The 1894 British Columbiageneral election was held in 1894. The number of members remained at 33 with the number of ridings increased to 26 as a result of the partition of the Yale and Westminster ridings.
Political context
Issues and debates
Non-party system
There were to be no political parties in the new province. The designations "Government" and "Opposition" and "Independent" functioned in place of parties, but they were very loose and do not represent formal coalitions, more alignments of support during the campaign. "Government" meant in support of the current Premier; "Opposition" meant campaigning against him, and often enoughthe Opposition would win and immediately become the Government. Although Labour as a party had run candidates in previous election, this election saw the first victories by Labour candidates, and a "Farmer" candidate. As well a Labour-oriented Nationalist Party candidate was elected in Vancouver City - Robert Macpherson. There were five successful independents.
Any changes due to byelections are shown below the main table showing the theoretical composition of the House after the election. A final table showing the composition of the House at the dissolution of the Legislature at the end of this Parliament can be found below the byelections. The main table represents the immediate results of the election only, not changes in governing coalitions or eventual changes due to byelections.
The original ridings were thirteen in number, and Cowichan was restored to a two-member seat while Westminster was partitioned in four; Vancouver City was increased to three members from two while Cariboo was decreased to two from three. The Victoria, Nanaimo, West Kootenay and Lillooet ridings were partitioned also, and the Alberni and Cowichan ridings were combined into Cowichan-Alberni, which was a two-member seat. In addition the Nanaimo-area riding of The Islands which had appeared for the first time in 1890 election was no longer on the hustings, although it would re-appear again following the major redistribution that preceded the 1903 election. There were no political parties were not acceptable in the House by convention, though some members were openly partisan at the federal level. These ridings were:
Natives and Chinese were disallowed from voting, although naturalized Kanakas and American and West Indian blacks and certain others participated. The requirement that knowledge of English be spoken for balloting was discussed but not applied.
