NIPR Greens Executive Members

I am honoured to be involved with the North Island-Powell River EDA.  I am someone who has come to political action late in life.  Although I always voted, it wasn’t until the 2015 election that I became involved in a campaign.  I volunteered for Brenda Sayers, and that was a privilege.  I discovered I really liked canvassing, too.  Since finding a home in the Green Party, I feel a real sense of purpose to political organizing - that we are a party that transcends the usual political bickering and partisanship. If I had known how much fun political organizing was 30 years ago, I might have been a candidate at some point!

Jay strongly supports the six values of the Green Party and has been involved with the party since 1983.  Supporting the party as a campaign worker through many elections, a financial agent between elections and a candidate in the 1991 BC election.

Jay first landed in BC as a veterinarian in the Nanaimo region in 1981, followed by a post doc at the UBC Pulmonary Research Lab.  A Master of Public Health allowed Jay to branch out into environmental monitoring for BC Environment and then for the last eighteen years with Health Canada in Ottawa on human biomonitoring in the high Arctic.

Jay’s work in the high arctic, his wife and two sons have brought to the fore the need for real changes in how the human race relates to the world and how we need to make the six Green values ( Ecological Wisdom, Non-violence, Participatory Democracy, Respect for Diversity, Social Justice and Sustainability) the values we all live by on this planet.

Jay and his family have settled in the Comox valley and he hopes that his work as the Financial Agent for the NIPR Greens will help us elect a Green Party candidate and spread Green values.

Mark de Bruijn moved to the Comox Valley 15 years ago as a high school sciences teacher and school principal in the Campbell River district. Prior to that he had a variety of careers, including human resources director, sporting goods buyer, general contractor, college instructor, and fisheries biologist. Since retiring, he has had a growing interest in global issues of environmental preservation, social justice, cooperative governance, and the evolution of human consciousness. Modern politics and global corporatization impact these issues, and the lives of virtually all citizens of the world. This realization has led Mark to a desire to be more politically involved, and the values of the Green Party of Canada were a natural fit. In 2014 he joined the GPC, and the North Island-Powell River riding EDA in 2015. His hope is to engage more people in the upcoming federal election, and to help transform Canada to a collaborative and cooperative society beyond the limits of our current partisan politics. Mark has twin 3-year old grandsons living in Calgary, where his son is an environmental consultant and his daughter-in-law a high school counsellor. He shares his life with his partner, a Vancouver-based life coach and meditation instructor.

Prairie born and Victoria raised, Carol is a true West Coast girl who has witnessed, firsthand, the radical environmental and social changes we’ve seen on Vancouver Island and throughout our province. A passion for health and wellness, personal development and social change carried her through 20+ years executive team management in the field of integrated health and cancer care. Education, program development and facilitation, and the co-creation of a progressive organizational model of health and healing, were her focus.

Carol’s latent interest in politics surfaced in 2013 when she co-created a local political group called ‘Y-vote’, a setting in which to create political awareness and foster intelligent political action. A Green Party member since 2014, Carol is currently a member of GPC’s NIPR Election Readiness committee as well as holding the role of Volunteer Coordinator.