Last week I penned a letter in support of Stephen Andrew, the BC Conservative candidate for Oak Bay-Gordon Head. His campaign team likely mailed it to riding constituents late last week.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I vote for the local candidate who I believe would best represent the riding I live in. In the same post I also listed twelve candidates I would certainly vote for (including those whose signs are shown in the banner above) if I lived in their riding. In each case, I could have written a long letter explaining why.

It was interesting to see that yesterday Ryan Windsor, the Mayor of Central Saanich, also listed a non partisan list of several candidates he supported.

We agreed on the three candidates whose ridings were on both our lists:

Stephen Andrew — Oak Bay Gordon Head
Grace Lore — Victoria Beacon Hill
Lana Popham — Saanich South

Below I reproduce the letter that I wrote in support of Stephen Andrew. I expand upon these views in a recent episode of  Rumble Room hosted by Robin Adair and John Juricic:

Letter supporting Stephen Andrew

Dear Friends & Neighbours,

As you know, we are in the midst of a provincial election campaign and soon you will be asked to cast your vote for the next MLA for Oak Bay – Gordon Head (OBGH). While I recognize that voting is a very personal decision, I wanted to let you know why I have chosen to endorse Stephen Andrew in our riding.

As your former MLA for 7 ½ years I understand the challenges that we all face. These include accessing stable healthcare, affordability, ongoing challenges with public safety, addiction and mental health, reconciliation and climate change. As many of you know, the latter is what I’ve dedicated my life’s work to.

While the media often focuses on party leaders and their platform, in reality we elect individuals (not parties or their leader) to represent us. And OBGH has a rich electoral history in this regard. In fact, the last time a BC Conservative Party member was elected, it occurred in a 1978 OBGH byelection won by Vic Stephens, who superseded Dr. Scott Wallace (also Conservative) to represent us.

Like many of you, I have always voted for the candidate on our ballot that I believe would provide the strongest, most informed and critical thinking voice in the provincial legislature. I look for someone who will be fearless, someone who will listen and someone who will stand up for their constituents. In the last four elections, like many of you, I put partisanship aside and voted for the candidate who ended up winning (Ida Chong – BC Liberal in 2009; Myself 😊 – BC Green in 2013 & 2017; Murray Rankin – BC NDP in 2020).

In 2024 my vote will be for Stephen Andrew.

Stephen is a long-time friend and one of the things I admire most about him is his willingness to explore all points of view and to seek out advice when challenged with difficult decisions. As a member of the LGBTQ2+ community, he will be a strong advocate for diversity and tolerance. He understands the importance of addressing climate change yet also recognizes that, you must bring people with you to advance effective policies, rather than polarize the electorate.

Most importantly, he is willing to listen, learn and stand up for what he believes is right. You can see these qualities reflected in his work as an award-winning investigative journalist – along with his tenacity and commitment to justice.

Stephen is committed to our community. Whether volunteering on community boards, fundraising for cancer research and animal welfare or advocating for persons with disabilities, Stephen has shown time and time again that he is dedicated to his community.

I look for three key qualities in our leaders –fiscal responsibility, social empathy and commitment to the environment. Stephen Andrew exemplifies these key qualities in his approach to governance. He has the skills, work ethic and talent to effectively represent us as the next MLA for Oak Bay – Gordon Head.

The BC Greens, a party I once led, have lost their way fiscally and are proposing aspirational solutions that they have no hope of delivering or funding. In addition, the 2020 BC Green OBGH candidate who now serves as the Chair of School District 61 led the charge to eliminate the School Police Liaison Program that completely undermined the community policing model in our region. The BC NDP, on the other hand, do not let their MLAs vote to represent the will of their constituents due to rigid party discipline. Not once in my 7 ½ years in the legislature did a single BC NDP MLA vote against their party (this was not the case for the BC Greens and BC Liberals).

I invite you to consider joining me in voting for Stephen Andrew to be the next MLA for Oak Bay – Gordon Head.

Sincerely,

Andrew Weaver
Oak Bay Gordon Head MLA (2013-2020)
Green Party Leader (2015-2020)

With just over two weeks to go before the BC provincial election, we’ve entered the twilight zone of political campaigning. Political parties and their hyper partisan foot soldiers are hitting the streets, the airwaves and the internet with outrageous rhetoric, promises and accusations.

The BC NDP have decided that incentivizing demand, a policy that will only drive up house prices and increase the debt burden for first time homebuyers, is somehow the way to deal with housing affordability. At the same time, and just two weeks after releasing the 2024/25 first quarter fiscal update projecting a whopping $9 billion deficit this year, they promised to give the average family a $1000 hand out. The BC NDP’s Dave Dollars giveaway mirrors the cynical Ralph Bucks that were doled out by Alberta’s Premier Ralph Klein starting in 2006.

The BC NDP’s Dave Dollars announcement came just two days after the Conservative Party of BC touted their Rustad Rebate that would eventually exempt up to $3000 per month in rent or mortgage payments from provincial taxation. Existing landowners and homeowners are no doubt salivating as it gives renters and potential buyers more money to spend on rent and houses thereby pushing up prices due to an existing supply shortage. Not to be outdone with populist policy announcements, the Conservatives just released their Powering BC energy plan that ironically demonstrates energy illiteracy while proposing to “build trust and energy literacy” in British Columbia.  The document demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of energy production, transmission and storage in British Columbia and reads like it was written by 20-something year old staffers imported from Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta team.

To top it off, the BC Greens, lost in an ecosocialist hinterland, issued a platform that virtue signals a pathway to economic collapse. Their bizarre approach to deal with British Columbia’s housing shortage is to rage on the “for-profit industry that financializes” it. I’m not sure how musing about Marxist doctrine that “justifies and predicts the emergence of a stateless and classless society without private property” is helpful in increasing housing supply.

No political party has offered a vision that would inspire you to vote for them. Rather, the BC NDP are spending most of their time telling voters why they should be afraid of John Rustad and the BC Conservatives. The BC Conservatives are spending most of their time announcing what NDP policies they would undo. And not a day goes by without a BC Conservative candidate or their Leader, being associated with one batshit crazy conspiracy theory or another. Meanwhile the BC Greens, under their last-one-turn-out-the-lights sanctimonious leadership and dysfunctional organizational capacity, remain lost in the wilderness as they seek too inspire a handful of activists on the far left of the political spectrum.

Sadly, my prediction for this election is that the winner will be the non voter. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a very low voter turnout and even perhaps record high numbers of spoiled ballots.

With that said, I have always voted for the local candidate who I believe would best represent the riding I live in. In the last four BC Elections I voted for Ida Chong (BC Liberal in 2009), myself (BC Green) in 2013 and again in 2017, Murray Rankin (BC NDP) in 2020 and I will vote for Stephen Andrew (BC Conservatives) in 2024. The choice would be hard for me in a number of  other ridings where I might be tempted to write None of the Above on my ballot or where there are two candidates I might have to decide between. Kootenay Central comes to mind in the latter case as I have enormous respect for both Nicole Charlwood (BC Greens) rand Brittny Anderson (BC NDP).

In case anyone is interested, below is a list of twelve candidates (focusing on Vancouver Island) that I would certainly vote for if I lived in their riding.  In the spirit of non partisanship, I offer three BC Conservative candidates, three former BC United Candidates who are now running as independents and six NDP candidates. I could write long essays as to why I support each of these people, but I will simply link you to their candidate pages so you can read up on them yourselves. There are others who I know or have worked with in other ridings, but I didn’t want to skew the non-partisan nature of my list.

I have an easy choice in Oak Bay Gordon Head where my long time friend Stephen Andrew is on the ballot. Coincidentally, when I announced my decision to run with the BC Green Party in Oak Bay Gordon Head on September 20, 2012, I did so on Stephen Andrew’s CFAX 1070 radio show!

Here’s the list:

I recently came across a clip of Keith Baldrey referring to John Rustad’s interest in nuclear power as “controversial.” His punditry continued by predicting that a future NDP attack ad will “very strongly” denounce nuclear as an option that can facilitate clean energy generation in British Columbia.

As a climate scientist and a lead author of multiple assessments from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I become concerned when I see worthwhile climate policy proposals being dismissed because of shortsighted electoral politics.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in our province’s current discourse on nuclear power generation as part of a clean energy agenda. When the BC NDP rejected such a prospect in 2023, it was little more than a continuation of the ideological ecosocialist decades-long opposition to nuclear technology.

As much as I celebrate robust discussions on climate action, employing misinformation as part of such an important exchange of ideas is a huge disservice to our province.

British Columbians are ready and willing to contemplate a new energy mix as part of our future, as evidenced by findings from a newly released Ipsos poll showing that 58% of residents support a review of current restrictions on the use of nuclear power (in contrast to only 27% in opposition).

Over the past two decades, I’ve advocated for nuclear as a viable interim power source. On the road to achieving an energy landscape that is abundant, reliable, cost-effective, renewable, and most importantly, clean, nuclear power should never be dismissed as effortlessly as our Premier did last year or the Greens did is 2021.

If we’re poised to have this debate during the upcoming election campaign, it’s important to be guided by science rather than political posturing and rhetoric.

First, let’s talk about the most obvious appeal of nuclear power from a carbon footprint perspective: it’s a zero-emission clean energy source. That’s because it generates power through fission, which is the process of splitting uranium atoms to produce energy.

Nuclear energy also produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source (such as solar or wind), is the highest-density fuel available (requiring less output than other options), and can be generated 24 hours a day, making it the most reliably available energy source to meet ongoing needs at any time.

It is also extremely safe when considering the death rates (from air pollution and accidents) as a ratio to per unit electricity output. Despite the unwarranted fear generated by pop culture dramatizations of nuclear accidents of the distant past (caused without the benefit of the huge technological advances in the decades since) or activists who dishonestly accentuate the manageable, localized problem of nuclear waste (also largely aided by breakthroughs in technology), nuclear power is as safe as it comes across the spectrum of clean energy options.

As George Monbiot noted in an article entitled Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power that he penned for the Guardian in 2011:

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Finally, I’m a booster of nuclear because of the strategic advantages Canada offers when compared to other global competitors. We are the second-largest producer and exporter of uranium in the world, have over seven decades of experience and success in nuclear energy production, and are on the cutting edge of producing small modular reactors, (like the NuScale Power facility illustrated in the header image for this post — in case anyone wonders, I do not own any shares in NuScale Power) which is a market projected to reach $150-$300 billion annually by 2040.

This discussion brings me back to my disdain for the apparent hubris of some within the NDP on the climate change agenda, as demonstrated by their attitude that they have exclusivity over climate concern and leadership. I remind them again that on their watch, they approved, and through extremely generous government subsidies advanced, the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in BC’s history (LNG Canada).

In my world of academia and research, any individual or entity willing to use misinformation to advance an agenda cannot claim a moral pulpit from which to deliver sermons. It is highly problematic for the NDP to use such tactics in responding to Rustad’s musings on nuclear power in BC.

The NDP’s insistence on falsely labelling their opponents as climate deniers is not only done in bad faith, but also represents an approach to governance that demonstrates a devotion to playing politics rather than lowering carbon emissions. One such individual they’ve incorrectly labelled a climate denier is John Rustad, the leader of the BC Conservative Party. Yet on September 20 at the recent Union of BC Municipalities Annual Convention, John Rustad addressed delegates and said:

“The climate change issue is real. There’s no question there.”

“Man is having an impact on our climate, there’s no question there. “

And so this brings to a point I recently conveyed to the NDP Minister of Energy, Mines & Low Carbon Innovation:

What’s worse, a few folk who didn’t understand the seriousness of global warming but now clearly do and are going all in on adaptation & to electrify BC or a party of MLAs who understood the seriousness of the issue yet collectivity advanced, subsidized and voted unanimously to throw future generations under the bus.

You decide. As I have said before, no one has a monopoly on determining the best path forward for a climate action agenda and I sincerely hope that brand of politics can be put aside during the ongoing election campaign.

Today the Vancouver Sun published an opinion piece I wrote in advance of the next provincial election. I am reproducing the text of this piece here so I am able to share it on my Facebook Page (which doesn’t allow news stories from Canadian Media to be published).

Opinion Editorial

The B.C. NDP’s sudden abandonment of the consumer carbon tax is a disappointing and cynical ploy announced just days after the federal NDP did the same.

Rather than taking this golden opportunity to follow the lead of Alberta NDP’s Naheed Nenshi in calling for the separation of the provincial NDP from Jagmeet Singh’s party, David Eby piled on populist rhetoric with no alternative to offer in its place.

When leadership is so desperately needed on the most important environmental issue of our time, David Eby put politics ahead of principle. This is the same type of ambiguity in climate change policymaking that ultimately inspired me to run for office in 2013.

Simply put, the B.C. NDP botched the implementation of carbon pricing by completely omitting B.C.’s middle class from receiving the money other Canadians across the country enjoy.

Take, for example, Alberta, where under Danielle Smith’s United Conservative government, households of four are entitled to $1,800 per year from the Canada Carbon Rebate.

If we ignore the noise from the many falsehoods being spread about the federal carbon tax, the quarterly cheques that Canadians in eight other provinces collect add up to more in their pockets than they pay in overall costs.

By contrast, that same family of four in British Columbia receives nothing if their household income exceeds $107,688 and only $1,008 if it is below $57,288.

This is a deliberate decision that the B.C. NDP government has implemented. They chose who would be eligible for rebates, and the results equate to most British Columbians being left high and dry on financial relief.

Herein lies the egregious political error that caused Eby to capitulate on the eve of the election.

Over the coming fiscal year, the government will collect just over $2.5 billion in carbon tax revenues. Of that total, only $1 billion, or about 40 per cent, is returned to B.C. residents. This is a far cry from the revenue-neutral carbon tax introduced by Gordon Campbell in 2008, which set a standard for climate action that didn’t burden the pocketbooks of British Columbians.

Alas, the David Eby approach has allowed the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad to politically emerge by speaking to the struggles B.C. residents face under what has become a tone-deaf government.

People were shocked when I publicly praised Rustad. But after Eby’s carbon tax retreat, nobody should have been.

While the B.C. Conservative leader and I have policy differences on climate action public policy, there is one quality I see in Rustad that I value above all else in public office holders: authenticity.

Democracy works when voters can make decisions based on accurate information. If nothing else, Rustad has been consistent on his plans to scrap the carbon tax, which is more than can be said for David Eby, who is tearing up his historical positions on climate action in a desperate bid for re-election.

This brings forth a much larger point that embodies my inclination to use pragmatism and collaboration when designing and implementing climate action plans. The NDP’s insistence on falsely labelling their opponents as climate deniers is not only done in bad faith, but also represents an approach to governance that demonstrates a devotion to playing politics rather than lowering carbon emissions.

Moreover, it was the B.C. NDP who approved and generously subsidized LNG Canada, the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in B.C.’s history.

No one has a monopoly on determining the best path forward for a climate action agenda and I sincerely hope David Eby’s brand of hegemonic politics can be put aside during the election campaign.

This is shaping up to be the most important election in our province’s history, and British Columbians deserve better than being manipulated into how they cast their ballots.

Today the Vancouver Sun published an opinion piece I wrote in advance of the next provincial election. I am reproducing the text of this piece here so I am able to share it on my Facebook Page (which doesn’t allow news stories from Canadian Media to be published).

Opinion Editorial

As we approach the fall election, it is clear to me that Premier David Eby presides over a centrally controlled administration doing more harm across the province than good. Simply put, he has lost the plot of what it takes to govern by deciding to pander to his narrow base of support.

I abhor gamesmanship for political advantage and inflexible doctrines. My departure from academia to run for office in 2013 was predicated on a desire to positively impact the daily lives of my fellow British Columbians toward building a better future, and to change the political discourse on climate change.

Climate change is not something to fear or deny, but rather a grand challenge to be embraced as an incredible opportunity for innovation in mining, forestry, agriculture, manufacturing and the new economy.

While I never considered myself a politician (I much prefer the term “change maker”), I quickly understood that achieving progress requires bringing people with you. One cannot claim to be a leader by preaching what is “right” while willfully ignoring the voices you are supposed to represent.This simple concept helped me navigate negotiations for a confidence and supply agreement with NDP Premier John Horgan following the 2017 election. Collectively, we identified problems, developed a framework for potential solutions, and subsequently worked collaboratively through action, not rhetoric.

Did we agree on everything? Absolutely not. Yet I never wavered in my faith in Horgan’s sincerity to work for the benefit of all or his devotion to practising pragmatism over politics.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for David Eby.

Since assuming the premier’s chair in November 2022, radical ideological-driven activism, empty promises with destructive consequences, and out-of-touch hubris embody the hallmarks of his tenure.

Under Eby, government fiscal management is out of control, with two consecutive budgets since Horgan stepped down that raised spending by 14 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. Deficits over the coming three years will dwarf those the province experienced during the height of the pandemic, while the province’s debt has tripled since pre-pandemic levels in 2019-2020. In both cases, the increases far outpace the rate of inflation and population growth.

As a result, two major credit-rating agencies have downgraded B.C. since Eby became premier, which will inevitably result in increased borrowing costs and higher taxes.

I’m also troubled by the rise in hate crimes, particularly against the Jewish community, which has been met with nothing but token reactionary statements by the government. This was confirmed by the resignation of former NDP Finance Minister Selina Robinson, who felt that “it wasn’t safe” to use her voice as a Jewish member of the governing caucus, and that Eby’s response to growing antisemitism was “simply performative.”

I recently publicly opined that I was considering supporting John Rustad’s Conservative Party of B.C. in the October election, which brought a flood of inquiries on how that squared with my beliefs as a climate scientist.

I’ve had several discussions with Rustad, and while there are still gaps between our views on how to respond to the challenges and opportunities afforded by climate change, they are not as wide as some might imagine. In fact, there were similar gaps in the views held by Horgan and myself in the early days of our minority government.

Like Horgan, Rustad’s ability to listen and be open to input are the traits of effective leadership. My conversations with Rustad have given me a very different understanding of his policy proposals when compared to the recent attack messaging advanced by Eby’s government.

I remain unsure of how I will vote in the election. Yet I know with certainty that this is the most consequential decision for B.C.’s electorate in a generation, and it warrants careful consideration away from the noise of self-serving political interests.