- Incumbent: Rick Glumac (NDP | 2017)
- Candidates:
- NDP: Rick Glumac
- Conservative: Kerry van Aswegen
- Green: Samantha Agtarap
- 2020 Results:
- NDP – 55%
- Liberal – 31%
- Green – 11%
- Conservative – 3%
- Description:
- Talk about a tale of two cities. Unlike the rest of the Tri-Cities quartet, Port Moody-Burquitlam isn’t largely homogenous, somewhat NDP-friendly suburbia. Instead, it’s rather starkly polarized by region - which is perhaps why the Conservatives smell an opening. After Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, this should be their next best pickup opportunity.
- Defending the NDP’s hold on the riding is incumbent MLA Rick Glumac. First swept into office in 2017 off of the strength of Horgan’s suburban populism, Glumac now faces arguably his toughest race yet. Challenging him is Conservative businesswoman Kelly van Aswegen and Port Moody city councillor Samantha Agtarap, for the Greens - one of their better gets this cycle.
- The New Democrats tend to do the best southwest of Ioco Road. The stretch of Port Moody running along the Millenium Line tends to be more young families and renters, which are strongly in support of the centre-left. Meanwhile, the Conservatives will be gunning for everything north of the fourway intersection near the border with Coquitlam. That area resembles Westwood Plateau and Burke Mountain with their gigantic single family homes. Even in 2020, the BC Liberals won those polls north of David Avenue by double digits, especially in Belcarra and Anmore!
- With a strong Green candidate in Agtarap, Glumac must hope to keep the southern half of his riding onside, and hope the Greens can cut into some of upper-middle class suburbia as a refuge for centrists disappointed with the New Democrats but not quite ready to vote for Rustad’s Conservatives. Van Aswegen will try and run up the score north of Ioco Road and flip back polls in Pleasantside and acquaint herself with Eagle Ridge. This should be one of the tighter battlegrounds to watch on election night.
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.
