"I want to be her MLA and yours too."
Sonia Furstenau says these words as she greets a woman out walking her dog on the streets of James Bay, a neighbourhood of Victoria not far from the provincial legislature, where Furstenau has guided the fortunes of the B.C. Greens as leader for four years.
It is late afternoon on a hot day in early September and the next provincial election is some seven weeks away.
Furstenau has been on the streets of the neighbourhood, a mixture of concrete apartment buildings and wooden heritage homes from the previous century, for about an hour that day when she meets the woman and her pet. The woman doesn't recognize Furstenau, but Furstenau gains a possible vote as they make a connection.
It wasn't the only one that afternoon. Earlier, a man, who missed Furstenau when she had stopped at his residence, runs up to her. He says he really likes the informed questions she asks, when he watches her during Question Period.
"Well, you can watch me as your MLA," she says in response, drawing smiles.
A handful of doors later, the reception is frostier. When Furstenau asks the young man peaking from behind the door of a heritage home how he is doing, he responds with a sharp "I'm all right" and slams the door.
These exchanges may well capture some of the challenges facing B.C. politicians generally on the cusp of a provincial election and the B.C. Greens and Furstenau specifically.
Trust in public individuals and institutions has been steadily declining across western democracies. Voters in British Columbia — regardless of their political shadings — appear in a sour mode with three of five saying the province is heading in the wrong direction, according to a recent Angus Reid poll. Polls also show the B.C. Greens in the low double-digits in terms of the popular vote and trending toward somewhere between zero and two seats out of 93.
Not surprisingly, British Columbians think the B.C. Greens have the greatest competency when it comes to dealing with the environment and climate change. But the issue falls outside the top five on the minds of voters. They are also increasingly turning toward the Conservative Party of B.C., a party openly campaigning on cutting policies designed to fight climate change like the carbon tax amidst accusations that the party is anti-science.
“B.C Conservative leader John Rustad’s comments on climate science are unscientific and dangerous," Furstenau said in a statement this week after his interview with philosopher-provocateur Jordan Peterson became public. "There is scientific consensus that carbon emissions cause climate change."
Rustad has denied the accusation of being anti-science and acknowledged humanity's contribution to climate change, but questioned whether it is an existentialist crisis in light of other issues. Furstenau made her comments in a statement headlined 'Frustenau exhausted by climate denial in 2024' but it would be mistake to read a sense of resignation into those words.
"I feel enraged a lot of the time, but I don't want to be angry," she says, while driving near the legislature at the end of the day. "So that rage...that's your jet fuel and I turn that into purpose. I can be mad and yell at the radio and all of those things. Instead, I take that energy that I get from it and I turn it into purpose and I just focus on what can be done."
Well before Furstenau became an elected MLA in 2017, then leader of her party in 2020, she had gained a province-wide reputation for successful community organizing through her work to close down a contaminated soil landfill near Shawnigan Lake in 2017, where she had been living and working at the time after having moved there from Victoria years earlier for a teaching position.
This work has earned Furstenau respect and recognition across party boundaries and she consistently ranks in second place in terms of favourability ratings behind Premier David Eby, who has in the past also recognized Furstenau's advocacy for her community.
But Furstenau's decision to run in the NDP-strong hold of Victoria-Beacon Hill rather than her old riding of Cowichan Valley (which has undergone significant boundary changes) also means that she partially has to re-introduce herself to voters used to casting their ballots for New Democrats like former NDP leader and finance minister Carole James.
Furstenau's decision to run in the riding currently held by Grace Lore, B.C's Minister of Children and Family Development, appears even more a gamble, when held up against the decision of fellow Green MLA Adam Olsen to withdraw as the party's candidate for Saanich North and the Islands, another Greater Victoria riding. While Olsen remains involved in the election as the party's campaign director, these developments could mean that the B.C. Greens could end up losing one or both of the ridings they currently hold heading into the election.
Sitting in her campaign office, a refurbished show suite shared with other Greater Victoria candidates located little more than 100 steps away from Lore's MLA office, Furstenau is asked to reflect on the question on what happens when the party ends up with zero seats.
"The polls had in me in third place in Cowichan Valley two days before the 2017 election," she says. "They had me at 24 per cent. I won with 39 per cent. We are focused on doing what it takes to get elected as Greens and that is talking to people at the doorstep, on the telephone, in front of our office. We are talking to people every single day and I don't start speculating in hypotheticals."
Furstenau underscores this point by drawing an analogy to her days as a middle-distance runner in high school.
"My tactic in running was always to stay with the front pack and to make sure that I had enough at the end of the race to be able to put on a sprint and to get to the finish line first," she said.
Furstenau readily acknowledges that the party has started slower than she would have liked when it comes to nominating candidates across the province, but it has been picking up the pace and the goal of having a full slate of candidates remains.
"I would have liked us there sooner," she says. "(That) doesn't mean we give up. We push harder, we work harder....this a small team and it's an incredibly hard- working team of people who are giving it their all right now to get us to that place of a full slate," she adds.
Whether this determination will pay off is a different question.
"We are realistic," she said, adding that the party can win in a "handful" of ridings. Voting for the Green candidate in those "six, seven" competitive ridings means that voters will not only get "excellent representation in the legislature as Adam and I have demonstrated" but also increases the odds of another minority government.
"In which case, we will insist on that government focusing on solving problems that are solvable," she says.
With this comment, Furstenau points to the role she, Olsen and then Green Leader Andrew Weaver played in supporting the then-minority government of former New Democratic premier John Horgan.
Experts generally agree that this trio of Greens 'disciplined' the provincial New Democrats between the spring of 2017 and the fall of 2020. But the NDP eventually escaped this probationary period as a minority government by winning a historic majority now in the hands of Eby.
The emergence of the B.C. Conservatives as the main alternative on the right side of the political spectrum has restored what many consider the 'default' position in B.C. politics — the NDP as the main vehicle for 'progressive' voices opposed by a right-of-centre party united by their opposition to the NDP. Other parties, including the B.C. Greens, are caught between those two voting blocs.
Furstenau readily acknowledges this return to the perceived status quo, but disagrees with the suggestion that she is not just campaigning for her own seat, but also against the threat of her party becoming irrelevant.
"We just celebrated the B.C. Greens being here for 40 years," she says, noting that the party is older than the B.C. Liberals or B.C. United. Even without elected MLAs, the party has contributed by raising issues such as climate change, the protection of old-growth forest and the transition toward a clean economy, she adds.
"We are not going anywhere," she says. "We are an essential piece of the political landscape and when you look at around the world at Greens, we are all very similar. It only takes a few Greens in any given parliament to really affect change."
Whether Furstenau, Rob Botterell, Jeremy Valeriote, Arzeena Hamir, Nicole Charlwood, Chris Hergesheimer or Camille Currie among other candidates will play that role remains to be seen in face of an incumbent NDP government with all its structural advantages like money and personnel and the surging Conservatives and their anti-establishment, something-must-change message. After all, all "party struggles are struggles for the patronage of office" to quote German sociologist Max Weber.
Furstenau acknowledges this competitive aspect, but counters it with her own Weber quote: "politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards". She notes that any office — at least for her and other Greens — is just a vehicle for a larger end.
"We (Greens) are a small group of determined people," she said. "We are not here out of self-interest. I always say this, 'if we were interested in power for the sake of power, you would never run with the B.C. Greens.'
"It's not (about) power. It's (about) responsibility."
