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“In part, I think that’s to provide contrast with the NDP, but also to appeal to perhaps a younger set of voters who would be more inclined to vote Green,” Telford said.

That is a definite contrast with past B.C. campaigns, and the federal Green party’s tendencies toward more conservative positions on balanced budgets and fiscal management that give them a “blue tinge,” according to veteran political scientist Norman Ruff.

“The fact (the Greens) put a priority on preserving the environment has given them the notion that they’re on the left and progressive,” Ruff said.

The B.C. NDP has yet to release specifics around welfare and disability rates, but has been critical of the B.C. Liberals on those topics, and has promised to increase both.

However, with the announcements that Ruff has seen to date, Weaver does appear to have “pushed the Greens more perhaps a little further to the left than they’ve been in the past.”

Weaver’s announcement Wednesday followed on the Green party’s pledge Tuesday to cool Metro Vancouver’s hot housing markets by doubling the foreign buyers tax and expand it across the province, among other measures.

On income security, Weaver criticized the B.C. Liberal government for leaving social-assistance rates frozen for a decade and only raising disability assistance rates a little bit in the last election.

“It’s unconscionable that they would to this, it’s just mean,” Weaver said.

Weaver promised to raise welfare and disability assistance rates 10 per cent this October and 50 per cent over today’s rates by 2020, to provide youth aged 18-24 transitioning out of foster care with basic income support and to strike an independent “fair-wages commission” to set B.C.’s minimum wage.