As a woman who has worked in male-dominated industries my entire life so far, I am sadly no stranger to casual sexism. Like many women in these situa… - Bowinn Ma

I want to sincerely thank everyone who has reached out to encourage me to enter the leadership race. I've been humbled and overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to pledge their support; your faith in me means more than I have the words to describe. Politics is a weird and often frustrating arena to work in. What keeps me centred, grounded, and *going* is being able to spend time face-to-face with the people of our North Vancouver community. With everything that keeps me busy as an MLA and Minister of State, I really cherish the limited time I have to connect with and directly serve local community members. I know that being Premier isn't for me. I've been speaking with David Eby. He's a person of great integrity and someone that I've respected and admired since before I was elected. I've made my priorities around action on climate very clear to Dave. I believe that he can lead our province into a thriving future and will support him if he runs.

My English name is Bowinn Ma, but in Chinese, it’s Ma Bo Wen. Ma literally translates as “horse,” which is the family name, and Bo Wen literally translates to “plentiful script.” But what it means can be roughly translated as “ocean of knowledge” or “broad scholar.” It means someone who has a broad understanding of many things and someone who has the wisdom to use this knowledge in a good way. It represents what my parents and grandparents had hoped I would become as an adult. In English, my name is just a name, a series of sounds used to identify me. But in my traditional language, those two simple syllables are a culmination of all of the hopes and dreams that my family have had of me since my birth — aspirations that could never truly be translated properly across cultures in as succinct a way.

The revitalization of Indigenous languages is not simply an exercise in translating words. It’s the beginning of the healing of cultures, through which an expression of world view emanates. It speaks to a person’s core identity. Ideas, values, feelings, aspirations, hopes and dreams are communicated in ways that sometimes cannot be done in any other way. It’s about grounding a person; tearing down the walls of isolation; reconnecting them to their ancestors, their community, their family, their environment, their Creator and, indeed, even themselves.