2022 Green Leadership

2022 Green Leadership

By Andrew Thomson | UPDATED November 19, 2022 6:52pmET

Six candidates -- including two pairs of co-candidates -- are in the running to take over the Green Party of Canada leadership, one year after Annamie Paul's resignation that followed months of party turmoil and a disappointing 2021 election result. 

Four candidates want to mimic Green parties in other countries that feature co-leaders.

And so there are two joint campaigns asking Green members for their #1 and #2 ballot choice: Elizabeth May/Jonathan Pedneault and Anna Keenan/Chad Walcott. 

Both teams argue co-leadership is the best option to rebuild trust, empower members, fix fundraising and governance issues, and, ideally, win at least 12 seats in the next federal election and obtain official party status in the House of Commons.

May and Pedneault advocate "sharing the workload" with clearly defined responsibilities inside Parliament and inside the party. May pledges to work as a volunteer leader, with Pedneault vowing to accept a reduced salary.

Keenan and Walcott, meanwhile, seek “shared accountability … democratic renewal (and) community wellbeing” through the co-leader concept.

Both teams would have to start with one person as leader and the other appointed deputy leader; the formal creation of co-leaders requires amending the Green Party of Canada constitution.

Watch the English Leadership Debate (Nov. 9):

Watch the French Leadership Debate (Nov. 11):

The results are scheduled for Nov. 19. But what was designed to be a two-round process across October and November has now been condensed to a single voting period.

Party president Lorraine Rekmans resigned in September after an uproar over the misgendering of interim leader Amita Kuttner during the virtual leadership launch. 

Several leadership hopefuls had joined a statement of solidarity with Kuttner that, though applauding Rekmans for issuing an immediate apology, also warned of a pattern of harassment that required the Green party's Federal Council to seek external support. 

Rekmans claimed she felt "insulted and denigrated" by leadership contestants and that her optimism had "died" after one year in the role.

"To me this signals an end to the GPC because, instead of highlighting positive policy, and development of the GPC to our members and the public, the contestants have spent their time picking out our shortcomings and shining a huge spotlight on a small mistake that we made and apologized for," Rekmans said.

"If these are shades of things to come, if this is what leadership hopefuls are taken up with, I can no longer serve, because it seems to me there is no vision for a better future, but only an effort to look back and settle old scores, while the planet burns."

Meanwhile, the party's fundraising revenue has dropped significantly this year. After averaging $3.7 million annually from 2015 to 2021, the Green party received just $857,000 in the first half of 2022.

How did the Green Party of Canada arrive at this point?

2019: May Gives Up Leadership

Elizabeth May announced her plan to resign the leadership two weeks after the federal election, but the Green party's first elected MP remained parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. 

2020: Paul Succeeds

Annamie Paul won the race to succeed May in an eight-ballot contest that saw her win 50.6% of votes in the final round, besting runner-up Dimitri Lascaris (42.2%).

Paul's historic victory made her the first Black Canadian and first Jewish woman to lead a major federal party. 

Summer 2021: Internal Tension and Turmoil

Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin, who won a close three-way race in 2019, announced in June that she was leaving the Green Party of Canada to join the Liberal caucus, citing internal strife over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The party's federal council then adopted a motion calling on Paul to 1) repudiate attacks made by her former senior adviser Noah Zatzman towards many politicians including caucus members, accusing them of discrimination and antisemitism, and to 2) explicitly support the Green Party caucus.

Otherwise, the council would hold a non-confidence vote the following month. (Paul also faced calls to resign from the party's Quebec wing.)

Paul portrayed the maneuvers as a racist and sexist effort by a small group of Green officials to remove her as leader. 

That left May and Paul Manly as a two-member Green caucus. Both blamed intra-party feuding over the Middle East and Zatzman's language for "the conditions that led to this crisis."

The non-confidence vote was eventually cancelled, and a review of her party membership was suspended.

Autumn 2021: Election and Resignation

Months of intra-party turmoil were followed by a substantial drop in Green support across Canada when ballots were counted on Sept. 20. 

The Green share of the overall popular vote fell by nearly two-thirds: 

May won re-election in Saanich--Gulf Islands, B.C. And Mike Morrice emerged victorious in Kitchener Centre, where Liberal incumbent Raj Saini ended his campaign over sexual harassment allegations. But Paul Manly lost his Vancouver Island seat to the NDP.

Paul campaigned almost exclusively in her home riding of Toronto Centre. She finished fourth at 8.5%., an improvement over 2019 but a major drop from the 33% earned in a 2020 by-election. 

One week after the election, and with a leadership review looming, Paul announced her intention to resign after a campaign she argued was without proper funding, proper staffing, and a proper national campaign manager. 

Paul told reporters she didn't have the heart to continue fighting and struggling to keep her job or face fresh attacks from critics. And that months of internal hostility and lack of support within the Green party was the most difficult period of her life. 

In Paul's words, the glass ceiling she broke in winning the leadership left shards falling over her head and "a trail of broken glass that I would have to crawl over."

Home page image: Cole Curston/The Canadian Press

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