By The Canadian Press on October 27, 2024.

BC Conservative Leader John Rustad, left, and BC NDP Leader David Eby, right, are seen in this two-photo panel during campaign stops in Chilliwack and Vancouver , in British Columbia, Thursday October 17, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns, Darryl Dyck

VICTORIA – The outcome of British Columbia’s election will be known Monday when mail-in ballots are counted after the tally of mail-in votes failed to resolve a handful of undecided races.

The counting of late mail-ins continues province-wide, but the counting of these votes has been completed in the tightest races without any change in party standings.

Prospects for an NDP government grew Saturday after the party widened its lead in some tight races through mail-in voting and narrowed the BC Conservatives’ margins in others.

The province’s closest undecided riding is Surrey-Guildford, where the NDP has cut the Conservatives’ lead to 12 votes.

With about 226 absentee and special votes still to be counted, Surrey-Guildford could provide David Eby’s NDP with the narrowest majority if the lead reverses on Monday.

Elections BC says the count of more than 22,000 absentee and special votes will be updated hourly on its website starting at 9 a.m. Monday.

The NDP is elected or in the lead with 46 seats and John Rustad’s Conservatives with 45 seats, both short of a 47-seat majority, while the Greens could hold the balance of power with two seats.

Recounts are also underway in two ridings where the New Democrats held a slight lead after the initial count of the still-undecided vote on October 19.

Elections BC says the results of the recounts in Juan de Fuca-Malahat on Vancouver Island and in downtown Surrey, which began at 1 p.m. Sunday, will be posted online when they are completed.

Surrey’s result was expected on Sunday, with Juan de Fuca-Malahat’s due on Monday.

The recounts were triggered because the margins of victory after the initial count were less than 100 votes. The counting of mail-in ballots Saturday widened the NDP’s lead in Juan de Fuca-Malahat to 106 votes, while the party now leads by 178 in downtown Surrey.

The provincewide counting of absentee ballots was scheduled to end Sunday.

Meanwhile, Chief Clarence Louie, tribal chairman of the Syilx Okanagan Nation, released a statement on Sunday calling for the removal of BC Conservative candidate Juan de Fuca-Malahat from the party due to comments about Indigenous people.

On Friday, the Vancouver Sun published a recording in which a person identified as Marina Sapozhnikov refers to First Nations people as “savages.” The newspaper says the comments were made during an election night conversation with a journalism student.

Louie called the reported comments “abhorrent and racist.”

“These ignorant and hateful comments, which constitute a form of hate speech, have no place in our society. We are calling on British Columbia Conservative Leader John Rustad to immediately take a clear and strong stand against hatred and racism by removing her from his political party,” Louie said.

Rustad issued a statement saying he was “dismayed and deeply saddened” by the comments and that the party “takes this matter seriously.”

Although the makeup of the 93 legislative districts could finally become clear on Monday, judicial recounts could still take place afterward if the margin in a district is less than 1/500th of all votes cast.

In another tight race that will be decided by mail-in ballot, the Conservatives hold a 72-vote lead in Kelowna Centre, where there are about 228 votes left to count.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 27, 2024.

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