5 B.C. election night oddities

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      Election night in B.C. could only be described as bizarre.

      Sure, it was a nail-biter. And there were no doubt cheers of joy in some quarters when cabinet ministers Peter Fassbender, Suzanne Anton, and Amrik Virk went down to defeat.

      But there was also no shortage of oddities.

      Here are my top five:

      Weaver's euphoria

      B.C. Green Leader Andrew Weaver pranced around like he had won the election even though his party took just three of 87 seats in the legislature.

      Before voting day, there was talk of the Greens winning many more seats, including Nelson-Creston (where the Greens were slaughtered) and New Westminster (where the Greens were also slaughtered).

      They didn't even gain official party status, though you would never know it from all that fist-pumping at the Greens' election-night party.

      John Horgan chose an odd time to speak to his supporters.
      Carlito Pablo

      Horgan's timing

      John Horgan decided to give his election-night speech just after Weaver had started delivering his. It momentarily created confusion with broadcasters, who had to figure out who to silence.

      Was it a deliberate, petty, and boneheaded ploy by the NDP to deny Weaver some face time on TV on election night?

      If so, it's not the best way to start a post-election relationship when the NDP will need the Greens' support if it ever hopes to form a government.

      Sam Sullivan (right) squeeked out a narrow win over the NDP's Morgane Oger.
      Travis Lupick

      Oger vs. Sullivan

      The trans woman versus the quad was one of the top-trending stories for much of the night. These articles stayed in the most-read list on Straight.com long after the ballots had been counted. And the public couldn't get enough of it on social media.

      In the end, the NDP's Morgane Oger narrowly lost to Sam Sullivan, a former mayor who spent his first term on the B.C. Liberal backbenches.

      Perhaps there will come a day when a trans woman versus a quadriplegic won't be viewed as such a curiosity in B.C. politics and will be seen as a normal course of events.

      Lorne Mayencourt wasn't always in the mood to play nice in his election-night analysis with Maria Dobrinskaya.

      Mayencourt's demeanour

      Former B.C. Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt's chippy and abrasive commentary on CTV was truly a sight to behold.

      The hosts, Mike Killeen and Tamara Taggart, appeared to be wincing by the end of the night as the bow-tied Mayencourt repeatedly baited left-leaning panelist Maria Dobrinskaya. The polls had already closed but Mayencourt couldn't resist refighting the campaign, often at the expense of offering sober analysis of what actually happened.

      Marshall McLuhan described TV as a cool medium, but that didn't dissuade Mayencourt from pitching his white-hot barbs all night.

      Clark's state of denial

      Christy Clark seemed completely at ease and didn't show a hint of distress delivering her speech, even though the results could easily lead to her political demise. That's because B.C. Liberals were slaughtered in much of the Lower Mainland, where the population is growing and the number of seats increases when constituency boundaries are redrawn.

      Her party lost on her former home turf in Port Moody, Burnaby, and Vancouver-Point Grey. The B.C. Liberals lost in Maple Ridge, Surrey, and Burnaby. One so-called star candidate, Jas Johal, nearly lost in Richmond-Queensborough against a little-known NDP opponent. Another high-profile B.C. Liberal, Steve Darling, was crushed in Burnaby-Lougheed.

      Even more oddly, Clark didn't seem to express any deep remorse over cabinet colleagues' losses. It was all so surreal.

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