Victoria-based BC Green leadership candidate to launch campaign this week

Emily Lowan, a Victoria-based candidate for BC Green Party leadership, is officially launching her campaign to take the party’s reins. 

The Greens have been without a leader since the resignation of former-leader Sonia Furstenau, which followed her election loss in the Victoria-Beacon Hill riding. 

Since that time, BC Green MLA Jeremy Valeriote has been at the party’s helm as an interim leader.

Lowan is a 24-year-old who is the only Victoria-based candidate for the Green Party’s leadership. 

She is a self-proclaimed renter, organizer and advocate for climate justice and Indigenous solidarity.

Lowan says her campaign for leadership is centered on a platform of affordability, climate action, social wellbeing and Indigenous rights.

“These are not normal times,” said Lowan, referencing challenges of high rent and grocery prices, as well as the worsening climate crisis.

“I’m tired of corporations and billionaires calling the shots. If our leaders won’t stand up for working Canadians, it’s up to the people to fight. The climate movement needs a bold political vehicle to centre people over corporate power.” 

As Lowan officially launches her campaign on Thursday, July 10th, her slogan will be “Fight the Oligarchs, Fund Our Future,” she says.

Lowan’s three key pillars of her platform include:

• Fight the oligarchs — stop pipeline construction and expansion, ban all fossil fuel expansion and phase out production, implement vacancy control and bring down food costs with price caps on all staple groceries
• Fund our future —  tax BC’s richest corporations and the 1% to fund 26,000 affordable housing units per year, free public transit, mental health support and “green” jobs
• Respect Indigenous rights — uphold DRIPA and only go forward with projects that have full Indigenous consent

Lowan’s decade of relevant experience for this role comes from a background of climate action, democracy and Indigenous solidarity. She says she has led campaigns, conducted investigative research and built broad coalitions through her various advocacy roles. 

She has worked with Climate Action Network Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Corporate Mapping Project and as UVic Student Union Director of Campaigns. 

“My advocacy has put me in the crosshairs of the fossil fuel lobby, time and time again. I know their playbook and am not afraid to resist,” said Lowan. 

Lowan’s opponents

Lowan will be campaigning against two other candidates, one the Comox Valley area of Vancouver Island, Jonathan Kerr, and the other being Adam Bremner-Akins, who is based out of Port Coquitlam. 

Kerr is a physician who has also aided the Green Party in past elections, both federally and provincially. Bremner-Akins has previously run as a candidate for the BC Greens, but hasn’t succeeded in winning his riding. 

To find out more about the candidates and the platforms they are running on, click here. 

All three candidates for the BC Green Party’s leadership contest will be meeting with the public, along with the party’s two MLAs, Jeremy Valeriote and Rob Botterell. 

At this meet and greet, people will be able to ask questions on the candidates’ visions for the party and for BC, as well as speak with Valeriote and Botterell. 

The event is being held in Vancouver at the Nest, located on the UBC Campus, and runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., on Friday, July 11th. 

For those hoping to vote in the upcoming leadership race, membership with the Green Party is required.