Canadians should expect to see co-leader Jonathan Pedneault as the face of the Green Party’s national election campaign.
Pedneault and Elizabeth May officially took on a co-leadership arrangement earlier this year. But the Greens announced this month that Pedneault would take on “singular leadership roles” when required during the campaign. This includes carrying the party banner in the leadership debates.
“I’m really excited to finally get out there and compete with our opponents as to what the best vision for the future of Canada actually is,” Pedneault told CBC News.
May won the Greens’ leadership race in 2022 on a promise to have a co-leadership model with Pedneault. Pedneault himself finished third in that race.
After initially serving as deputy leader, Pedneault walked away from that role in 2024 for “personal reasons.” He returned as co-leader in January.
“His leadership, passion and deep commitment to justice and sustainability make him the right person to bring our message to the national stage,” May said in a statement earlier this month.
Pedneault worked as a journalist and an activist, including with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, in conflict zones around the world before entering politics.
The 34-year-old will be the youngest leader on the debate stage. Even though he has been around federal politics for the past few years, he will have to introduce himself to the wider Canadian electorate.
“He is a new leader. For a lot of people they probably will only realize that he’s the co-leader and the face of the party for this campaign once they see him in the debate,” Éric Grenier, a polls analyst with TheWrit.ca who runs the CBC Poll Tracker, told CBC News.
The Green Party is arguably one of the more election-ready teams when it comes to candidates — they have 250 people signed up to run. Only the Conservatives currently have more nominated candidates.
But having candidates ready doesn’t necessarily translate to electoral success. The party’s polling numbers have remained relatively flat and they haven’t been able to take advantage of falling support from the NDP.
“Despite the fact that the NDP is down … in that scenario you’d usually expect the Greens would be pretty high, but instead they’re still at their three or four per cent. So they don’t seem to be making a breakthrough,” Grenier said.
The Green Party, which has traditionally been focused on environmental issues, may struggle to break through with voters in this election in particular. In a recent Abacus poll, only five per cent of those surveyed listed climate change as the most important issue influencing their vote. Dealing with affordability issues and U.S. President Donald Trump were the top two factors.
Pedneault himself noted the importance of maintaining the party’s national support.
“We need to maintain at least two per cent of the national vote in order to simply continue to exist as a party,” Pedneault said.
“The last thing we want is to simply disappear from the face of the Earth. We will be very happy to do that once we’ve fixed the climate emergency and once Canada is again the country that actually delivers for a majority of people.”
As it stands, CBC’s Poll Tracker has the Greens winning a maximum of two seats, which would maintain their current count.
But the party has dropped its support in B.C., which Grenier said could mean that May is potentially at risk of losing her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, which she’s held since 2011.
“I think that Elizabeth May doesn’t have a guarantee that her seat is safe,” Grenier said.
Pedneault himself is running the Montreal riding of Outremont.
“This is really the heart of Montreal and a place that is really close to my heart,” Pedneault said of his riding.
The riding is currently held by Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Rachel Bendayan, who carried more than 40 per cent of the vote in the last two elections.
“The Greens have never really had that much success in Quebec,” Grenier said, though he argued Pedneault being a francophone could potentially help some.
“I think that Pedneault has a very, very high mountain to climb.”
Greens seek ‘electoral co-operation’
The Greens wrote to leaders of the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois last week, asking for the parties to meet and discuss an “electoral co-operation agreement,” arguing that the current system favours the Conservatives due to progressive vote splitting.
The party didn’t indicate what exactly the agreement would look like and Pedneault said they would need to have the meeting to hammer it out.
“We would be willing to explore all options, but it’s not for us to dictate the terms. It’s not for us to come up with a ready-made solution. It’s for all of us to first and foremost sit down together and discuss that with open hearts and with the interests of Canadians in mind,” he said.
Pedneault said so far no party has responded to their proposal for a meeting.
“Now that the Liberals are actually in a place to potentially win the election, there would be very little appetite to try to make a deal to block the Conservatives,” Grenier said.
Despite seeking electoral co-operation, Pedneault said one of his aims during the campaign will be to encourage Canadians to avoid strategic voting.
“I want Canadians to not go out and vote with fear in their hearts but with a real ability to express what they would like to see happen in this country,” he said.
“This election is not about us. It’s not about the Liberals, it’s not about the Conservatives, the NDP or the Bloc. It’s about Canada. It’s about the future of this country and the country that we will leave to our children. And I would rather, as I think most Canadians [would], leave a country behind that is more democratic, more equal and in better shape than what it is right now.”
