Dew aims to give Liberals an injection of youth
Gavin Dew, who has built his political profile by encouraging young people to run for public office regardless of party allegiance, has announced that he's running to be the next leader of the B.C. Liberals.
Dew, a 37-year-old father of a 3½-year-old daughter and a fourmonth-old son, said he's driven to run because he's concerned about the lack of affordability facing B.C. families.
Dew said the B.C. Liberal party needs to welcome younger and more diverse voters who want to see the party take a stronger stance on social issues, housing affordability and climate change.
“Elections in B.C. are won and lost with young families,” he said. “And I don't think we've been doing enough to reach out to young families who are struggling or who are deciding whether to build a life here or elsewhere.”
Dew ran for the B.C. Liberals during the February 2016 byelection in the NDP stronghold of Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, a race he lost to now-Tourism Minister Melanie Mark. He is also a former director of the Vancouver NPA and founder of the Forum for Millennial Leadership, a non-partisan group that helps elect millennials to various levels of government regardless of their party or ideology.
Dew and his wife Erin Shum live in east Vancouver and run a Surrey-based centre called Rain or Shine Child Care.
Dew said he sees parallels between the complicated and opaque licensing process for daycares and the lengthy zoning approval process for new housing. Both processes, he said, are often stalled by bureaucratic red tape that drives up costs for families desperate for child care or looking to get into the housing market.