Cariboo-Chilcotin Green Party candidate Rita Giesbrecht said she is excited about how well her party did in the provincial election and was proud of her campaign team.
“I think the province as a whole has made a pretty clear statement that the people have a different set of priorities than what the Liberals have been rolling out recently,” Giesbrecht told the Tribune Wednesday.
The fact the Green Party held three seats is a “huge breakthrough,” she added.
“It tells you a lot about our province. It takes courage to change and it takes courage to be an early adopter and that’s what some of the ridings in B.C. have been.”
With her campaign, Giesbrecht tripled the numbers of Green supporters in the riding, receiving 14.95 per cent or 2,035 votes as of May 10.
“We were coming from a starting place of no resources,” Giesbrecht said. “We just started out on the faith that we were taking a principled stance and have established a Green movement core that extends from Bridge Lake to Anahim and from Williams Lake to 100 Mile House so we are pretty stoked about that.”
On Wednesday she and her campaign team were strategizing on how to build the momentum and put a structure together to prepare for whatever comes next.
Now that the election is over, Giesbrecht will continue to work as a Green Party volunteer and potential candidate, and return to working with the not-for-profit organizations she is involved with such as the agricultural enterprise centre, Cariboo Family Centre, Anti-Poverty Coalition and Food Security Committee.
Work with her partner and photographer, Chris Harris, will involve a lot of touring and in the next two months she will be volunteering at Educo Adventure School because they need some help at the site.
“It is going to be a wonderful summer interlude spending some time there. I’m a long-time Educo parent, my kids went there every summer of their lives and one of the staff members dropped into the campaign office to ask if we had some time to give.”