B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau threw her hat into the election campaign ring at the Union of B.C.’s annual general meeting Sept. 20.
It’s widely expected the provincial general election will be called by Premier David Eby Sept. 20, with election signs showing up in pockets of Metro Vancouver Friday.
Furstenau said B.C. should be the best place in the world to live.
“But as the affordability crisis has spiralled, our health care system has collapsed and as summer has transformed into ‘wildfire season’, we have felt that slip away,” she said.
Furstenau said that’s been added to by as real estate investment trusts buy more and more of the housing in our province and as multinational fossil fuel companies post profits in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.
“We’ve felt it slip away as our public services fail to provide the basic level of care to keep people healthy and living with dignity,” she said.
She said elections are about proposing visions, solutions and investments to make B.C. a thriving place for all of us.
'High quality public services'
She stressed putting aside, old-time partisan politics and instead having cooperation.
Furstenau said members of the Legislative Assembly should be guided by the the communities they represent, “focused on delivering reliable, high quality public services, rooted in the belief that government serves the public interest and the common good, and committed to the best ideals of democracy.”
That work, Furstenau said, should involve “deliberation, consensus-building, openness and transparency, accountability, and effective delivery of the public services that everyone in our province should be able to count on.”
She said the way to get there is not to give all power to one party, “but to distribute that power so that all of us are required to bring our best, most collaborative and cooperative selves to the B.C. legislature. Instead of winner take all, we could have legislators serve all,” Furstenau said.
She gave no details on what that might look like.
