- Incumbent: Susie Chant (NDP | 2020)
- Candidates:
- NDP: Susie Chant
- Conservative: Sam Chandola
- Green: Subhadarshi Tripathy
- Independent: Mitchell Baker
- 2020 Results:
- NDP – 47%
- Liberal – 35%
- Green – 16%
- Description:
- Comprising the eastern half of the District of North Vancouver, North Vancouver-Seymour is one of Metro Vancouver’s most leafy and picturesque ridings, with a median household income of $124,000 in the 2020 Census. Simply put, this is not what you would exactly consider a natural NDP seat.
- Incumbent MLA Susie Chant is fighting to prove that the riding isn’t a one-term rental. To do that, she’ll have to hold onto voters along Lynn Valley Road in the centre of that community while not neglecting other communities across the riding like Deep Cove or Dollarton.
- Conservative challenger Sam Chandola will be hoping that his party’s rougher, more populist edge doesn’t scare away federal Liberal voters. His path to victory lies through simply reunifying the traditional free enterprise coalition in the riding, which, given its high property values, shouldn’t be that hard a task. To start with, he’ll want to look at Upper Lonsdale - a region where the BC Liberals won even in their 2020 loss.
- Particularly of interest in this riding will be where the Green vote goes. In 2020, they only lost 2% while the NDP skyrocketed up a good 13% - almost all off former BC Liberal voters. In a contest as polarized as this, you could see some Green-leaning progressives hold their nose at the ballot box and vote for the NDP in order to keep the Conservatives out.
- Most important of all are the leanings of the federal Liberals, who got just over 40% in 2021. While some will have switched over to the Conservatives, there will still be many who feel orphaned by the collapse of BC United. Whether they get pulled towards the NDP, pushed towards the Conservatives, or just stay home entirely will determine the results in this riding.
Hugh Chan is a second year student at UBC studying International Relations and Data Science. You can find more coverage of the 2024 BC election as well as politics across East Asia and the Anglosphere at https://x.com/shxnhugh.
