Ferries, farms and the Islands Trust: what Ryan Windsor and Kala Bryson offer Saanich North and the Islands

On Friday, 9 October, extra chairs had to be unfolded at ASK Salt Spring. The Gulf Islands Driftwood reported that a second pot of coffee was brewed for a “jam-packed” room at the Salt Spring Island Multi Space, where all four candidates for Saanich North and the Islands took questions for two hours. The questions ran from seniors and rural health care to housing, ferries, transit and energy.¹

The riding takes in the Southern Gulf Islands and the Saanich Peninsula towns of North Saanich, Central Saanich and Sidney.² The islands are reached by ferry, and the peninsula is farm country. It has elected a Green MLA since 2017, but this time the seat is open: Rob Botterell, the Green MLA elected in 2024, is not running again, and Emily Lowan, the leader of the BC Greens, is running to replace him.³

Two of the people at the front of that room are the subject of this piece. Ryan Windsor has been mayor of Central Saanich since 2014 and is running for the Conservative Party of BC. Kala Bryson is a lawyer who has worked with low-income clients, and she is running for the BC NDP. 338Canada projects them tied for second, at 29% each.⁴

Ryan Windsor

Conservative Party of BC candidate, Saanich North and the Islands

Office

Mayor of Central Saanich since 2014; councillor from 2013

Region

Director, Capital Regional District board

In his words

“I’d really like it if someone would focus on riding priorities.”

Portrait: Conservative Party of BC

Kala Bryson

BC NDP candidate, Saanich North and the Islands

Work

Lawyer and community advocate; law degree from the University of Victoria

Background

Raised in co-op housing

In her words

“People deserve to know that the institutions they rely on will be there when they need them.”

Portrait: BC NDP

Where Ryan Windsor and Kala Bryson stand, in their own words and records.

Before the argument, the comparison. Each line below comes from the candidate, from coverage of the candidate, or from the candidate’s party page.¹

Two more names are on the ballot. Emily Lowan, the BC Green leader, grew up in the riding and calls herself “the fighter to get it done.” Richard Smith, a research scientist with a doctorate from the University of British Columbia, is running for CentreBC; at the forum he asked islanders to “scrap the political party stuff and look at the four people here.”¹⁸

Emily Lowan · BC Green leader“We have ferries that are aging, no money to upgrade capacity and a government missing in action.”⁵

Richard Smith · CentreBCResearch scientist and project manager in immunology and microbiology.⁸

01 The Islands run on ferries, and Ryan Windsor is the Conservatives’ voice on fixing them.

For people on Salt Spring, Pender, Galiano, Mayne and Saturna, getting almost anywhere starts at a ferry terminal. CBC News reported this month that B.C. Ferries has faced “repeated mechanical failures in its aging fleet, along with sailing delays and cancellations.”⁵

When CBC compared the parties’ ferry plans on 13 October, the Conservative speaking for his party was Ryan Windsor. He put the blame on the government that runs the system, “They own the system as it is currently. It’s broken,” and then set out what he would do: a B.C. Ferries Charter with clear standards in five areas, reliability, on-time performance, capacity, affordability and customer service, which the province could use to hold the ferry corporation’s board and leadership to account. “We need to establish the framework in which government expects this service to operate,” he said.⁵

In fairness, the BC NDP has a ferry record to point to. Mike Farnworth, the transportation minister, told CBC that the government has delivered five new hybrid-electric Island Class ferries, with three more on the way, and the party is promising a pilot that holds 12 per cent of reservations for people who live in ferry-reliant communities. That pilot, though, would start on the Sunshine Coast and Comox routes, not the Southern Gulf Islands. We found no ferry position from Kala Bryson herself.⁵

The Greens would bring back local ferry advisory committees. Lowan’s own campaign page says the ferries “break down and get cancelled with no real fix in sight.”⁹ All four parties say they would press Ottawa for more ferry money.⁵

In our view, a charter with published standards is the most concrete promise in this race for people who live by the sailing schedule. It gives islanders a yardstick, and it gives their MLA something to hold up in the Legislature when the boat does not come.

02 Kala Bryson’s strongest local case is the Islands Trust, and she made it against her own party’s government.

The Islands Trust plans land use on the Gulf Islands, and its council has asked the province, more than once, for a review of how it works. At the Salt Spring forum, Bryson said she supported much of what the BC NDP has done but was disappointed by its government’s lack of interest in that review. “I don’t think that the Islands Trust [Council] was asking for too much, in terms of making sure that local matters could be addressed in a way that doesn’t create more ambiguity,” she said.¹

It is to her credit that she said it in public, in the riding, during a campaign. Her working life points the same way. She told the forum she worked as a lawyer exclusively with low-income clients through non-profits, “I actually never billed any of my clients,” and that the work taught her to bring people’s stories to government: “Especially in areas of our communities that are underserved, that’s how you can go back to Victoria and fiercely advocate for what they need.”¹ She was raised in co-op housing and took her law degree at the University of Victoria.⁷

Her public record, though, is short. Her campaign page speaks in her party’s province-wide terms, jobs, health care and the cost of living, and lists no elected office.¹⁰ Beyond the forum and her party’s announcement, we found little she has said about the riding itself.⁷ In our view, a candidate who disagrees with her own government on the Islands Trust would also be a backbencher in that government, asking it to change its mind.

03 Ryan Windsor ran a farm-country municipality for twelve years, and he says farming is a business.

Windsor was elected to Central Saanich council in a 2013 by-election, became mayor in 2014 and was returned by acclamation in 2018 and 2022. He sat on the Capital Regional District board. His party credits him with building long-term funding for the water and sewer systems residents rely on, and with work to make roads and trails safer.⁶ When he announced in March that he would not run for mayor again, that was the part he chose to talk about: “The ability to fund infrastructure replacements, all the less exciting stuff that’s so essential, is something we’ve been baking into our financial plan for a long time.”¹¹

Central Saanich is farm country, and Windsor told the Salt Spring forum that he once owned a farm on the island himself. “From my perspective, farming is also a business, whether you’re growing one acre or 100,” he said. “We need to have a good, solid plan in British Columbia that is economically sustainable in the long term; deficit spending is not sustainable.”¹

On energy he was direct. He said B.C. should “reduce, not eliminate, emissions and pollution,” and that he supports exporting LNG to Asia for an interim period to collect the royalties, adding that he owns an electric vehicle and put 33 solar panels on the roof of a previous home.¹ Lowan, by contrast, is campaigning against the pipeline and the tankers on the coast.³

Windsor ran federally for the Liberals in 2019, and he describes himself as a centre-right candidate who believes in business and creating prosperity.³ In our view, a mayor whose proudest work was pipes, sewers and safer roads is the kind of practical, local MLA a riding of farms and ferries needs.

04 Emily Lowan is projected ahead, and Ryan Windsor and Kala Bryson are tied behind her.

338Canada, which turns the published polls into a projection for every riding, rates Saanich North and the Islands “GRN likely.” Its update of 16 October puts the BC Greens at 38%, plus or minus eight points, and the BC NDP and the Conservatives at 29% each, plus or minus six. Its simulated odds of winning on the same date were 90% for the Greens, 5% for the NDP and 4% for the Conservatives. It is a forecast built from polls, not a poll.⁴

Saanich North and the Islands, projected vote

338Canada, update of 16 October 2026. Bars show the projection; the thin lines show its margin either way.⁴

Ryan Windsor, Conservative

29%

Kala Bryson, BC NDP

29%

Emily Lowan, BC Green

38%

Richard Smith, CentreBC

3%

0%30%60%

The last election was closer than the projection. In 2024 Rob Botterell won with 12,308 votes; Sarah Riddell of the NDP took 10,958, and David Busch, the Conservative, 10,145. The Conservatives finished 2,163 votes short of first place and 813 short of second, in a riding where 68.95% of the 49,437 registered voters turned out.²

Lowan comes with real strengths. She won the BC Green leadership in September 2025 and has been without a seat since; Botterell says she will take the time to meet people and listen to what concerns them.³ She would also be the leader of a party, with a province to campaign across and a caucus to run.

Windsor’s pitch is aimed squarely at that. He says too little attention has been paid to the riding since 2017, and that “Frankly that’s got to stop.” “I’d really like it if someone would focus on riding priorities.”³

In our view, Ryan Windsor has the stronger case: twelve years answering to the peninsula’s ratepayers and farmers, and the most concrete plan in this race for the ferries the Islands depend on.

05 The candidates are scheduled to face Salt Spring again on 21 October, three days before the vote.

The Driftwood reports that all four candidates are scheduled to appear at Fulford Hall on Wednesday, 21 October, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., at an event sponsored by the Salt Spring Forum.¹ Advance voting runs from 16 to 21 October, and Final Voting Day is 24 October. Elections BC’s Where to Vote app lists every voting place in the riding, on the peninsula and on the islands.¹²

On 9 October the room on Salt Spring needed extra chairs because islanders wanted to hear, face to face, who would speak for them in Victoria. All four candidates promised to come back to ASK Salt Spring if they win. In our view, the one with twelve years of answering to ratepayers, and a written standard for the boats, is the one most likely to keep that promise in a way the islands can measure.¹

Extra chairs on Salt Spring, a ferry to catch home. In our view, Ryan Windsor is the candidate built for this riding.