It was a disappointing night for incumbent B.C. Liberal candidates Doug Bing and Marc Dalton.
The pair lost their seats to the NDP in closely fought races in both local ridings.
Dalton is waiting for the official tally to be completed in his riding, Maple Ridge-Mission.
There are only 120 votes separating himself and the NDP’s Bob D’Eith, which Dalton said makes his riding still “too close to call at this point.”
At the end of the night on Tuesday, D’Eith had claimed victory with 9,843 votes to Dalton’s 9,723.
But Dalton remembers the 2009 election, when his tally dropped 128 votes from the initial count once the absentee vote was calculated. And, he said, there are still about 1,500 votes to come in.
“It could still swing. I’m hopeful with that,” he said.
In the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows riding NDP candidate Lisa Beare received 10,992 to take the seat away from Bing, who got 9,652 votes.
“Personally, I am disappointed. But I was pleased to see that the Liberals squeaked through with a victory,” Bing said of his party forming a minority government.
Bing was initially worried that the NDP was going to get a majority government.
But now he says the two parties will have to work together and be more cooperative in the house.
“I think that’s a good thing for the public.”
Bing said while door-knocking he heard that constituents were happy with the work he was doing, but unhappy with Premier Christy Clark.
“I think might have been the decisive factor in our particular riding,” he said, adding that he got a lot of questions about the housing situation.
“They hadn’t heard about the citizens advisory committee plan. And when I would explain it to them they thought that was a good thing,” said Bing.
“I think that that’s the direction that we should certainly continue even after I’m gone,” he said.
He also thinks that the publicity the new homeless camp that opened up on St. Anne Avenue received had a negative impact on the government.
“That’s why I think that if the people had understood what the advisory committee was recommending they would see that we were making progress on it,” said Bing.
Bing was offended on what he says were personal attacks on Christy Clark by the NDP.
“One of things that offended me the most was saying that under our watch that there had been all these deaths of children under government care,” he said.
“You know it’s just something that happens. You are dealing with very vulnerable children and they are obviously, that’s why they are in care,” said Bing.
Dalton also found that most criticism was pointed towards Christy Clark.
“I find that unfortunate,” Dalton said.
“That is a strategy of modern politics, to really focus and to denigrate the leader of a party,” he said.
But from his perspective Clark has done a great job.
“I found her to be very attentive to myself as an MLA when I bring forward issues from the community and that has meant I had a voice and the community had a voice,” he said.
Both candidates are planning to take a breather and are looking forward to spending more time with their spouses.
Neither will rule out another political run in the future.
“I just need a little time to think about it, it’s only been less than a day,” said Bing.