Associate professor Will Greaves to represent Victoria in Parliament
Photo courtesy of Dr. Will Greaves.
In Canada’s federal election on April 28, Liberal candidate Dr. Will Greaves secured the Parliament seat for Victoria — earning 54.3 per cent of the vote and unseating NDP incumbent Laurel Collins.
His victory marks the first time in almost two decades that a Liberal has won the riding, which has been held by the NDP since 2006.
Collins came in second with 24.9 per cent of the vote, followed by Conservative Angus Ross with 17 per cent and Green candidate Michael Doherty with 3.1 per cent.
Normally, Greaves works as an associate professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at UVic. His research focuses on global politics and international security, with a particular focus on Canadian foreign policy, climate change, and the Arctic and North Atlantic regions.
“I’ve done lots of different work pertaining to those areas, but they are certainly relevant to some of the big policy challenges and … the major forks in the road that the country has to make at this point in time,” he said, specifically mentioning decisions about Canada’s defence and security relationships with the United States.
Now that Greaves has won the seat, he will be heading to Ottawa — but that doesn’t mean giving up his position at UVic. As per the faculty agreement with UVic, faculty members can take a “political leave,” permitting them to campaign and serve in either the federal or B.C. parliaments.
“That was part of the consideration that gave me the confidence to stand, and to know that I wasn’t gambling on my career or my academic work,” Greaves told the Martlet.
Greaves said he first became interested in running for office in mid-2024.
“I was really dissatisfied with what felt like the trajectory that the country was on, and what seemed at that point to be the more or less inevitable outcome of this election,” he said.
“I wanted to give voters in Victoria an opportunity to cast a ballot for a progressive MP who also could be a part of a progressive government in Ottawa.”
Greaves said that Canada is facing a number of issues at different scales, and emphasized the need for the government to “hit the ground running” and address these issues simultaneously once Parliament is reconvened.
He said that issues such as housing affordability and availability, addictions and mental health concerns, climate change, and the threat posed by tariffs to sectors of Vancouver Island’s economy are high priorities for him.
“We heard loud and clear during the campaign how focused many people in Victoria are on some of our local challenges [like these].”
Greaves told the Martlet that working with students as a professor, and having a number of students volunteer in his campaign, brought awareness to the kinds of issues that are priorities for young people.
“Housing and affordability are certainly top of mind for a lot of young people…. There’s a widespread concern, I think, about young people being shut out of the housing market indefinitely.”
He also said that the young people he heard from were “really insisting that we not lose sight of questions of climate change” and the human impact on the natural environment.
According to the Liberal Party platform, they intend to get the federal government “back into the business of building houses.” Greaves favours this idea, and said that he believes this would greatly benefit communities on Vancouver Island. He told the Martlet that he would “certainly advocate strongly for Victoria to receive some of that federal investment.”
Greaves said he is “relieved” by the outcome of the election, but is also happy to see a more diverse range of candidates elected on Vancouver Island. “We’ve gone from a situation where there were six NDP ridings and one Green riding to a real mix,” he said.
Vancouver Island is now split into three Conservative ridings, two Liberal ridings, one NDP riding, and one Green riding.
“We still have a first-past-the-post system … but I think that we actually got a much more representative perspective on how folks on the island feel in this campaign,” he said.
“I think that’s something that we might take a moment and celebrate.”
