At 19, Beatrice Sharpe ’25 put her name on the ballot for a seat in the B.C. legislature. The second-year University of Victoria student ran for MLA in Vancouver-Point Grey as the BC Green Party candidate in the 2026 provincial election. She wanted people her age to see someone like them running for office.
Sharpe received 2,876 votes, about 14 per cent of valid ballots cast in the riding, compared with about nine per cent for the party there in 2024. Incumbent David Eby of the BC NDP retained the seat.
Sharpe first pictured herself running for office while working on the 2024 campaign of then-BC Greens leader Sonia Furstenau. At UVic, where she studies Political Science and Environmental Studies and is pursuing a certificate in Transformative Climate Action, she continued to think about how young people could have more of a say in provincial politics.
“I didn’t have any doubt running at 19 because I had five years of political and environmental organizing experience, I knew what I stood for, and I knew what seeing a young person run would mean for people my age,” Sharpe said.
Her own campaign meant knocking on doors, organizing volunteers and preparing for debates. She remembers a positive reception from people she met while canvassing and from UBC students.
“The biggest surprise was that nobody at any point questioned my eligibility for the role as a young person,” she said.
Learning to bring people together at SMUS
Looking back, Sharpe credits AP Comparative Government with giving her a foundation in how governments work. She also points to a more practical lesson from her time at SMUS: getting people to show up and take part takes work.
In Grade 11, Sharpe and fellow student Janet Andrews organized the 2024 EcoYouth Conference at SMUS, bringing together students from six public and independent schools to discuss local environmental issues. Sharpe remembers it as her first experience with grassroots organizing in Victoria.
Sharpe joined SMUS as a Grade 9 day student and took part in cross-country, track and field, sailing, visual art and the symphony orchestra. By Grade 12, she was helping lead SMUS Talks and co-leading the Sustainability Council with Larisse Zhao. When the school welcomed its first electric bus, the two were already looking at other ways to make the campus more sustainable, including adding more compost bins.
Before she knocked on doors as a candidate, Sharpe was getting students from different schools into the same room to talk about issues that mattered to them. Her advice to students today is to start with something they care about and give themselves time to build the relationships and skills to act on it.
“We are the generation inheriting the issues today,” Sharpe said, “and we should have a voice.”
