Andrew Weaver, B.C.’s only Green MLA, announced Monday that he plans to seek the leadership of his party.
The Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA told reporters at the B.C. legislature that he made up his mind to run over the past two weeks.
“I’ve thought about how much I enjoy this position, how much I enjoy serving the constituents of Oak Bay-Gordon Head,” he said. “There’s a huge opportunity in B.C. for [doing] politics differently and so when there’s a leadership convention — it probably won’t be ’til next year, 2016 — I will throw my hat in the ring and seek the leadership of the B.C. Green Party.”
Weaver, who defeated Liberal cabinet minister Ida Chong in the last provincial election, initially passed up the party’s leadership when former leader Jane Sterk stepped down in August 2013.
He said at the time that he wanted to focus on his duties as an MLA, and would help the interim leader build up party membership and riding associations in advance of the next provincial election in 2017.
Adam Olsen, who lost Saanich North and the Islands by only 379 votes in 2013, was named interim leader. He said Monday that he will be focused on winning Saanich North in the next election and has no plans to run against Weaver for the party’s top job.
“I’m still a fairly young guy in politics,” he said. “My goal is to be an elected representative first, before anything else.”
Weaver said he doesn’t plan to run a big campaign.
“It’s not in the cards right now. Obviously, there’s a federal election happening, there’s a lot of things happening; we’ll see what happens next year.”
