1878 British Columbia general election


The 1878 British Columbia general election was held in 1878.

Political context

Non-party system

There were to be no political parties in the new province. The designations "Government" and "Opposition" and "Independent" functioned in place of parties, but they were very loose and do not represent formal coalitions, more alignments of support during the campaign. "Government" meant in support of the current Premier; "Opposition" meant campaigning against him, and often enough the Opposition would win and immediately become the Government. The Elections British Columbia notes for this election describe the designations as ''"Government candidates supported the administration of G.A.B. Walkem. Those opposed ran as Reform, Opposition, Independent Reform, or Independent Opposition candidates. Those who ran as straight Independents were sometimes described as Government supporters.''

The Walkem Government

See Notes on the previous election.

Byelections not shown

Any changes due to byelections are shown below the main table showing the theoretical composition of the House after the election. A final table showing the composition of the House at the dissolution of the Legislature at the end of this Parliament can be found below the byelections. The main table represents the immediate results of the election only, not changes in governing coalitions or eventual changes due to byelections.

List of ridings

The original ridings had remained twelve in number, electing 25 members of the first provincial legislature from 12 ridings, some with multiple members. There were no political parties were not acceptable in the House by convention, though some members were openly partisan at the federal level.
These ridings were:

Statistics

  • Votes 6,377
  • Candidates 46
  • Members 25
Vancouver Island 3,714 votes, twelve seats 309.5 votes/seat
  • Upper Island 695 votes, four seats
  • *Comox: 52 votes
  • *Cowichan: 292 votes
  • *Nanaimo: 351 votes
  • "Greater Victoria" 3,019 votes, eight seats :
  • *Victoria: 309 votes
  • *Victoria City: 2,523
  • *Esquimalt: 187
Mainland 2,271 votes 11 seats 206.45 votes/seat :
  • Interior 1,817 eight seats, 227.125 votes/seat :
  • *Cariboo: 788 votes
  • *Kootenay: unknown
  • *Lillooet: 241 votes
  • *Yale: 788 votes
  • Lower Mainland 454 votes
  • *New Westminster City: 145 votes
Note that these figures refer to votes actually cast, not the population per se nor the total of the potential voters' list.

Polling conditions

Property requirements for voting instigated for the 1875 election were dropped. Natives and Chinese were disallowed from voting, although naturalized Kanakas and American and West Indian blacks and certain others participated. The requirement that knowledge of English be spoken for balloting was discussed but not applied.

Byelections

As customary, byelections were held to confirm the appointment of various members to the Executive Council. In this Parliament, all three such byelections were won by acclamation:
Walkem's byelection acclamation confirmed him as Premier; Executive Council appointments were decided and made by the Lieutenant-Governor in this period, not by the Premier directly, but by the L-G in Consultation with the Premier. The Premier's position itself was technically an appointment, as there were no political parties nor leaders, other than unofficial ones for each faction in the House to whom the Lieutenant-Governor would turn if their known caucus was sufficient to form a government.
Other byelections were held on the occasion of death, ill health, retirement and/or resignation for other reasons. These were won by:

Composition of House at dissolution

''Note: Government/Opposition status applies to candidate at time of election in 1878, not at time of dissolution in 1882.''