Even though Elizabeth May is the only Green member of Parliament left standing after the federal election, the party leader says she wants to play a key role in the new minority Parliament.
With the Liberals just a few seats shy of a majority, May said she’s open to negotiating and possibly even striking a deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney in exchange for her support.
But that’s only if Carney’s government is willing to advance her priorities.
“I would never have done the kind of deal that Jagmeet Singh did with Justin Trudeau, which ignored fair voting and ignored climate,” May told CBC News.
Above all, May said her main goal is getting electoral reform — something that she believes is possible to achieve as a caucus of one.
May said she wants Carney to commit to dismantling the first-past-the-post voting system — a promise that his predecessor made in the 2015 federal election then famously broke.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May joins Power & Politics to talk about the future of the party after her co-leader, Jonathan Pedneault, resigned on Wednesday. As the sole Green MP headed to Ottawa, May says the party will rebuild and ‘elect a lot more Greens in the next election.’
If people didn’t feel obliged to vote strategically, May said she believes many Canadians would have picked different candidates.
“First-past-the-post drives people to fear-based voting … and rewards mindless hyper-partisanship,” May said.
May’s former co-leader, Jonathan Pedneault, cited the need for the change in his resignation statement.
“[The] election results were deeply disappointing and highlight more than ever the need for electoral reform,” he wrote.
The Greens were hoping to make gains. Instead, they lost an incumbent and Pedneault failed to win a Montreal riding for a second time.
In total, the Greens received 244,952 votes across the country, representing 1.2 per cent of the vote share — the lowest for the party in 25 years.
It’s a significant decline from the momentum the party enjoyed in the 2010s, which peaked in 2019 when they received 1.19 million votes and sent three MPs to Parliament Hill.
Along with strategic voting, May also blames a last-minute decision by the Leaders’Â Debates Commission to disqualify Pedneault from the debates.
The commission said the Greens no longer met its participation requirements, a decision the party is now fighting in Federal Court.
Ending party status requirement also a priority
Mike Morrice, May’s former caucus colleague who was defeated by the Conservatives in the Ontario riding of Kitchener Centre, said he wants May to keeping pushing for electoral reform.
Morrice introduced a motion in the last session of Parliament asking for the establishment of a non-partisan citizens’ assembly to make recommendations on changes to the voting system. The motion was defeated, but several MPs from the Liberals and Conservatives broke party ranks to support it.
“We can do better and that should start [with] hearing from experts on the best path forward,” he said.
May also said she wants to end the 12 MP requirement for recognized party status — a designation the NDP just lost.
CBC News projects Green Party co-Leader Elizabeth May will win re-election in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. May says she has congratulated Mark Carney on his result in the election as CBC News projects the Liberals will form the next government.
Parties without the designation don’t get opposition days, guaranteed participation in parliamentary committee, access to parliamentary funding for staff, the right to respond to statements by ministers or input on the appointment of officers of Parliament.
May said she plans to work with the new Speaker of the House of Commons on the issue, unless she decides to run for the job herself — something she said she hasn’t ruled out, but would be difficult to consider with her party’s position.
Used to being underestimated
Although disappointing, the results for the Greens are not as bad as pollsters predicted.
Some analysts said the Greens could’ve been wiped off the electoral map entirely, and even some of May’s staunchest supporters weren’t sure she could pull off a fifth straight win in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands.
In the end, those results weren’t even close. May kept her Vancouver Island seat, which she’s held since 2011, with 39.1 per cent of the vote share.
When the results started to pour in, May jumped to her feet and started dancing with her husband at her election night headquarters:Â a picturesque winery in her riding.
Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May performed a duet with her husband, John Kidder, at the party’s headquarters on election night. Kidder says he and May first sang the song together while walking in Sidney, B.C., early in their courtship.
At the age of 70, May says she has plans to keep running as long as she can. She said she believes she proved pundits wrong because of her dedication to her constituents.
May travels back to her riding every weekend when the House is sitting to attend community events. During the pandemic, she said she helped bring Canadians back home who were stuck abroad, including backpackers in Peru, by personally booking and paying for their flights. She said all but one person has paid her back.
May insists the party is more than her and said she will take direction from the party’s membership and federal council on its future.
“We obviously need to rebuild, and we need to fundraise and we need to make sure we keep moving forward,” May said.
“But we are legitimately one of the few parties in opposition that retained the seat of the leader, which is not nothing.”
