Federal election results show an urban-rural divide in B.C. Here's why some political scientists are worried
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Hamish Telford, a political scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley, said some generalizations can be made.
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Rural voters tend to be 'older and whiter,' while those in urban areas are more cosmopolitan and have more education, he said. Rural voters 'might feel like they're losing their place in the country. Or when they go to the city, they might feel out of place. They want to hold on to a version of Canada that they understand.'
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Telford said economic differences play a role, with people in agriculture and resource industries feeling 'under attack' by environmentalists who live in cities, where more people are employed in public sector or retail jobs.
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Lucas said people in cities have different and often greater needs than those in rural areas, giving the example or transit and highway networks. As a consequence, urban voters may be more pro-spending.
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But Lucas, an expert on Canada's urban-rural divide, also hesitated to draw a hard line between urban and rural B.C. There are different types of urban areas, including urban suburbs and more distant suburbs, while there are also different types of rural areas, like agriculture-based regions, remote Indigenous communities and towns built around a mill or mine. Voter concerns and identity in different places are not always neatly contained by definitions.
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Why are some political scientists worried?
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In some ways, the divide is just an extension of the normal disagreements that characterize politics, said Lucas. People have competing preference and priorities and some of that is manifest in where they live.
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'What is concerning is that we have a geographically based system of representation at both the federal and provincial level,' he said. 'The worry is that a government will end up with a caucus that doesn't represent the place diversity of Canada.'
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Lucas said he fears it is getting 'harder and harder' for the Liberals to get rural representation in cabinet. The same might be true for a Conservative government trying to gain meaningful urban representation.
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When government only cares about the concerns of people who vote for them, it can lead to bigger problems, said Prince.
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In the recent federal election, the collapse of the NDP — from 13 seats to three — reinforced the urban-rural divide in B.C. In the same way, the fall of B.C. United led to a two-party contest and stronger regional divisions in the last provincial election.
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Part of that is a result of the first-past-the-post electoral system, which steers democracies toward a two-party system, said Telford. He believes the federal NDP has a 'long road back' and may struggle to win back rural ridings in the Interior and on Vancouver Island, where many blue-collar workers now lean toward the Conservatives.
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'The NDP used to transcend the urban-rural divide,' said Johnston. That may not be the case anymore, as support in mill towns has declined with the workforce and the union movement has become more 'university educated, public sector.'
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Johnston said he wouldn't rule out the return of the federal NDP, particularly as the provincial brand remains strong. 'But they won't come back in Smithers, they'll come back in Coquitlam.'
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Vancouver Sun
3 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
Exclusive: B.C. public sector jobs have more than doubled under the NDP
The number of B.C. public-sector employees in health care, schools and government ministries who make at least $75,000 a year has more than doubled since the NDP was elected in 2017, data collected by Postmedia reveals. In the time since the NDP took power, the total number of taxpayer-funded positions in health authorities, K-12 schools and the core of government have leapt to 104,600, from 49,400. And the amount of money spent annually on salaries for those government workers has jumped from just under $5 billion to more than $11.5 billion in that time, according to the 12th edition of The Vancouver Sun's searchable public sector salaries database. ( You can search the database HERE .) Stay on top of the latest real estate news and home design trends. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Westcoast Homes will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. British Columbians may scratch their heads when learning that the number of workers paid at least $75,000 from the public purse has doubled — especially if their local emergency department has recently closed due to a lack of nurses or doctors, or if their grandmother's retirement home doesn't have enough care aides, or if there isn't a teacher for their child's classroom. Union leaders maintain their members in hospitals, schools and community services represent only part of this growth of government workers. They argue the biggest expansion has been in non-union staff and management roles, which they say increased disproportionately compared to workers on the ground. 'We've had this explosive growth in (non-union) management, and that hasn't resulted in a more efficient organization,' Paul Finch, president of the B.C. General Employees' Union, said of the public service. 'That should never have been allowed to happen.' The Finance Ministry, in a statement to Postmedia, said public sector salaries have risen an average of 23 per cent since 2017 through collective bargaining and that the government has launched efforts to hire more in-demand professionals such as nurses and teachers. It said three-quarters of the public sector is unionized, but did not address the unions' concerns that the overall percentage of non-unionized employees increased at a faster pace than the percentage of front-line workers in recent years. Postmedia's database contains the names and wages of nearly 170,000 workers who made at least $75,000 in 2023-2024 at approximately 100 public sector agencies, including the provincial government, city halls, universities and colleges, school districts, health authorities, Crown corporations, municipal police departments, and other agencies that use taxpayers' money to fund their payrolls. 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Finch said those are not all new hires, but include existing staff pushed above $75,000 under collective agreement pay raises. The health sector also had significant growth in our database, with the number of provincial employees making at least $75,000 increasing by 122 per cent since 2017. B.C. Nurses' Union President Adriane Gear said she'd like the government to assess the number of managers versus front-line workers during the health sector expansion. During that period, BCNU membership grew by just 16 per cent, from 43,000 in 2017 to 50,000 in 2025. 'There have been nurses hired in this province, but has it kept up with the needs of British Columbians? No. Nurses continue to work extremely short-staffed, which means below safe levels of nurses to patients,' she said. Statistics Canada estimates B.C. has 5,600 vacancies for different types of nurses. Gear stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the premier in September, when the province announced improved nurse-to-patient ratios, in an effort to attract more nurses to B.C. But, she said, the details are still being worked out. 'I'm very frustrated. … We still don't have that deal inked yet,' Gear said. 'I'm puzzled how that doesn't seem to be one of the very top priorities.' The Hospital Employees Union maintains there is also a desperate need to hire more of their members, especially care aides who are in high demand in care homes and hospitals as the population ages. 'More than 50 per cent of our members are working short (staffed) at least one day and sometimes twice a week. And so this is a really big part of the problem,' said Lynn Bueckert, the HEU's secretary-business manager. 'Retention and recruitment are such big issues in the health-care system. Period.' HEU members, including lab assistants, cleaners, and staff who deliver meals, play vital roles for patients in hospitals. But they are unlikely to be represented in the database's 122 per cent growth in health workers making at least $75,000, because 'the vast majority' of those jobs don't pay that much, Bueckert said. The membership of the HEU expanded from 49,000 members in 2017 to nearly 68,000 in 2025, an increase of 39 per cent. Some of that growth was due to recruiting care home staff to join the union, said Bueckert. The third sector analyzed for this story, K-12 education, had a 70 per cent surge in staff making more than $75,000 since 2017. During that time, though, the B.C. Teachers Federation said its membership numbers rose from 46,200 to 52,600 — a 14 per cent bump. BCTF president Clint Johnston said he doesn't know the source of the growth in school district numbers. Government is making efforts to hire more teachers, but there is still a serious shortage. 'How many teachers we need versus how many teachers we actually have? That gap is growing every year,' he said. 'You can verifiably see it by the number of uncertified teachers who are being used in the province.' Postmedia's database shows twice as many teachers making at least $75,000 compared to our 2017 version, but Johnston said the number of instructors hasn't risen by that much. The increase could be due to wage enhancements pushing some teachers above the $75,000 threshold, as well as more veteran teachers at the top of the salary grid postponing retirement. BCTF members have raised anecdotal concerns about a hike in non-classroom staff, such as district learning coordinators or assistant superintendents, who would typically fall into the $75,000-plus salary bracket, Johnston said. 'That is absolutely an issue that they frequently talk about, the disproportionate growth in district staff who aren't in a classroom teaching, directly supporting kids,' he said. B.C. is short more than 900 teachers and nearly 600 education assistants and other support staff, positions that are advertised on the government's education-related jobs page . Johnston said the provincial education budget is large but does not keep pace with demand, which has forced school districts to cancel special programs like band and to find alternative revenue for inclusive education programs. Interviews with Finance Minister Brenda Bailey, Health Minister Josie Osborne and Education Minister Lisa Beare were requested for this story. They all declined. In written answers to our questions about the 135 per cent increase in government ministry workers, the B.C. Public Service Agency said ministry workers have an average salary today of $67,819. In 2017, the agency said, public service workers, on average, made less than health and school employees, which may explain why ministry workers earning more than $75,000 today have grown at a disproportionately faster rate. 'Those other data sets may already have had a higher percentage over $75,000, which would reflect in (health and education's) lower growth rates over the term,' the agency said in a statement. The Public Sector Employers' Council said ministries have fewer workers than in health care and K-12 education, which means the hiring of a few new staff can boost the percentage of sector employees more quickly. While the B.C. Public Service Agency and Public Sector Employers' Council minimized the apparent surge of workers in ministries and service agencies making more than $75,000, the government's own budget documents chronicle the growth of ministry employees across all salary ranges. Budget documents show full-time-equivalent staff in ministries and service agencies grew significantly over eight years, to 48,386 in 2025-26 from 32,865 in 2017-18 . This includes all ministry workers, regardless of their salaries, and the total money spent on wages for this group grew by 63 per cent over those eight years. The Public Sector Employers' Council acknowledged there are still shortages of key workers in other sectors, including health and education. The government has launched initiatives such as a K-12 recruitment and retention drive to find more teachers, the statement said. 'In health care, many efforts have been initiated to make recruitment easier from out-of-province and international health workers, including a new, fast-tracked credential recognition for U.S. trained and certified nurses last month,' the council said in a statement. The council noted there are three unionized workers for every non-unionized employee, but didn't answer questions about that ratio previously being four-to-one. Of the 600,000 people employed by the province, 44 per cent work in health but, on average, have higher wages that account for 52 per cent of money spent on salaries; 17 per cent work in K-12 education but their lower-than-average salaries mean they take up just 15 per cent of the salary budget; and the eight per cent working in ministries collect nine per cent of the money spent on salaries, according to government figures. The Health Ministry, in an email, said the database's 122 per cent growth in health staff is largely attributable to collective agreements pushing some workers' salaries above $75,000 as well as the hiring of more in-demand staff 'to keep pace with an increasing population and corresponding demand for services.' It said the Provincial Health Services Authority, for example, has hired more paramedics, cancer specialists, and Indigenous health leaders. When asked about union allegations that the percentage of non-unionized staff has grown at a faster pace than that of front-line workers, the ministry said these 'non-contract positions' represent more than managers. They also include people who support quality improvements in labs or medical imaging, nurse practitioners and associate physicians, and human resources staff to help with recruiting health workers. The ministry said it has committed to new nurse-to-patient ratios and is fast-tracking credentials for nurses from places such as the U.S. and Australia in an effort to expand their ranks. The number of nurses in B.C. has grown by 27 per cent since 2018, based on statistics from the nurses' regulatory body, the email said. It is not clear why that number is different than the BCNU's 16 per cent increase since 2017. In addition to trying to hire more nurses, the ministry said a program to recruit additional workers for care homes has filled 10,000 positions since 2020. The ministry defended its hiring practices. It said the Canadian Institute of Health Information found B.C.'s ratio of spending on finance and human resources, compared to on front-line health workers, was the second best in Canada. The Education Ministry did not answer Postmedia's question about the database's finding of a 70 per cent growth in staff in K to 12, or explain what types of jobs had expanded the most. It referred all queries to the B.C. Public School Employers' Association, but later provided this statement. When asked about BCTF allegations of a disproportionate increase of non-union and management staff compared to teachers and others in classrooms, the ministry responded that those decisions are up to school districts. 'Decisions about hiring are made at the local level for what makes sense in their community.' The statement acknowledged, though, that 'one of the biggest challenges the K-12 sector faces is hiring enough qualified teaching and support staff,' a problem that exists across Canada. B.C. is trying to hire more teachers by reducing barriers for internationally trained educators to work here, by offering hiring incentives of $500,000 for people to work in rural and remote communities, by increasing flexibility in teacher training programs to allow students to remain in their community to study, and by working with Indigenous groups to recruit more Indigenous teachers, the ministry said. Premier David Eby campaigned last year on every K-3 class having an education assistant. The ministry says 75 per cent of those classrooms have an EA, and it is exploring 'ways to support hiring more.' In our database, remuneration includes salary, overtime, bonuses and other one-time payouts or benefits, such as unused vacation time. It does not include expenses. The figures come from publicly available compensation disclosure reports and freedom of information requests. Some of the names and positions in the database may be out of date if someone has retired or moved jobs, but it provides a recent snapshot in time of public sector payrolls in B.C. lculbert@ ngriffiths@
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
British government reverses policy that limited home heating subsidies for retirees
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