May won’t step down, but says Trudeau should

By Althia Raj

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says it’s “obvious” Justin Trudeau should “pass the torch,” and if she were in the Liberal party she’d be pulling him aside saying, “prime minister, with all due respect, don’t you think it’s time?”

Following a press conference Tuesday, where May’s unofficial co-leader, Jonathan Pedneault, resigned, the long-time head of the Green Party was confronted by questions about her own leadership. But she dismissed a complaint she isn’t making room for the next generation of Green leadership. She suggests she’ll pick her heir, and will guide the party into the next campaign – her fifth in 15 years.

“(Trudeau) is hated in ways that I think are unfair,” May told the Star in a long interview Tuesday, comparing the prime minister to U.S. President Joe Biden, whom she also thinks should step aside. “It’s different in that there’s no sense of Justin Trudeau having cognitive difficulties, but I mean, there’s a moment where you realize – and it was some time ago – that it would be better for the Liberal party if there was a different leader who didn’t attract so many negatives.”

May thinks the hatred against Trudeau is un-Canadian, but believes he has fuelled cynicism with a string of broken promises – from electoral reform to purchasing a pipeline and increasing carbon emissions.

“He’s broken his word so many times, on so many issues, that the trust is gone,” she says. “When you break a promise … there’s consequences, and he’s experiencing the consequences, but he wants to not believe his own eyes.”

Some Grits, she says, believe Trudeau is a great campaigner and that no one will fare better than him. His feat in 2015, catapulting the Liberals from third place to first, was impressive, May notes. Perhaps the prime minister believes he is that good a campaigner, but, she says, somebody who likes him needs to tell him: “This is time for you to protect what you’ve accomplished in legacy terms and make sure there’s a different communicator, a different face, a different voice, that people can believe going into the next election.”
If May sees any parallels between Trudeau’s hold on the Liberal party and her own with the federal Greens, she makes no mention of it. She’s led the party for so long (from 2006 to 2019, and again from 2022 until now), that in many people’s minds, she is the Green Party.

Tuesday, Pedneault quit following a federal council meeting Monday. The move came as a surprise to some.

In 2022, Pedneault contacted May for advice on his leadership bid. Weeks later, she proposed they run together on a co-leader ticket. She encouraged members to rank Pedneault – a young bilingual queer Black man – first, making him the de facto leader as the Greens’ constitution allows for only one leader. But the majority of the approximately 8,000 voters ranked May number one. The plan was to have party members endorse a co-leadership model constitutional change, but 19 months after the May-Pedneault victory, a meeting still hasn’t been held.

At their joint press conference announcing Pedneault’s departure, May cited a provincial byelection in Ontario last year as the reason the meeting was postponed. It was delayed again in June, apparently because of the federal byelection in Toronto-St.Paul’s. The Star’s reporting suggests the co-leadership appointment model was not without controversy with party members.

May says she was frustrated by the delay and that Pedneault was, too.

The 34-year-old human rights activist refused to elaborate Tuesday as to why he was leaving, citing “personal reasons,” but a source with knowledge of the situation suggested changes could have been made to ensure he remained.

Alex Tyrrell, leader of the Quebec Greens, blamed May for Pedneault’s resignation. In a statement, he suggested she hogged the spotlight and didn’t live up to commitments she’d made to Pedneault. Tyrrell called on May to step down, saying she “has done everything she can for the Green Party of Canada,” that the party would “make no further gains under her leadership,” and it was time she “pass the torch” to the next generation of Green leaders.

May called Tyrrell’s allegations “patently untrue.”

She says despite Pedneault’s resignation, she’s still committed to the co-leadership model but a meeting likely won’t be held until after three provincial elections this fall. She told the Star she’s unwilling to resign and run on a co-leadership ticket with a new partner, even if the members agree to the constitutional change.

Instead, she suggests she’ll pick her co-leader and possibly have the membership approve her choice of an “heir apparent.”

Leadership races are expensive and she doesn’t think it’s wise to step down when a snap election could be called at any time. Plus, she says, the party just had a leadership race.

“The one thing I’m sure of, is they wanted me to be the leader. That part, I get.”