Jessica Wegg has been acclaimed as the next Green Party of Canada candidate for North Island-Powell River. She is the Party’s first candidate for the next general election. Jessica also ran for the GPC in the 2021 election. She lives with her husband and two kids in Comox.
Jessica was born in Calgary and lived there through Grade 7, when she and her two brothers and two sisters moved with their parents to a small town in rural Indiana. At the University of Indianapolis, she double-majored in German and Psychology and went on to earn her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. Jessica next attended law school at Indiana University – McKinney School of Law, graduating in 2009. She is now licensed to practice law in several jurisdictions throughout the U.S. and has been called to the bar in Ontario and B.C.
For over a decade, Jessica has focused her legal practice on advocating for the rights of all people and shedding light on the kinds of harms most of us would rather not think about. In the U.S., she has represented incarcerated individuals who have been denied necessary medical care and has worked to increase indigent individuals’ access to the courts. She has represented victims of police brutality and the families of those whose loved ones were wrongfully killed by the police. Jessica has also represented survivors of sexual and physical abuse in lawsuits against the perpetrators, but also the institutions that allowed the abuse to happen and tried to cover it up. In B.C., Jessica focuses her practice on Indigenous legal issues. She is currently working in collaboration with a team of other professionals and community members and stakeholders to support First Nations as they work toward Treaty.
Jessica sees climate justice as a human rights issue and is running with the Green Party of Canada to stand up for those rights.
"I could not be more pleased that Jessica Wegg has stepped up to be the Green candidate for North Island Powell River”, said the Green Party leader Elizabeth May. “As a lawyer, she is a champion defender of human rights. As a mother, she fights for her children's future. I so look forward to working with her in Parliament."
“ When I became familiar with Jessica’s professional background, it became instantly clear to me that she is strong MP material and will make for a fantastic representative for North Island-Powell River. Not only is she deeply committed to the riding, she brings with her an extremely solid knowledge of human rights and indigenous law that is sorely missing in Parliament”, said the deputy leader Jonathan Pedneault Having accomplished professionals like Jessica choose to run for the Green Party of Canada is a testament to the strength of our values and the important work that our two incredible MPs are achieving in Ottawa."
“I am grateful, every day, to be living in the most beautiful place in the world, and my days are filled with the joys of a mother who can work from home and who knows her kids have a safe and stable place to sleep at night, food in their bellies, and games to play outside. But that joy is tempered because I know I’m one of the lucky ones, and that there are so many parents and so many sons and daughters who face daily uncertainty and hardships”, said Jessica Wegg.
“This is an expensive place to live. Housing costs are absurd and unstable - the market went unchecked for too long and foreign hedge funds are profiting while we have families couch surfing and sleeping in motels and campers. Food prices have gone through the roof, and we have no choice but to buy less than we need and stretch it further.
Small businesses struggle to find workers and workers at big corporations are worried about their jobs becoming obsolete. Heck, AI is coming for my lawyer job faster than I ever could have imagined. And you’ll notice I haven’t yet said anything about the drastic climate changes…the way we’re living is simply unsustainable. We can’t go on like this. We all need to adapt. We need to rely more on each other and stop letting big corporations and hedge funds dictate every facet of our lives. We absolutely can get through this and come out stronger on the other side, but we are going to all have to work together. The Greens have been mapping out how to do this for decades, and we are ready to go.”
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For more information or to arrange an interview :
Fabrice Lachance Nové
Press secretary
514-463-0021