He did the best of any Green Party candidate in B.C. - but West Vancouver-Garibaldi Green Party candidate Dennis Perry said he is disappointed that the Greens weren't able to build on the 2001 provincial election results.
"I thought that I was going to be much closer than I was. I thought I had a real opportunity," said Perry, the party's deputy leader.
Perry polled the highest number of votes of any Green candidate in B.C. - 5,778 according to the initial count - and was the only Green to place second in his riding, with 26.46 per cent of the vote - an increase of nine per cent over the Greens' result in 2001, when Peter Tatroff placed a distant second to incumbent Liberal Ted Nebbeling.
But it wasn't nearly enough to beat new Liberal candidate Joan McIntyre, who polled 11,090 votes (50.78 per cent), and wasn't far ahead of NDP candidate Lyle Fenton, with 4,536 votes (20.77 per cent).
The riding was seen by many pundits as one of two possible areas for a Green breakthrough in the election, along with party leader Adriane Carr in Powell River-Sunshine Coast. A poll published in March indicated high dissatisfaction with both the Liberals and the NDP, particularly in the Sea to Sky corridor, and indicated that the government's choice of an overland route for Hwy. 99 at Horseshoe Bay might swing West Vancouver voters to Perry, who was president of the Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs before seeking the party's candidacy.
Perry's best results were in Whistler, where he won eight polls and tied one with Liberal Joan McIntyre, who won the other 14 polls.
But he was much less successful in Squamish, where Fenton won 26 of 31 polls, with McIntyre winning four and the Liberal and NDP tying in one poll in the Garibaldi Highlands.
Perry attributes the Greens' inability to beat McIntyre to "fear factors".
"The Liberal supporters were very concerned that the NDP had an opportunity to take over government and a big concern over any ability they might have to manage the economy. And of course the NDP fear that the Liberals were going to dominate once again to detriment of the environment and society," he said. "So it's that fear that just squeezed us."
He added that a Single Transferable Vote system would have assured him a seat in the legislature, and said the approval rating for STV should push it forward even though it fell just short of the provincially-mandated 60 per cent support needed to assure reform.
"Greens in the legislature would certainly bring a different focus, a focus on issues, a balance, all these new alternatives and different solutions," said Perry. "I think everybody acknowledges that it would be great to have Greens in the legislature."
Perry plans to continue to support the municipality of West Vancouver with its fight to save Eagleridge Bluffs by pushing for a tunnel rather than an overland route to Horseshoe Bay.
In the meantime he says he will support newly elected Liberal MLA Joan McIntyre.
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