The Rookies: 3 first-time provincial candidates reflect on losses

The 2017 B.C. election is more or less over, and with the results, comes reflectionon what went right andwrong.

Over the past three months, On The Coast followed three new candidates as part of itselectionseries, "The Rookies:"NDP candidate for Vancouver-False Creek Morgane Oger, Green candidate for New Westminster Jonina Campbell and Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Kingsway Trang Nguyen.

All three joined On the Coast guest host Gloria Macarenko to talk about the experience of running for the first time and their reactions to not winning.

Listen to the full interview here:

"We were joking last night that the only thing we weren't able to accomplish, other than a victory, was cloning ourselves and carving out more hours in a day," said Campbell.

Campbell said she felt a range of emotions, fromdisappointment with the results to pride in what the Green Party team accomplished in New Westminster.

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"We went from having eight per cent of the vote to just over 25 per cent," Campbell said. "We'll see what happens right now but anything is possible in the next election."

Oger, who came within a few hundred votes of defeating Liberal candidate Sam Sullivan and becoming the first openly transgender person elected to any level of government in Canada, described the election as a roller coaster of emotions.

Lessons learned

Gender politics became a defining element of Oger's campaign although she hadn't intended to make it so. At one point, flyers were distributedin parts of her riding that disparaged her transgender identity.

"The fact that someone decided to express their hatred on me really brought the transgender issue to the forefront," she said. "Basically, we lost three days of campaigning during prime time but, then again, it brought in a lot of fundraising."

Oger, who was an activist before running, said the differences betweencampaigning and advocating are many.

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"When you are advocating, you use much longer sentences whereas when you are running in an election, you are trying to keep sentences short," she said.

This makes it easier to get soundbites and focus on transmitting one single simple message to voters, she said.

"The second [difference], which was a real learning curve for me, was needing to have actually more vague and 30,000-foot views of things rather than specific fact-based arguments," Oger added.

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Despite the loss, Ogersaid she has few regrets.

"I don't think we could have done anything differently other than raise more money, that would have been a game changer for us."

Not done with politics

Nguyen's riding in Vancouver-Kingsway is historically an NDP stronghold, both provincially and federally, and she said she went into the campaign expecting to win. But she hasn't let the disappointment get to her.

"I had a very positive mindset when I came in, I thought we were going to win," she said. "I'm still very positive moving forward."

For Nguyen, who came to Canada as a refugee, running in an election was an accomplishment. She said she hopes to see more Canadians actively involved in politics.

"I always encourage everyone to have a run at it because, as a boat refugee, I didn't have that chance in Vietnam," she said. "Coming here and being able to embrace this right and freedom is really precious."

All three candidates agreed that it is not over for them.

"This was always a long game," said Campbell.

And now, Oger pointed out, they are no longer rookies.

With files from CBC Radio One's On The Coast