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B.C. Premier David David EbyCBC Vancouver / YouTube

VICTORIA, British Columbia (LifeSiteNews) –– After a week of recounts which included the discovery of extra ballots, the reigning leftist New Democratic Party (NDP) of British Columbia flipped one Conservative seat to its favor by a mere handful of votes to claim a majority government. 

Elections B.C.’s final results from the first round of recounts shows the NDP taking the needed 47 seats to form a majority, to the Conservatives who won 44 seats. The Green Party won 2 seats.  

In one riding, Surrey-Guildford, the NDP won by a mere 18 votes, having flipped the seat from the Conservatives from the initial vote count.  

Yesterday, the province’s Lt Governor Janet Austin asked B.C. premier David Eby of the NDP to form a government.  

The newly rejuvenated Conservative Party’s provincial leader John Rustad said he “accepted” the results of the recounts, and that he is “ready to begin the important work of leading BC’s Official Opposition.” 

Eby’s NDP and Rustad’s Conservatives came out of last week’s election in a virtual tie. As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, election officials in the province announced there were some 65,000 ballots yet to be counted, up from 45,000 following the election held on October 19. 

Despite Monday’s recount results, under B.C. election law, there will be automatic judicial recounts in some ridings as the margin of votes is less than one-fifth of one percent of the total votes cast.  

The recounts will be overseen by provincial Supreme Court justices and will occur within the next two weeks. 

According to Elections B.C., the results from Kelowna Centre and Surrey-Guildford will be subject to automatic recounts, and the applications to do so must be made by November 4. 

Should the recounts result in changes to the seat count in favor of the Conservatives, it would mean that for the NDP to stay in power it would need to garner the support from the Green Party.  

Rustad won his seat easily, beating out his NDP rival with 68 percent of the vote. His win was the first time since 1978 that a Conservative has won a seat in the B.C. legislature.   

It hasn’t been since 1991, the last year B.C. was ruled by the Social Credit Party under pro-life Premier Bill Vander Zalm, that the province has been under the control of parties other than the NDP or Liberals.   

B.C.’s Conservative Party shot up in popularity after the former Liberal Party of the province, under its new name B.C. United, lagged in the polls. Then B.C. United decided shortly before the election to pull all its candidates and throw its support behind the Conservatives.   

Rustad, a former Liberal MLA, also gained popularity for promising to restore order and oppose the woke policies popularized under the NDP.   

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Rustad, just days before the election, condemned sexually explicit material in school libraries and indicated that he would remove them if elected.   

Rustad has also come out in opposition to the use of often-sterilizing puberty blockers for gender-confused children and has condemned SOGI 123, a nationwide program pushing LGBT ideology in schools under the label of “inclusivity.”   

At the same time, Rustad has an upsetting record for conservatives when it comes to important life and family issues, garnering an “F” rating by Campaign Life Coalition over his support for abortion and the continued public funding of the deadly practice. 

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