote, the NDP won a majority of the seats in the Legislature. The result of this election helped convince the Liberal Party to become a major advocate for electoral reform.

[edit] Results

Party		Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote
Party		Party leader	# of candidates	1991	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change
	New Democrats	Glen Clark	75	51	39	-23.53%	624,395	39.45%	-1.26%
	Liberal	Gordon Campbell	75	17	33	+94.12%	661,929	41.82%	+8.58%
	Reform	Jack Weisgerber	75	-	2		146,734	9.27%	+9.09%
	Progressive Democratic	Gordon Wilson	66	*	1	*	90,797	5.74%	*
	Green	Stuart Parker	71	-	-	-	31,511	1.99%	+1.13%
	Independent/No affiliation		23	-	-	-	10,067	0.64%	-0.07%
	Social Credit	Larry Gillanders	38	7	-	-100%	6,276	0.40%	-23.65%
	Family Coalition		14	-	-	-	4,150	0.26%	+0.17%
	Natural Law		38	*	-	*	2,919	0.18%	*
	Libertarian		17	-	-	-	2,041	0.13%	+0.07%
	Conservative		8	-	-	-	1,002	0.06%	+0.03%
	Western Canada Concept	Doug Christie	5	-	-	-	374	0.02%	-0.02%
	Common Sense, Community, Family		5	*	-	*	291	0.02%	*
	Communist		3	-	-	-	218	0.01%	+0.01%
Total			513	75	75	-	1,582,704	100%
Source: Elections BC