In a rallying campaign launch speech delivered Thursdsy, Emily Lowan, the 24-year-old climate organizer running to lead the BC Green Party, made it unmistakably clear that her campaign is not just about policy — it’s about power. Specifically, taking it back from billionaires, fossil fuel executives, and corporate lobbyists who she says have rigged the province’s economy and captured its political system.
“The people responsible for all of us being in survival mode right now — the oil executives, the politicians, big tech, the billionaires who control our food supply — they’re not invincible,” Lowan told supporters. “They have names and addresses.”
It was a line that drew applause — and a sharp line in the sand between Lowan’s campaign and the incremental, technocratic tone long associated with the BC Greens under previous leaders.
Lowan’s speech emphasized working-class struggle, Indigenous sovereignty, and deep climate justice, placing her squarely within a rising movement of young, left-wing activists challenging the status quo of electoral politics. Her message? That business as usual has failed, and only bold, redistributive policies can address the scale of the crisis.
A Platform Focused on Redistribution, Not Tinkering
Under the slogan “Fight the oligarchs, fund our future,” Lowan laid out a policy platform that unapologetically targets BC’s richest corporations and individuals for taxation in order to fund sweeping public investments. Among her proposals:
- A wealth tax on the top 1% and BC’s most profitable corporations
- 26,000 units of affordable housing per year
- Free public transit
- Free skills training programs
- Expansion of public healthcare, accessible food programs, and green jobs
“Extreme wealth isn’t created out of nowhere. It has to be extracted or stolen,” Lowan said, explicitly calling for a reversal of the policies that have allowed corporate elites to accumulate wealth at the expense of ordinary British Columbians.
Naming the Corporate Capture
Unlike many political speeches that dance around the role of corporate influence, Lowan named it outright — and treated it as a central threat to democracy. She spoke directly about the power of big oil, big forestry, and big grocery in shaping provincial policy and skewing the economy.
“I don’t need to be premier to force stronger regulations on corporate lobbying of BC government officials,” she said, pledging to take action against lobbying efforts even before securing elected office.
She also called out the MAGABacked Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline, which she said lacks free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous nations. She pledged to oppose all fossil fuel projects that do not meet the standards set by BC’s own Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
Deep Roots in Movement Politics
As previously reported by Global Green News, Lowan’s background as a movement organizer is central to her political identity. Her campaign biography includes:
- Leading the University of Victoria’s fossil fuel divestment campaign, which ultimately succeeded
- Working at the Climate Action Network, coordinating over 180 civil society groups against fossil fuel expansion
- Participating in the Corporate Mapping Project at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where she trained grassroots groups in campaign strategy
- Joining frontline Indigenous struggles opposing pipelines, including the Gitanyow and Gitxsan resistance to the PRGT project
In her speech, Lowan referenced the 2020 Wet’suwet’en solidarity movement, drawing attention to RCMP raids and the violent arrest of land defenders. She recalled how Indigenous women were forcibly removed from their cabins and placed in dog kennels — events that many BC politicians, including former Green leaders, were slow or reluctant to condemn.
A Clear Break From the Party’s Past
Lowan’s speech comes as a stark departure from the cautious centrism that has long defined the Green Party of BC. Former leader Andrew Weaver endorsed pipeline and refinery projects. Federally, Elizabeth May has struggled to build alliances with young climate organizers and has consistently taken a moderate approach to economic reform and even supported continued tar sands exploitation, refinery construction and certain pipelines.
Lowan made clear that she represents a clean break from that history.
“What might feel like a moment of just total political despair… I now see as a real opportunity,” she said. “We can build a home and collective identity worthy of pride — one that respects Indigenous sovereignty and our planetary boundaries, where our needs are met, where we can rest and feel joy.”
Her closing remarks struck a hopeful but defiant tone: “I’m still that scared, scrappy kid I was a decade ago… but I’m also that kid who punched through the stifling air of despair with real conversations, real organizing, and real solutions.”
Conclusion: The Stakes for the Party
Lowan’s leadership bid is quickly becoming a test for the BC Greens themselves. Are they prepared to embrace a movement-led, class-conscious, anti-corporate direction — or will the party revert to the establishment comfort of gradual reform and limited ambition?
Her main opponent, Jonathan Kerr, has framed his campaign around experience, structure, and party-building. But Lowan is offering something far more radical: the possibility of a Green Party that names the enemy, sides with the majority, and organizes not just to win votes, but to shift power.
With BC Green members set to vote later this year, the race has become a referendum on whether the party will follow its young base — or continue to be led by those reluctant to confront wealth and power directly.
The fight is on. And Emily Lowan has made clear which side she’s on.
