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I have spent nearly a decade calling, very occasionally, for Elizabeth May to stop leading the Green Party. She has never shown any sign of holding it against me. She’s one of the most consistently congenial and respectful Members of Parliament, reliably giving out better treatment than she receives, a walking rebuke to the cheap incivility of the national capital.
She has given the Green Party a great gift by finally agreeing to let somebody else lead it. It may come too late.
To consider what’s possible for the Green Party, imagine what might already have happened if a national ecologist party had been led by an adaptable, new-media-savvy leader in the election campaign that ended last month. Imagine a leader who had built the party into a platform for a reasonable number of nationally-known spokespeople on major issue portfolios—foreign affairs, finances, transportation, national defence.
Imagine a mid-campaign visit by the teenaged climate action activist Greta Thunberg that wouldn’t seem unintentionally marginalizing to Canada’s national ecologist party, because that party had a leader who could put Thunberg’s visit into a Canadian context in ways that were persuasive to the millions of voters who spent the autumn shopping around for a party that expressed their hopes. While we’re shooting for the moon, imagine a party with a vigorous presence on 30 college and university campuses, one that could make a case for itself as the natural home of environmentally-conscious young voters and activists.
That party isn’t Elizabeth May’s Green Party.
[…]
See Also:
(1) Editorial: Elizabeth May deserves thanks for a leader’s job well done
(2) Interim Green leader says Elizabeth May’s departure gives party a chance for renewal
(3) Elizabeth May leaves the Green leadership on her own terms
(4) South Okanagan Green Party candidate talks Elizabeth May stepping down
(5) Elizabeth May says she’s not leaving Parliament despite stepping down as Green Party leader
