Thursday February 1, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC [Updated February 2, 2024]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
After serving constituents for about seven years in Cowichan Valley, BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau has shifted her local focus while maintaining the province-wide lead for the party.
On January 31, Furstenau announced that she will run as the BC Green candidate for the downtown capital region riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill. That’s where first-term NDP MLA Grace Lore holds the seat; Lore was recently appointed as Minister of Children and Family Development (MCFD).
In social media yesterday, Lore welcomed Furstenau to the community, saying “it is the best riding”. Lore rolled out this list of what she sees as important in Victoria-Beacon Hill: “housing, the climate crisis, reconciliation, healthcare, and more”.
Long-time NDP riding:
Victoria-Beacon Hill has long been held by the NDP. Former Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Carole James — a long-time confidante to former Premier John Horgan — held Victoria-Beacon Hill during 2005 to 2020.
Lore was elected under Horgan in 2020, and was first appointed as Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity. Under Premier David Eby she started as Minister of State for Child Care before being bumped up to Minister of Children and Family Development in a January 2024 cabinet shuffle.
Won every election so far:
Furstenau was first elected in Cowichan Valley in 2017 and re-elected in the 2020 snap election. In yesterday’s announcement held yesterday in Victoria, Furstenau said she has won in every election in which she has run.
Prior to the provincial level, she was elected as Area B Director for the Cowichan Valley Regional District, serving for three years.
Furstenau says her political journey has been one of “growth, learning, and an unwavering commitment to our collective values as BC Greens”.
Closer to family:
Furstenau says the core of her decision to shift to Victoria-Beacon Hill is to be closer to her family, including her two grown sons. “Returning to Victoria is more than a political decision, it’s a homecoming,” she said, explaining her family roots and her time in Victoria as a university student and starting her young family.
Furstenau told Island Social Trends in a later phone interview that her decision to shift to downtown Victoria has been in the works for quite a while.
Closer to the legislature:
Politically speaking, Furstenau’s shift of electoral areas speaks volumes:
- Shift from rural to urban
- Both ridings hold large populations of BC’s lowest-income people
- She will be close to the Legislature on a daily basis.
- She will be taking on a brand-new cabinet minister in an area of great concern to the BC Greens, i.e. child welfare (BC Green House Leader Adam Olsen pushed hard for the resignation of former MCFD Minister Mitzi Dean over what the Greens felt was a failure of Indigenous youth in care).
Upcoming election:
There are three newly-boundaried ridings in the south Vancouver Island region for the upcoming 2024 provincial election.
The 2024 election will be the first with new boundaries for the Cowichan Valley riding, with some of its eastern communities now in a different riding. Furstenau said yesterday that she was “surprised” by the boundary changes. The boundaries commission looks primarily at population distribution and does not always successfully consider the community-based and on-the-ground governance realities of boundaries.
The three new south Vancouver Island ridings (population count) are:
- Langford-Highlands (49,110) – includes Langford and Highlands
- Juan de Fuca-Malahat (44,980) – includes Sooke, Juan de Fuca, Metchosin and Malahat
- Esquimalt-Colwood (58,356) – includes Esquimalt, Colwood, View Royal and Vic West
The upcoming provincial election is scheduled for October 19, 2024. The current 87-MLA seat count is comprised of an NDP majority with 56 seats, with three opposition parties: BC United (28 seats), BC Green (2 seats), and Conservative Party of BC (2 seats).
===== RELATED:
- Eby shuffles two women at the top (January 15, 2024)
- Minister Dean: These children were failed at every level (June 26, 2023)
- Food security program toured by Education & Agriculture Ministers (April 25, 2023)
- Three provincial electoral areas for west shore (April 18, 2023)
- Premier Eby’s cabinet shuffle in December 2022 (December 7, 2022)