- Incumbent: Henry Yao (NDP | 2020)
- Candidates:
- NDP: Henry Yao
- Conservative: Hon Chan
- Independent: Wendy Yuan
- Independent: Dickens Cheung
- Independent: Sunny Ho
- 2020 Results:
- NDP – 52%
- Liberal – 46%
- Green – 2%
- Description
- Decided by less than 200 votes in 2020, Richmond South Centre has been renamed and redistributed, marginally to the benefit of the NDP. While the riding is composed of a relatively homogenous downtown core, there exist some more left-wing polls north of Granville Avenue, where the NDP does better, likely thanks to the higher than average concentration of Filipino voters there who usually lean towards the party.
- What makes this riding interesting are the dynamics at play between the candidates. The Conservatives nominated Hon Chan, a well-known news anchor at Fairchild TV, causing spurned nomination contestant Dickens Cheung to run as an Independent.
- He isn’t the only independent there either. Wendy Yuan, local businesswoman and aide to Christy Clark, was the former BC United candidate for the riding until Falcon folded his party. When her political ally Teresa Wat defected to the Conservatives, Yuan tried to follow suit, only to be blocked by Wat’s anointment of Hon Chan.
- Yuan has a legendary history of party switching, first running as a Liberal in Kingsway to succeed turncoat MP David Emerson, then trying for the nomination in Steveston-Richmond East first in 2015 for the Liberals, then in 2019 for the Conservatives. She hopes to find more luck as an independent - and with the endorsement of former Richmond Centre MLA and Mayor Greg Halsey-Brandt, along with the 9,000 doors she claims to have knocked, she may be fourth time lucky.
- Incumbent NDP MLA Henry Yao would be an underdog if in a one-on-one against the Conservatives, but the chaos among the candidates here, combined with the Greens’ failure to launch, could be just enough for him to squeak back in.
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.
