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Read her full speech: BC Greens leader Emily Lowan attacks incoming Conservative majority government and the party's 'existence'

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Green Party of British Columbia leader Emily Lowan marked her election to the B.C. legislature with a highly combative speech attacking both the incoming majority Conservative provincial government, led by premier-elect Lorne Doerkson, and outgoing Premier David Eby. She warned of harm to vulnerable British Columbians and accused the BC NDP of abandoning working people.

The Greens won two seats, with Lowan elected in Saanich North and the Islands — enabling her to take a seat in the legislature for the first time — and Jeremy Valeriote returning as the MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

The newly elected MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, who is 26 years old, offered no congratulations to premier-elect Doerkson and the Conservative Party of British Columbia in her address.

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Moments before taking to the podium at the BC Greens’ campaign party, Doerkson had congratulated Lowan on her campaign during his victory speech, while Eby said in his concession speech that he had wished the Conservative leader well.

Lowan’s remarks mixed celebrations of her own victory with bleak predictions about the province’s direction under a Conservative majority government.

“We are the only party who is equipped to stand against the Conservatives and their existence,” she said during her election night speech after the results poured in. She was the last to speak, after Eby and Doerkson.

“And I’m going to be honest, I’m scared. I’m scared for what’s to come.”

She predicted cuts to healthcare, childcare, and other public services, along with attacks on transgender people, Indigenous communities, and immigrants. She also accused the incoming Conservative government of putting fossil fuel profits ahead of the province’s future and billionaires ahead of workers.

However, it should be noted that the natural resource development strategies of both the Conservatives and the BC NDP are intended to create jobs and economic activity, and generate significant new ongoing revenue for the provincial government, with the revenue helping to fund healthcare, education, and other public services, and the construction of new infrastructure. Currently, the provincial government is facing a $13.8-billion annual budget deficit for the 2026/2027 fiscal year, with sustained deficits in the forecast through at least the end of the decade.

Lowan’s criticism extended to Eby, whom she accused of taking labour unions for granted and catering to corporate interests. She said “he did everything that big industry told him to do” and argued that his failure to take stronger action for working people had helped create the conditions for the Conservative victory.

Lowan promised opposition both inside and outside the legislature, presenting the Greens as a political movement that would defend public services, Indigenous rights, and climate action.

“We will fight for you in the legislature and we will fight for you in the streets,” she said.

Below is the full transcript of Green Party of British Columbia leader Emily Lowan’s 19-minute-long speech on election night, after winning her riding of Saanich North and the Islands:

BC Greens party leader Emily Lowan’s full election-night speech

Thank you, my friends. Thank you. I can’t express how much love I have for each and every one of you in this room and across the province.

I am so incredibly proud of what we’ve built together this month and for every single person who helped build it.

We may have a small caucus, but tonight we have inherited an enormous responsibility, and that is to hold a majority Conservative government to account. That is our job.

We are the only party who is equipped to stand against the Conservatives and their existence.

Over the next four years, our job is to be a voice for the many people who will be harmed by their policies, and that is going to require some serious movement building.

Some of you joined a political party for the first time in your lives this fall. Some of you voted for the very first time. You made the videos, you drove people to the polls, and you brought your friends and neighbours along. I can’t even imagine the step count.

Along the way, I met so many people who were entirely disillusioned with politics. People working harder than ever — two, three jobs, and there is no end in sight. There is no hope.

Families with rent eating half of their pay cheque, workers being forced to the picket line just to get a fair wage, people waiting years for a family doctor, grandparents watching their children and grandchildren pack up and leave because they can’t afford to stay.

We ran this campaign on a simple idea: government is supposed to make people’s lives better.

That’s why we fought for universal childcare, a community health centre in every riding, and affordable housing for all. It’s why we stood up for a B.C. that leads on climate and builds the good green jobs that we so desperately need for our future. And it’s why we never stopped fighting for a province where everyone belongs, [and] where Indigenous rights are upheld and deeply respected.

Those people deserve a voice in the legislature, and that is exactly what we’re here to deliver.

It is my deep honour and I’m so truly humbled to stand in front of you tonight as your MLA for Saanich North and the Islands. It took all of us.

My friends, my family, my team, I cannot thank you enough for showing up in the deepest way in this election. Every single evening spent knocking doors, every phone call made, [and] every neighbour shown that they are worthy of care and safety in their community.

That takes a fierce burning compassion in all of us.

And that is precisely the spirit of the movement that we are building together.

Tonight, this movement has sent me and my dear friend Jeremy to the legislature. Jeremy, for two years you’ve shown what two green MLAs can do.

You got regional transit back on the table for the Sea to Sky. You stood up for safer roads on Highway 99. You never stopped fighting for the people of your community. And now, we get to do it together, right? Right in the action.

And you know, there is a heaviness that comes with this as well. I think we’re all in this together.

We’re holding the weight of both the joy of this victory and what comes tomorrow. And I’m going to be honest, I’m scared. I’m scared for what’s to come.

The Conservative agenda is one of cuts to the programmes that we rely on the most. It’s one of culture wars and needless attacks on human rights and the basic tenets of a dignified life. It stands against everything that brought this movement together. The belief that everyone deserves safety and care.

Frankly, we know what’s coming: cuts to health care, child care, [and] public services that people count on; attacks to the rights of trans people, Indigenous communities and immigrants; and a government that will put fossil fuel profits ahead of our future and billionaires ahead of workers.

When I heard Lorne Doerkson speak tonight, I thought one thing: the Conservatives are promising everything that they’re going to abandon… correction, give away!

No, watch the next years. As housing cuts continue, housing bills, our rent continues to rise, grocery bills [go] through the roof, and our hard-earned money that will continue to line the pockets of foreign multinationals.

So, know this. The BC Greens and the movement we have built will stand with marginalised people, with workers, and with everyone who depends on strong public services.

We will stand with you and we will fight alongside you.

We are the only party left standing with a credible plan to stand up to the megacorporations that run both of these establishment parties.

We will defend every service they try to cut.

We will stand in front of every neighbour they try to scapegoat.

We will defend trans rights and DRIPA.

We will keep fighting for a B.C. that not just protects people from climate change, but stops corporations from creating it.

We will fight for you in the legislature and we will fight for you in the streets.

We will stand with you and we will fight for you.

We will be unafraid to flex the muscles of the movement we have built together.

And I think we have to take a moment to remember how Eby’s tenure started. He stole power from social movements who revitalised their party. He used an expensive witch hunt to oust a popular leader, Anjali Appadurai, to ascend the throne.

Unelected, he took control of the party and he turned his back on the social movements that created the BC NDP.

He took labour unions for granted and he did everything that big industry told him to do.

After pandering to corporate interests for years, he decided in the last week of this opportunistic snap election to beg for his base back. If he had spent any political capital fighting hard for working people, taking big swings with his majority, like we saw with the Dave Barrett government of the 1970s, we wouldn’t be here. We would not be here.

Eby is part of a trend around the world where corporate liberals, with all of their tepid tinkering, create the desperate conditions for working people to ask for their oppressors to save them. We saw it in the U.S. in 2016, and again in 2024, and we’re seeing it here because the establishment parties are not learning their lessons. That is why I got into politics. We are facing the death rattle of the old world. We are facing it.

The only way out is through. And I know that we will fight and we will create this good, dignified world together. I mean, look around this room. Look at what we built in just four weeks together.

Imagine what we’ll build in four years.

Let us remember that the legislature belongs to the people and we can take it back for the people too.

I’ve always called this movement an experiment — something bright, bold, and exciting that takes the feelings of fear and powerlessness that so many working people feel, people like us, and turn it into something that we can actually face together. I think standing up to the status quo politics is our only path forward.

We have to create the bright solutions that we need together. Like any experiment, it has been unpredictable, a force onto itself. But like any movement of working people, it has come together in solidarity and love to fight for the future we deserve.

We know this movement we have built is not just in the legislature.

No, this movement is in the union halls and in provincial parks.

It is for the bus drivers who wake up at 4 a.m. and the nurses who fall asleep at 6 a.m., and only to do it all over again the next day.

It is for every person who makes this province work despite unmitigated pressure from the immense wealth and corporate capture in our province driving our affordability crisis.

We will fight for a British Columbia where everyone can afford to live a dignified life — when they can see a doctor when they actually need one — and stand up to the extreme wealth of the billionaire class and fight for the future we deserve. What we see here in the room tonight and all across this province is record numbers of green voters

And I think that is the bright spot. That is the beginning. Because we can’t be thinking in terms of just purely short-term advances caught in these cycles set by the establishment of snap elections.

We are thinking about our long-term political project and our long-term movement here. And the future is bright.

To every BC Green candidate who stepped up in these insane conditions and put their name on the ballot, thank you.

Let’s hear a round of applause for all 73 amazing candidates. Running for office is terrifying. It takes courage and it takes a fierce dedication to fight for a better world.

I just am so grateful for everyone who jumped into this with two feet and just, we did it. We peddled to the metal this entire month and our movement is better off because you’re in it.

I just want to take a second to thank my team. We have travelled such a journey together.

I just want to thank every single volunteer who made this campaign win. Your energy, your dedication, your expertise, Linda Brown. Let’s hear it for Linda who’s been here since the very beginning.

The triple threat… Linda, Marilyn Redivo, and Robin Ross. This is the crew that got Elizabeth May elected. It’s the crew that got Adam Olson and Rob Botterell elected, and now me. It is my great honour.

We saw new mentorship explode in my campaign with Becky Major, who stepped up to be my financial agent.

And my phenomenal campaign managers, Patricia Pearson and Jackie Da Silva. Thank you. You fought tooth and nail for this campaign, and I saw the countless hours, the countless minutes, [and] the countless balls you juggled at every single moment of the day. I am so grateful that you would choose me to work alongside and fight for this vision together. Thank you.

Those in power will always make us feel like the deck is insurmountable. That there’s no way that we can crack the facade that they construct to keep people out of the halls of power.

That they want us all to be nihilists.

They want us to believe that a better world is not possible — that we should just hunker down and give up.

We refuse to do that. But in the words of David Graeber, the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently.

Tonight in this room, I can feel it.

I can feel the reshaping of our province in every door you knocked and every neighbour you talked to. That better world is coming and we’re the ones building it.

So, let this grand experiment continue.

Let this movement grow into each and every corner of this province, until all of us can claim victory. Victory for workers, victory for our environment, and victory for justice. Thank you.

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