Source: Lyle Stafford

"Even a few Green MLAs will make a difference in the legislature," a confident Weaver predicted Tuesday night as he arrived at his victory party at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel. "Change for the best, one seat at a time." The riding was one of the most hotly contested races in B.C.'s recent provincial election.

Weaver defeated NDP rival Jessica Van der Veen and long-time Liberal incumbent Ida Chong. The B.C. Green party fielded 61 candidates in the B.C. election, but Weaver represented its best chance for election.

Weaver was a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with former U.S. vice-president Al Gore. Elizabeth May's solid victory in 2011 in the federal riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands raised the Green Party's profile in B.C.