Only 37% of the province’s adult residents would grant voting rights to individuals who are 16 and 17 years old.
Vancouver, BC [July 24, 2025] – While most British Columbians would welcome specific changes to provincial electoral processes, the level of support for relying on a different system to elect the members of the Legislative Assembly is low, a new Research Co. poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative provincial sample, more than three-in-four British Columbians (77%) say it should be mandatory for candidates to attend at least one public debate in their riding with the candidates from other parties.
More than half of British Columbians are in favour of three other ideas: making voting mandatory in all BC provincial elections (61%), holding provincial elections in May (56%) and declaring provincial election day a public holiday (54%).
British Columbians elect the members of the Legislative Assembly through a system called First-Past-The-Post, where a candidate wins a constituency by receiving more votes than any others.
Almost two thirds of British Columbians (65%) say they are satisfied with the First-Past-The-Post electoral system, while 21% are dissatisfied and 13% are not sure.
Dissatisfaction with First-Past-The-Post is highest on Vancouver Island (29%), followed by Southern BC (24%), the Fraser Valley (also 24%) Metro Vancouver (20%) and Northern BC (15%).
The survey also asked British Columbians if they would like to see the implementation of three distinct electoral systems for provincial elections.
Almost half of British Columbians (47%) would like to elect all members of the Legislative Assembly through Party-List Proportional Representation. Public support is lower for two other systems: Single Transferable Vote system (43%) and Mixed Member Proportional Representation (40%).
Only 10% of British Columbians think people who don’t vote in provincial elections should be punished, through fines, while just under two-in-five (38%) believe those who do cast ballots in provincial elections should be rewarded, through tax incentives. Almost half of respondents (45%) think neither idea is appealing.
“Offering tax incentives to people who vote in provincial elections is an attractive idea for almost half of British Columbians aged 18-to-34 (49%) and aged 35-to-54 (48%),” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. “Their counterparts aged 55 and over are decidedly more skeptical (21%).”
At this point, only Canadian citizens aged 18 and over can vote in provincial elections. More than half of British Columbians (57%) agree with allowing Permanent Residents—or individuals aged 18 and over who have been granted the right to live and work in Canada permanently, but are not yet Canadian citizens—to cast ballots in provincial elections.
Support is decidedly lower for extending voting rights to three other groups: British Columbians who would qualify as Canadian citizens under current regulations when they turn 18, but who are 16 and 17 years old (37%), Foreign Students (27%) and Temporary Workers (26%).
Methodology: Results are based on an online survey conducted from July 13 to July 15, 2025, among 814 adults in British Columbia. The data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region in British Columbia. The margin of error—which measures sample variability—is +/- 3.1 percentage points, nineteen times out of twenty.
Find our data tables here and download the press release here.
For more information on this poll, please contact:
Mario Canseco, President, Research Co.
778.929.0490
[e] mario.canseco@researchco.ca