By Daniel Francis, editorial director, Encyclopedia of British Columbia

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During the weeks leading up to the federal election of October 14, many observers speculated that British Columbia voters would play a pivotal role in either confirming or denying a majority government for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives. By the time the polls closed on election night, however, it was already clear that Harper had been denied the big victory he had been looking for and was going to have to be content with another minority.

Still, the electoral results from BC's thirty-six ridings were interesting for several reasons. Here they are, compared to the results from the previous federal election in 2006:

	2008	2006
Conservatives	22	17
Liberals	5	9
New Democrats	9	10
Green	0	0

The increase in support for the Conservatives was reflected in the popular vote as well. Here are those figures:

	2008	2006
Conservatives	44.4%	37.3%
Liberals	19.3%	27.6%
New Democrats	26.1%	28.5%
Green	9.4%	5.3%

Some interesting things to note about the results:

• while it did not elect any Members of Parliament, the Green Party received a higher percentage of the popular vote in BC than in any other province.
• the Conservative popular vote in BC was almost seven percent higher than the party's popular vote nationally (37.6%), the Liberal popular vote almost seven percent lower.
• sixty-one percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in BC, slightly more than the fifty-nine percent national rate. BC had the highest voter turnout of any province west of Quebec, though nationally overall voter turnout was the lowest in history.
• only PEI and Manitoba had a higher percentage of female candidates in the election than BC where 30.6% of the candidates were women. Eleven women won election to Parliament from BC, meaning that 30% of BC seats are held by women. Nationally, 22% of winning candidates were women.

• Former premier Ujjal Dosanjh.

  after two recounts, former premier Ujjal Dosanjh held on to his Vancouver South seat for the Liberals by 20 votes. Surprisingly, that was not the closest race in the election; a Conservative candidate in Ontario won by 17 votes.