WATCH: Greens announce Shelley Luce as candidate for North Van-Capilano by-election

NORTH VANCOUVER — The Green Party of Canada has revealed that Shelley Luce will be their candidate in North Vancouver-Capilano.

The riding is set to hold a by-election in the not too distant future following Prime Minister Carney's decision to appoint the current MP, Jonathan Wilkinson, to European Union ambassador.

Luce, who holds a PhD in environmental science and engineering and serves as associate director of the Sierra Club BC, made the announcement alongside supporters and Green Party leader Elizabeth May in North Vancouver on Wednesday.

"The prime minister's office and the backrooms of the Liberal Party take this riding and its voters for granted," May said. "You'll read in the newspapers that they think it's a 'safe Liberal seat'. Well we're here to say something different."

She went on to endorse Luce, outlining her academic and societal accomplishments.

Luce then took the stage, and explained why she's running. Chief among her motivators was a desire for "a strong, healthy community that is ready for tomorrow." Much of her vision focused on clean energy and climate solutions, but she also vowed to tackle housing, affordability, and transportation.

"I think all voters are environmentally-minded," Luce said. "The polls show that voters are concerned about climate change, because it's affecting us every day."

She cited heat-related deaths, the ever-lengthening forest fire seasons in BC, and pollution from fossil fuel industries before suggesting that "climate, and jobs, and health, and prosperity go hand-in-hand."

When asked by Sitka Media how she would tackle transportation to, from, and on the North Shore, Luce called for upgrades to the bridges and better public transit that utilizes both the land and sea.

"I want to see free, clean, electric transit from the North Shore connecting us to Metro Vancouver," she explained, "so that people will have a good choice to get out of their cars and take either a light rail or an electric ferry."

Luce also brought up the fact that elsewhere in Canada, ferries are free because they're considered part of the highway system. She argued that something must be done here in BC to ensure "prohibitively expensive" marine voyages are made more affordable.

A date for the election has not yet been set, though Luce told Sitka Media she's ready to go as soon as the writ is dropped.