The province’s 2017 general election is less than one year away and the B.C. Green Party is clicking into campaign mode.

“I made the decision [to run] about 24 hours after the last election,” Adam Olsen, the party’s deputy leader and former interim leader, told the Straight. “Frankly, I’ve been running for the last three-and-a-half years.”

In the 2013 provincial election, Olsen placed third in Saanich North and the Islands, missing a seat in the legislature by just 379 votes. “It was the closest three-way race in the province,” he recalled.

A second confirmed candidate for the Greens is Matt Toner, the party’s other deputy leader. He placed second in Vancouver–False Creek in 2013.

In a telephone interview, Toner told the Straight he doesn’t have a constituency yet but that he’s narrowed it down to two, both of which fall within the City of Vancouver.

“A breakthrough in Vancouver would be huge for the party, so we want to make sure we line things up,” he explained.

The B.C. Greens’ annual general meeting is scheduled for June 5. Candidate nominations will take place later this year.

According to party spokesperson Mat Wright, the plan for 2017 is to run a Green candidate in all 87 constituencies across B.C.

To that end, the party has recruited a relatively high-profile name in backroom politics from the Liberal Party of Canada (a separate entity from the B.C. Liberals). That’s Brian Rice, former president of the federal Liberals’ B.C. chapter. Rice was with the campaign when the Liberals jumped from two seats in B.C. in the 2011 federal election to 17 seats won last October.

The party has also sent its new campaign director, Taylor Hartrick, to Washington D.C. for a training sesssion.

A third Green candidate confirmed to run in 2017 is Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Greens and the lone Green MLA in the legislature (representing Oak Bay–Gordon Head).

“We’re running to form government. And we’ll take whatever number of seats the voters of British Columbia give us," he told the Straight. 

In a telephone interview, Weaver described a strategy that will seek to capitalize on the success of the federal Liberals while exploiting the weaknesses of the provincial Liberals and NDP.

“More than 50 percent of British Columbians say they would vote federal Liberal today if there was an election,” Weaver explained. “That is a huge demographic that really has no home with the B.C. Liberals. That is where we have found an enormous surge in support, is federal Liberal supporters coming our way in British Columbia across the province."

He argued the federal Liberals have nothing in common with their B.C. counterpart, describing the latter as “nothing more than yesterday’s Harper Tories”.

“In British Columbia, we have a dichotomy of dysfunction,” Weaver continued. “We have two parties that, really, are tired. There is room for a new, vibrant, visionary third party to come and govern in B.C.”