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Editorial: All of a sudden, the 2020 B.C. election is picking up speed

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NDP Leader John Horgan is silhouetted while speaking during a campaign stop in Vancouver. At the end of a recent virtual town hall meeting where about a dozen people asked questions about British Columbia's Oct. 24 election, Horgan said he was enjoying campaigning online. (via The Canadian Press)

For the first weeks of this 2020 provincial election campaign, it was hard to get anyone excited about the prospect of a vote. The promises were milquetoast. Everyone was far too concerned with coping through a pandemic to parse policies.

But, with less than two weeks to go and major decisions on the line about childcare, the future of ICBC, taxes and transit funding, things are starting to look less like a power grab and more like a contest of ideas, which is what elections should be.

As of Monday, more than 680,000 voters in B.C. had requested mail-in ballots.

And now, we have the first major scandal of the election, courtesy of a North Vancouver Liberal MLA who attempted to “roast” the retiring Ralph Sultan and ended up burning the entire party with accusations of systemic sexism.

Add it all up, and suddenly this is all starting to seem very real. We know everyone has a lot on their plate right now, but Oct. 24 is fast approaching and we want everyone to cast their vote having done their level best to get to know their candidates.

While there won’t be packed churches for all-candidates meetings, and door-knocking has rightly been ruled out, there are other options. On our website at nsnews.com, we have added a new BC Votes 2020 tab, where we have compiled dozens of election-related stories. In our next edition, we will publish our always-popular issues-based candidate questionnaires and riding profiles.

With so many ballots coming by mail, it’s anyone’s guess whether there will be final results on election night, but as soon as we know, you’ll know.

And remember: Pandemic or not, elections have consequences.