Her loss of anonymity now aside, B.C.’s new Green Party leader plans to be a thorn in the side of the NDP and Conservatives, as well as a “beacon of bright solutions.”

Emily Lowan, 25, made stops on her provincial tour in Vernon and Salmon Arm Monday, Nov. 24, to chat with people about B.C. politics and what that landscape could look like with more BC Greens in the mix.

“It’s time for a full change,” said Lowan, taking a break from meeting with close to 50 supporters at a two-hour lunch stop at Vernon’s Okanagan Regional Library branch Monday. “There’s a fracture on the right, and the infighting shows B.C. where the Conservative priorities are truly at. They’re not about fighting for the working class, they’re about bickering amongst themselves in a feckless culture war.

“We know the NDP stonewalled workers and haven’t stepped up on the economy fronts. They sold this province out to the corporations.

“We need the BC Greens to become the fighting forces for working people in B.C., for young people, for renters, workers, for Indigenous communities who may feel left behind by the status quo. I’m very excited to be building up that power and meeting so many people in so many communities across the province.”

Lowan became party leader in late September when she defeated Comox councillor Jonathan Kerr and party volunteer Adam Bremner-Akins to take the reins of the party, which currently holds two seats in the B.C. legislature.

She received 3,189 votes, followed by Kerr with 1,908 and Bremner-Akins with 128. Fourteen people voted for none of the above. The party has 8,641 eligible members, and 61 per cent turned in a ballot.

The BC Green Party had been in limbo ever since Sonia Furstenau lost her seat in the legislature after switching ridings from Cowichan Valley to Victoria-Beacon Hill.

Lowan, who made a campaign stop in Armstrong in early September, is presently on the second leg of what the party calls the Fight the Oligarchs tour. She is travelling around the province meeting with communities, trying to build bright solutions to “reclaim B.C.’s economy for working people, not the billionaires.”

During her trips, Lowan is hearing plenty about the affordability and housing crises, and the high cost of groceries.

“So what we’ve been doing is threading the needle across those issues,” she said. “We’re looking at the largest corporations and billionaires that are driving up the cost of living, polluting our climate with some of these mega projects going through central and northern B.C.

“It’s really an exciting time for the BC Greens to offer hopeful and bright solutions, and to look at the bigger picture. As we’re struggling with the affordability crisis, we have the highest rate of wealth inequality, and that’s not by accident.

“It’s from decades of policy inaction, and action from premiers like Gordon Campbell who slashed tax rates for the one per cent and the largest corporations. The NDP tinkered at the borders. It’s time we fully reverse those changes, and have the wealth redistributed to affordable housing and green jobs.”

Lowan is touring the province through Dec. 14.