Jane Sterk
Jane Sterk - Green Party of B.C.
Alberta native Jane Sterk has led the Green Party of B.C. since 2007.
Sterk holds a PhD in Counselling Psychology from the University of Alberta. Before entering politics she worked as a mental health consultant specializing in family therapy.
She started her career as a teacher in the Edmonton school system, going on to teach continuing studies at the University of Alberta. She also taught in the early childhood program at Grant MacEwen College and the MBA program in Business Environment and Organizational Behaviour at University Canada West in Victoria.
Married for 44 years, she and her husband John, a lawyer, moved to Vancouver Island to retire. They have two grown sons: Darryl, a university professor and Lindsay, an artistic director.
After a sailing trip to Mexico where she witnessed ocean pollution and ecosystem deterioration, Sterk returned home to B.C. and joined the Green Party in 2001.
Sterk ran as a federal candidate in 2004 and as a provincial candidate the following year. She fought to bring in sustainability initiatives during her term as a counsellor for the City of Esquimalt from 2005 to 2008.
A longtime champion of the environment, she furthered the green agenda in the Vancouver Island city, ushering in an urban agriculture resolution, a community garden bylaw and a pedestrian charter.
Sterk is a strong believer in grassroots politics, and says the Green movement has to work at both the local level and by driving policy change from within the provincial government.
Often considered a fringe party, the Greens are hoping to use the election campaign to highlight environmental concerns, and capture anti oil-tanker and pipeline sentiment.
The party released a 41-page policy platform that pushes “green-collar jobs,” like investing in new infrastructure and green technology, while reducing dependence on oil and gas. It promises to lower individual income tax levels, but the carbon tax would increase.
It promises to invest in wild fisheries projects and large-scale rehabilitations of habitat and spawning rivers.
The Greens will have candidates on the ballot in about 70 of B.C.’s 85 ridings during the 2013 election.
Despite not being on every ballot, Sterk says the efforts will be concentrated on several Vancouver Island and Sunshine Coast ridings, including Victoria-Beacon Hill, where Sterk will take on former NDP leader Carole James.
The Green Party of B.C. won 8.3 per cent of the popular vote in the 2009 provincial election, when Sterk was a candidate in the Esquimalt-Royal Roads riding.
