8 social impact leaders weigh in on the B.C. election results

The provincial election in B.C. saw the NDPs go from minority to majority — in what many in the province’s social impact sector are calling a win for an equitable, sustainable pandemic recovery. The final results won’t be in for about two weeks, while officials count mail-in and absentee votes, but the party is projected to pick up at least 14 new seats. 

Future of Good spoke to eight leaders in social enterprise, philanthropy, advocacy, social finance, and more to learn about what this election means, both for the sector and for the communities hit hardest by the pandemic.

Andrew Greer | Co-founder, Purppl

“The election means we have a government that’s focused on building a sustainable, regenerative, resilient, and just recovery,” says Greer, who leads Purppl, a Kelowna based social enterprise accelerator. A missed opportunity so far, though, he says, is that “the government hasn’t played a major role in the development of social enterprise, in the interior [of the province] anyways.” Greer says the NDP government could focus on boosting social entrepreneurship — investments in capacity-building programming for social entrepreneurs, for example, “specifically focusing on the people and the leaders” — as a way to achieve its bold ambitions for pandemic recovery.

Carol Anne Hilton | Founder, The Indigenomics Institute 

For Hilton, whose work focuses on building and strengthening Indigenous economies, the fact that the province is currently putting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into provincial law (the only province in Canada to do so) is promising. And she says an NDP majority could mean an even stronger commitment to reconciliation. “This government [could] establish an Indigenous economic baseline that establishes understanding around the growing size of the B.C. Indigenous economy,” she says. “I think there’s a lot of room around connecting the growth of the Indigenous economy with the implementation [of UNDRIP] into law, here with this government.” Where the government could improve, she said, is on consulting with Indigenous groups for pandemic recovery planning. “Spend the time and invest in hearing the Indigenous experience of the business COVID economic response,” she advises, within the tourism industry, as an example. 

Petros Kusmu | Global Shapers Vancouver Hub

When the results started coming in for the B.C. provincial election, Petros Kusmu, member of the World Economic Forum’s the Global Shapers, noticed a lot of candidates winning seats weren’t young people. The two Black candidates he noticed in the running also didn’t secure their seats. “How diverse is our legislative assembly going to be?” he says. As someone heavily involved in youth leadership, getting Millennial and Generation Z candidates involved in politics is crucial. The NDP will be heavily focused on recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and youth, along with elders and the disabled, have been disproportionately hard hit. “I hope there are serious considerations of formally including youth into their pandemic economic recovery task force and other bodies,” Kusmu says. 

Nada El Masry| Project manager, Refugee Livelihood Lab

One reason El Masry, who runs settlement programming for refugees in the province, is encouraged by an NDP majority is that “in their platform, they’ve promised to look into the credential recognitions for migrant doctors, for example, as one way to address the inequity that’s been happening there,” she says. “There are many local groups who have been working on this… it addresses a need in the community — we need doctors.” Moving forward, though, El Masry wants to see bolder action from the provincial government on reconciliation, and relationship-building with Indigenous communities. 

Adrienne Montani | Provincial coordinator, First Call BC 

First Call BC is an advocacy organization focused on the wellbeing of children and youth in the province, so she’s encouraged by a number of the NDPs’ promises: investments in affordable childcare, rent relief programs, free transit for kids under 13, creating a school food program, expanding the provincial tuition waiver program for postsecondary education and taking the age cap off. Still, she would have liked to have seen increased welfare rates as part of the party’s platform. Public education is top of mind, too: “They’ve made some promises, but they’re a little bit vague, about investments in public schools, and we hope they act on them,” especially with the challenges teachers and students are facing during the pandemic. “The one thing we didn’t see,” she adds, “and therefore will ramp up our advocacy on, is around families who are raising children with complex needs or disabilities.” Montani says First Call will advocate for more provincial investment and regulation of services and assessments for these families to reduce costs and wait times, especially for those with young children. 

Darcy Riddell | BC program director, MakeWay

“It’s clear that the NDP’s vision that they were putting forward in the platform around staying the course of investment in people and social programs and public health is what people were resonating with,” Riddell says, “and that it’s not a time for austerity — it’s a time for investing in and supporting individuals.” Riddell, who leads MakeWay’s programs and granting activities in the province, is also encouraged by the NDP’s implementation of UNDRIP. “We’ll be looking for significant progress around the move to Indigenous authority over land and resources and stewardship.” She cautions against using the language of “a green recovery, while still paving the way for a lot of industrial extraction, whether it’s fossil fuels, mining, or forestry. We need to come to a different frame that is more regenerative and less extractive — and it’ll be interesting to see how they do that without a Green co-governing party role.” 

Joel Solomon | Co-founding partner, Renewal Funds

The co-founding partner of Renewal Funds, a $240 million venture capital fund focused on a sustainable economy, believes the NDP victory is a boon for green recovery projects in the province — and elsewhere. He rattles off a few local advantages: subway line extensions in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, a growing cleantech sector, the influx of skilled immigrants. “There’s a lot of momentum here,” Solomon says. “I think we’ll see some significant infrastructure dollars federally. The province is committed to fairly significant infrastructure spending. There’s also the broad support for green projects within B.C. itself. Renewal Funds’ investments are doing well across every part of Canada and the United States, not just in B.C. “The innovation that is happening is picking up momentum regularly and all kinds of players are getting into it,” he says. 

Denise Williams | CEO, First Nations Technology Council

Inequitable internet access is a huge issue for B.C.’s Indigenous communities, both on-reserve and in urban centres. “I’m certainly hoping we’re going to see an acceleration around decision making when it comes to connectivity,” says Denise Williams, CEO of the First Nations Technology Council. She hopes the provincial government will keep working with them on growing digital economies, addressing the lack of broadband access in Indigenous communities overall, and continuing a sector labour market project that examines the participation of Indigenous workers in the tech innovation sector. The federal Liberal government recently promised to connect all Canadians to high speed broadband internet by 2030. “Because of COVID, we need to get this infrastructure in place immediately,” Williams says. 

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