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The little team that made a big difference in B.C. election

Sam Sullivan's close win proved very important to BC Liberals

Towards the end of the rollercoaster ride that was Tuesday’s provincial election, television analysts were pointing out that the riding of Vancouver-False Creek was one of the govern-or-not-govern seats for the BC Liberals.

Favourable results had been traded between incumbent Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan and NDP challenger Morgane Oger from the moment the polls closed. For a while Oger, who would have become the first transgender MLA, was in the lead but then Sullivan’s plurality crept into the triple digits.

“I looked at my team and thought, ‘This little group has made a big difference in the direction of the province,’” said Sullivan, who won the seat for the Liberals by a margin of 530 votes.

“That was too much drama,” he told a supporter as he and his campaign coterie made their way from a third-floor meeting room at the Fairmont Waterfront to the hotel’s ballroom after Christy Clark’s speech to the crowd.

“I don’t need that type of exhaustion,” he told another.

Sam Sullivan Sharon White
Sharon White, president of BC Liberals, congratulates Sam Sullivan on his win in Vancouver-False Creek - Martha Perkins

In 2013, the former Vancouver mayor and first-time candidate won the seat with a 52 per cent margin. This time around, he garnered 42.57 per cent — in this race, every decimal point counts — of the vote compared to Oger’s 40.01 per cent. The Green Party’s Bradley Darren Shende got 15.73 per cent. By the numbers, 9,332 people cast their vote for the Liberals, 8,772 voted for the NDP and 3,448 voted Green. Those are Elections BC numbers with 97 of 97 ballot boxes reported.

Sullivan said he went into the evening with two speeches prepared; one to herald victory and another to accede defeat. Both speeches were full of praise for his campaign team and the ongoing support of his partner, Lynn Zanatta.

“I’m sure Morgane and her team worked very hard,” he said of his challenger.

There were times over the evening when Kristen Blake, the co-chair of Sullivan’s campaign, worried about the outcome. But, she said, she had “a gut feeling” he’d keep the seat for the Liberals.

“Some of us never lost faith he’d win,” she said as people leaving the ballroom stopped to congratulate Sullivan. “Sam’s an amazing person to work with and the people who work with him are outstanding.”

Asked as a history buff about the possibility of a coalition government, Sullivan said it’s not out of the realm of possibility but “we’re all going to have to give a bit more time to see what happens.”

 

Courier editor-in-chief Martha Perkins spent election night at the BC Liberals' headquarters at the Fairmont Waterfront.