Victoria local Emily Lowan was recently elected as the new leader of the BC Green Party on September 24th, and has since been transitioning into her new role.
She says that since her win, she has been diving head first into party matters and wrapping up her prior position with the Climate Action Network.
Her next big undertaking will be her leader’s tour of BC, visiting communities and speaking with residents to understand key issues and navigate how she will lead the party.
“I’ve been focussed on really building the outside momentum that we need to negotiate from a position of strength with the [BC] NDP, to really succeed in the next election,” Lowan told Victoria Buzz.
She says the tour will officially kick off at the BC Greens annual general meeting in mid-November in Vancouver.
Lowan will then head north to Prince George, and begin to traverse the province from there.
“I’m planning a whole external face to this tour as well,” said Lowan.
“I’m planning a whole lot of videos and social media content, and we’ll be putting sort of a spotlight on the real problems and the practical solutions to address our climate and affordability and mental health crises in this province.”
Lowan’s campaign in the leadership race was based around the idea of “Fight the oligarchs, fund our future,” for which she has been keen to act upon while on this tour.
“I was speaking to someone in Prince George who is connected to a number of [First] Nations in Prince Rupert, who are clawing back a number of fishing licenses from Jim Pattison, who controls pretty much all of the fishing licenses in that region,” she explained.
“So we’ll be touring the oligarchs that control this province and be highlighting some real and practical solutions and bright alternatives.”
Additionally, while in the northern and coastal regions of BC, Lowan says she will be speaking to and holding space for communities who are being impacted by LNG projects in their backyard.
Once her tour is done in the north, Lowan says she will be making her way down through the Kootenays and the Okanagan before ending up back in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
Lowan says some of her key priorities to speak about while on this tour, in addition to fighting off oligarchs and reducing fossil fuel dependency, are going to be addressing the state of unions in the province, creating good green jobs and protecting renters.
“BC should be the best place to start and to form a union, but we’ve obviously seen how the BCGEU strike has unfolded and how it’s been stonewalled in its negotiations with the [BC] NDP,” said Lowan.
“We also have a strong plank of our platform on a good green jobs program, and really envisioning what that could look like, what that could mean to young people.”
She says that while touring, she looks forward to connecting with renters across the province.
“I think many are feeling dissatisfied with the [BC] NDP’s trickle down housing economics and how non-market housing isn’t being built at scale and renters aren’t effectively protected,” she continued.
“So I want to bring in things like vacancy control to stop this runaway inflation, jacking up of rental prices in between tenants.”
Lowan added that there are a myriad of issues in BC, and she looks forward to learning about how different regions are being impacted, be it financial matters, climate matters or healthcare matters.
Before leaving on her BC leader’s tour, Lowan says she will be meeting with both former BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau, as well as Premier David Eby.
