Dana Taylor hadn’t exactly been planning to run in the upcoming provincial election.

As a member of the board of directors for the Board of Change, a sustainability-focused business network, he was, initially, just curious as to whether the B.C. Green Party had selected a candidate yet.

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“I looked it up and saw there was nobody running,” he said. “That took me to the next step, when I started looking at the results from the previous (election) and was saying, ‘this is crazy, this is not representative of what I believe this riding should be able to do’… I made the call to the Green Party to say, ‘who’s in the chute here? What’s going on?’ and they sent me back a candidate’s package. So I filled that in and away we go.”

Now, Taylor, a West Vancouver resident of 30 years, is readying to challenge incumbent Liberal MLA Jordan Sturdy to represent the West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country riding, the Green Party announced last week.

“I’m not afraid of politics — I’ve had that experience… I thought, ‘I can lend a voice to this,’” he said. “I truly believe that in the riding itself, there’s more Green votes out there.”

Taylor, who previously served two terms as a city councillor in North Vancouver and now acts as the executive vice president for the Mechanical Contractors Association of B.C., said he’s ready to jump back into politics while drawing from his experiences representing a different group of constituents in those roles.

“From my association background, in many ways it’s a step sideways,” he said. “It’s the same world. You essentially work for constituents in that you try to achieve the objectives of that organization, in this case, on the members’ behalf. Association work is politics from the other side… It’s all the same thing. It’s giving your constituents what they want and need.”

Moreover, Taylor — who names his main focuses as amending B.C.’s current economy structure and the province’s correlating energy strategy, development issues and transportation — said he hopes to offer Sea to Sky residents an alternative option when they head to the polls.

“(After) 16 years of Liberal government, (do you have) the province that you want? Is this the environment you like to live in, are the things that concern you on a day-to-day basis being responded to?” he asked. “If the answer’s no, then right away you’re faced with a choice: do I stick with these guys or do I try something different? In this case the Green party, certainly on the economic platform, offers as much or more than the Liberals do. I think a lot of our constituents are trapped feeling like they don’t have a choice and... I think I can articulate some of those options.”

But with the election fast approaching — the vote is currently scheduled for May 9 — Taylor knows he’s facing “an uphill struggle.”

“I have a lot of work to do, no question about it,” he said. “I just need 39 per cent of people that voted for somebody else to vote for me next time, so it’s not impossible… I’m going to do my best to make some noise and see if I can scramble to the top.”