With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1484213
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 BCBUSINESS 65 BCBUSINESS.CA WHO ARE YOUR ROLE MODELS TODAY? WHO WOULD YOU LOOK TO FOR INSPIRATION? In the electoral context, I've been reading a lot about Dave Barrett recently. I have to mention him and Rosemary Brown as leaders who had a similar vision for the NDP that I do. Obviously, it's a different time and context, but [they were] brave politicians. Most of my mentors and folks I look up to are from the social movement side—land defenders across the world. Folks who put their lives on the line for the values they believe in, who understand the interconnectedness between our lived environments. number of current MLAs—would glide to an easy victory. That was put into question somewhat, given rumours that Appadurai signed up many more members than Eby. Ultimately, she was disqualified from the race after the BC NDP executive voted to support chief electoral officer Elizabeth Cull's report that found she had broken the rules around third-party support. But Ap- padurai says she isn't leaving the NDP and you can bet that she doesn't have plans to simply fade into the background. "People really do want transformative change, and when all we're offered is in- crementalism, we just go with the flavour of incrementalism that seems most palat- able at the time," she says. "But what gets people excited is a positive vision of the future that puts their wellbeing at the core of it. We didn't have enough time [in the federal election] to see that happen, but the momentum that was built in the last weeks really showed me that; the energy at the doors really showed me that." That different way of approaching poli- tics was evident in Appadurai's platform as well. "The platform kind of sidesteps the traditional model of having differ- ent policy buckets with prescriptions for each," she explains. "It's about climate justice—an overarching approach to the in- tersections of all our systems. It will look at how climate intersects with our health- care system, with housing, with educa- tion. Climate is considered an overarching framework, not just one part of it." " I believe that we have the expertise we need to bring even the most transformative vision to life, and so my leadership style is really about building really strong coalitions. "