It might seem strange for a former oil field archeologist in the Fort St. John area to become a candidate for the Green Party of Canada in the upcoming federal election, but Mary Forbes says it’s an example of the complexity of Northern BC residents.
Forbes, currently vice-chair of the Williams Lake-based School District 27, is the Greens’ challenger to Conservative incumbent Bob Zimmer in Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies on April 28, election day.
That riding is the northwesternmost in BC, bordering both Alberta and the Yukon.
Though she no longer works in archeology, Forbes told The Citizen in a March 21 phone interview that she doesn’t think it’s any kind of contradiction for her to go from working in the oil industry to running for the federal party most devoted to environmental causes.
“I think it’s an example of how people in the north are mislabelled or expected to be a very certain kind of person,” Forbes said.
“People who work in the oil patch, their jobs are the front line of preventing pollution … Our hearts are in the forest. We love the land that surrounds us.”
These days, Forbes said, she works as an independent nature interpreter. She also collects broken bikes, combining their parts to recycle them into working machines rather than throw them away.
If you’ve seen rainbow-coloured fish on school fences in Northern BC, Forbes cann tell you why: She’s the northern co-ordinator for the Stream of Dreams program that puts them out as part of raising awareness for salmon ecology.
Forbes said what caught her eye about the Greens' platform was its policies on mental health.
She said she’s had her own struggles.
“I grew up in a lower socio-economic bracket and it’s been an influence in the way that I’ve been treated or received treatment,” Forbes said. “I know that mental health is related to so many things including generational trauma and residential schools and being born with a different brain.”
Forbes said she considered running in last year’s provincial election for the BC Greens but decided against it.
As a school trustee, she said, she likes being a part of the decisions that will shape her two children’s futures. For this federal election, Forbes said she wants to be involved in shaping other choices that will affect them like different aspects of health care and the sovereignty challenges posed by the escalating trade war between the United States and Canada.
Under the second Trump Administration, Forbes said the treatment of immigrants and 2SLGBTQIA+ people is “truly frightening.”
She’s in favour of electoral reform, saying that it doesn’t make sense that under the current first-past-the-post system, the Bloc Québécois can get the same national vote share as the Green Party but many fewer members of parliament.
On the carbon tax, which the Liberals, NDP and Conservatives have pledged to get rid of, she said she agrees that it has created affordability issues in northern regions.
However, she believes the tax should remain in place for the ultra-rich and large polluters to account for their impacts on the environment.
As she doesn’t live in the riding she’s running in, she’s not sure what her campaigning will look like so far, but she’s hoping to campaign in person.
“I think this is the time for serious change,” Forbes said of this election.
The Liberals and NDP had yet to nominate candidates in Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies when this article was written, but the People’s Party of Canada has nominated Bear Lake postmaster David Watson to compete against Forbes and Zimmer.
