The third of three columns on the candidates in the BC Green leadership race: Jonathan Kerr, Emily Lowan and Adam Bremner-Akins. Party members vote on a new leader Sept. 13-23.
Adam Bremner-Akins was barely a teenager when he crafted his first protest sign, excused himself from class and stood alone at an intersection outside his high school to call for the cancellation of the TMX oil pipeline expansion.
It was a lonely vigil for a time, until the Grade 10 student at Terry Fox Secondary School in Port Coquitlam managed to rally a crowd.
“I think we peaked at around 100 or 200 kids,” he says.
“Ever since high school I’ve had the political bug in me.”
So began an early interest in climate activism for Bremner-Akins, who quickly found his way into the BC Green Party and never left. Now the 23-year-old is one of three contenders for party leader.
“It was a very exciting time to be within the party,” he says, of joining after the 2017 election in which the BC Greens held the balance of power. “They hooked me.”
Bremner-Akins went on to run twice as a Green candidate, sat as a youth member on provincial council and most recently served as party secretary.
Despite the experience, he faces a tough fight in the race.
Emily Lowan seems to have the backing of most of the climate groups, using their vast organizational reach to run an outsider’s campaign focused on mass signups and a shift to radicalism.
Jonathan Kerr, meanwhile, has a municipal network as a Comox counsellor and 44-year-old family doctor, who wants to push the party to centre pragmatism.
Bremner-Akins is pitching himself as both — a youth insurgent with insider experience. It’s a mix that could either broaden his base or blur his identity.
He warns the BC NDP could call an early election, and he’d be the only candidate ready to hit the ground running.
“As the only person who has ever been an MLA candidate, I know what that campaign will look like,” he says. “It won’t be my first time.”
Bremner-Akins is also the party’s only leadership candidate from the Lower Mainland, an area where the party desperately needs to grow to break out of its electoral slump.
“Being leader on the mainland will give people where I live the opportunity to say, 'Hey look, there's this person from our area, he is leading a party, let's focus on him,’” he says.
He’s also promised a 93-riding tour if elected, with the goal of a full slate of candidates and an ambitious benchmark for success.
“Five to 10 Green MLAs in the next four years feels and sounds reasonable,” he says. “And as leader, I want to make sure I put the spotlight that comes with the job onto these communities.”
Bremner-Akins, like Kerr, is supportive of the current Green confidence agreement with the BC NDP government. Lowan has said it was a missed opportunity and should be renegotiated on stronger terms.
Bremner-Akins says the party has done an admirable job in administering the leadership race, but expressed frustration that the party staff and council members who he worked alongside, and who encouraged him to run, are forbidden from endorsing him under the rules.
“I struggle to see what the conflict of interest would be,” he says.
Both Lowan and Kerr are running campaigns focused on affordability. But unlike his rivals, Bremner-Akins doesn’t just talk affordability, he waits tables on minimum wage to pay for school.
“I am someone who is earning the least amount in the province and just the pressures of living in B.C.,” he says. “It’s not enough to get by. And the amount of work while going to school isn’t enough to get by for a university student anymore.
“That’s one of the reasons that contributed to push me out to run for leader. I have the weight of these issues on my shoulders, they are constant in my life.”
He says he hopes his campaign speaks to the frustration of young people, as the Greens spoke to his frustration in high school.
“Young people are done sitting on the sidelines,” he says. “When we want issues addressed, we are going to do it ourselves.”
The risk for Bremner-Akins though, is in a race defined by the sharp choice of protest versus pragmatism, his middle-lane approach may not be quite enough to cut through. His bet is that BC Green members want a leader who blends all three.
The next month will tell whether that gamble pays off.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for The Orca/BIV. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
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