Richmond North Centre

Richmond North Centre was a newly created riding in the 2015 redistribution, carved from parts of the former Richmond Centre and Richmond East districts. It was first contested in the 2017 election. The riding had the highest proportion of Chinese-language speakers of any electoral district in British Columbia, reflecting Richmond's large and established Chinese-Canadian community. Teresa Wat, who had represented the predecessor riding of Richmond Centre since 2013, ran in the new district and was widely favoured to hold it for the BC Liberals, who had historically dominated all of Richmond's provincial seats.

Candidates

Teresa Wat (BC Liberal Party) — Wat grew up in Hong Kong and immigrated to Canada in 1989. She built a career in journalism and media, serving as News Director at Channel M Television (later OMNI TV), where she helped launch the first live Cantonese, Mandarin, and Punjabi daily news programs in British Columbia. She also served as News Editor for Ming Pao Daily News and as President and CEO of Mainstream Broadcasting Corporation, a multicultural broadcasting station. Elected in 2013, she was appointed Minister of International Trade and Minister Responsible for the Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism, a portfolio she held through the 2017 campaign.

Lyren Chiu (BC NDP) — Chiu was a nursing instructor at Langara College and the founder and executive director of the Canadian Research Institute of Spirituality and Healing. She had emigrated from Taiwan in 1999. Her campaign priorities included improving health care and eliminating MSP premiums.

Ryan Kemp Marciniw (BC Green Party) — Marciniw was an accounts representative with Yellow Pages Group and a former casino pit boss who had led a successful unionization effort at his workplace.

Dong Pan ran as an Independent and John Crocock for the BC Action Party, both receiving minimal support.

Local Issues

Housing affordability and foreign ownership were among the most intensely debated issues in Richmond and across Metro Vancouver in the lead-up to the 2017 election. In the summer of 2016, the BC Liberal government had released data showing foreign buyers accounted for a significant share of residential property purchases in Metro Vancouver, and the subsequent introduction of a fifteen-percent foreign buyers' tax was a polarizing policy. In Richmond, where many residents had personal and family ties to China and other parts of Asia, the foreign buyers' tax was viewed by some as a necessary measure to cool an overheated market and by others as unfairly targeting immigrant communities.

Transit and infrastructure investment were also local concerns, as Richmond's population continued to grow rapidly. The Canada Line had improved transit connectivity, but residents in the northern and central parts of the city sought better east-west transit links and investment in community amenities to keep pace with densification. The riding's large immigrant population also meant that settlement services, language access, and multicultural programming were important to many voters. Provincial issues including MSP premium elimination, education funding, and ICBC insurance rates resonated with a population that, while generally supportive of the BC Liberals, was beginning to show some openness to opposition arguments on affordability.