BURST
A Vancouver Island municipal official and family doctor has become the first person to announce their candidacy to replace Sonia Furstenau as the leader of the B.C. Greens, with a final vote set for mid-September.
Jonathan Kerr is in the middle of his second term on Comox town council and has served as a family physician for the past 17 years, first in Ontario and now in B.C.
He also chairs the doctor recruitment task force for the Comox Valley and says the it successfully brought 44 family physicians to the region between 2021 and 2024. In January of last year, he said these efforts had reduced the number of local residents without a family doctor from 14,000 to 2,000.
“I am excited about the future of B.C., where housing is affordable, everyone has a family doctor, well-paying jobs are plentiful, the economy is strong, and we are protecting our forests and oceans,” Kerr said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The B.C. Greens are the only party with the long-term approach needed to truly make our province more affordable, healthy and sustainable. The B.C. Greens have done a lot with just a few MLAs, but we can do a lot more if we grow our Caucus. I feel I have the experience and energy to make it happen.”
According to his recently launched campaign website, Kerr has already received endorsements from former Green leader Jane Sterk, who led the party from 2007 to 2013, and fellow Comox councillor Jenn Meilleur.
Both Green MLAs, interim leader Jeremy Valeriote of West Vancouver-Sea to Sky and Rob Botterell of Saanich-Gulf Islands, have declined to run in the leadership race, meaning that whoever takes the reigns of the party will be without a seat in the legislature and would either have to wait for an opportunity to run in a byelection or wait for the next provincial election, scheduled for October 2028.
Furstenau resigned as leader in January after losing to NDP cabinet minister Grace Lore in the provincial election last October after having been leader since 2020 and handed the role to Valeriote on an interim basis.
The deadline for candidates to submit their applications was June 14 and the deadline to sign up new members to vote in the contest is August 10. Voting will happen primarily online from Sept. 13 to Sept. 23 with the winner set to be announced on September 24.