With the next provincial election less than four months away, the B.C. Green Party appears to be going backwards at the worst possible time.
The surprise announcement by two-term Green Party MLA Adam Olsen that he would not be seeking re-election is a major body blow to the party’s chances of having an elected member in the legislature come the October vote.
Party leader Sonia Furstenau had earlier announced she wouldn’t be running in the riding she has represented since 2017 — Cowichan Valley — and instead would run in the NDP-stronghold of Victoria-Beacon Hill.
So, one sitting Green MLA is leaving and the other has a steep uphill battle ahead of her to remain an MLA (NDP MLA Grace Lore won the Beacon Hill riding over the B.C. Green candidate by more than 9,000 votes in the 2020 election and her predecessor, Carole James, won four consecutive elections there by an average 6,300 votes each time).
Not exactly an envious position for the Greens.
As of this past weekend, the party’s website shows that only 17 candidates have been named so far. The campaign itself begins in less than 12 weeks, so the party must find a heck of a lot of people to run between now and then (although it likely won’t field a full slate; in 2020 it did not run candidates in 13 ridings).
After electing three members in 2017 (Furstenau, Olsen and former party leader Andrew Weaver) the party slipped a bit in the 2020 election, losing almost 50,000 voters from 2017 and seeing its popular vote decline by almost two percentage points, to just 15 per cent.
But the party could point to some positive results. It nearly won the West Vancouver-Sea-to-Sky seat, losing to the B.C. Liberals by just 60 votes (in fact, the Greens would have won the riding if the new riding boundaries were in existence in 2020).
And it finished second in eight other ridings, albeit a distant second in each case. On the other hand, it eked out single-digit vote percentages in 17 ridings, an increase of seven from 2017.
As the B.C. political scene has been dominated by the ascendency in the polls by the B.C. Conservative Party and its attempt to consume the B.C. United Party while the seemingly-Teflon coated NDP government chugs along, the B.C. Greens have become the forgotten party in the conversation.
Losing Olsen is a big blow to the party. He has been one of the most effective critics — if not the most effective — of the NDP government in the legislature. While some NDP cabinet ministers bridle at his occasional over-the-top criticisms, they privately admit he scores some points.
The party retains a chance, on paper at least, of maybe winning that West Vancouver riding it nearly won in 2020. It is running the same candidate as last time — Jeremy Valeriote — so that will likely help.
But if he doesn’t win it could mean the B.C. Green Party would not have a seat in the house for the first time in more than a decade, because keeping Olsen’s Saanich North seat in the fold seems a bit of a stretch at this point and, as I have noted, Furstenau faces steep odds.
The election is drawing ever closer, and the party’s momentum is going the wrong way — backwards.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.
