Ballot count underway across the country as federal election polls close in B.C.

Sep 20, 2021 | 7:15 PM

VANCOUVER — Polls have closed in British Columbia and Yukon, marking the end of voting across the country.

Yukon’s chief medical health officer Dr. Brendan Hanley is on leave to run for the Liberals to replace Larry Bagnell, who spent two decades as the territory’s Liberal MP.

While many ridings in B.C. have remained consistently New Democrat or Conservative in the North, the Interior and on Vancouver Island, results in about a dozen ridings are in question — many of them in Metro Vancouver.

The embattled federal Green Party will be tested at the local level as MP Paul Manly tries to hold onto his seat in Nanaimo-Ladysmith.

And nothing is guaranteed in swing ridings such as Port Moody-Coquitlam and Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam, where seats were won by 153 votes and just under 400 respectively in the last election.

When Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau called the election, the standings in B.C. were at 17 Conservatives, 11 Liberals, 11 New Democrats, two Greens and one Independent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2021.

The Canadian Press