Elizabeth May
Elizabeth Evans May is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, lawyer, activist, and author. She has served as the member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011. May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada, having first held the position from 2006 to 2019. She returned to the leadership in 2022, initially as co-leader with Jonathan Pedneault and is now serving as the party's sole and outgoing leader following his resignation.
May is the longest-serving female leader of a Canadian federal party, and the first member of the Green Party to be elected to the House of Commons. From 1989 to 2006, she was the executive director of the Sierra Club Canada.
In 2005, May was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, and the United Nations has recognized her as one of the world's leading women environmentalists. She is the author of eight books, including her memoir Who We Are – Reflections of My Life and Canada, which was a Globe and Mail bestseller.
Early life and education
May was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Stephanie, a sculptor, pianist, and writer, and John Middleton May, an accountant. Her father was born in New York City and raised in England, and her mother was also a native New Yorker. She has a younger brother named Geoffrey. Her mother was a prominent anti-nuclear activist and her father was Assistant Vice President of Aetna Life and Casualty.In 1972, the family relocated to Margaree Harbour, Nova Scotia, after a visit to Cape Breton Island. There, they purchased and operated a converted schooner, the Marion Elizabeth, as a gift shop and restaurant until 2002. May relinquished her U.S. citizenship in 1978, when she became a Canadian citizen, in accordance with American nationality law at the time.
May attended St. Francis Xavier University in rural Nova Scotia, but dropped out. Returning to Margaree Harbour, May took correspondence courses in restaurant management. Beginning in 1980, she attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, graduating in 1983 with a degree in law. May later studied theology at Saint Paul University, a federated college of the University of Ottawa, but withdrew from the program due to conflicting schedule demands.
Environmental activism and legal career
Early activism
May first became known in the Canadian media in the mid-1970s through her leadership as a volunteer in the grassroots movement against proposed aerial insecticide spraying on forests near her home on Cape Breton Island. The effort prevented aerial insecticide spraying from ever occurring in Nova Scotia. Years later, she and a local group of residents went to court to prevent herbicide spraying. In 1982, they won a temporary injunction, halting the spray programme, but after two years, the case was eventually lost. Legal costs associated with the case resulted in her family sacrificing their home and seventy acres of land due to litigation from Scott Paper. However, by the time the judge ruled the chemicals were safe, 2,4,5-T's export from the U.S. had been banned. The forests of Nova Scotia were spared from being the last areas in Canada to be sprayed with Agent Orange.In 1980, May and others launched a political party to raise environmental and anti-nuclear issues dubbed "the Small Party". The party ran 12 candidates in six provinces in the 1980 federal election. May, at the time a 25-year-old waitress, ran against the former Deputy Prime Minister, Allan J. MacEachen in Cape Breton Highlands—Canso. She placed last out of four candidates receiving 272 votes.
Legal work
Following her graduation from Dalhousie University, May worked as an environmental lawyer in Halifax. In 1985, May moved to Ottawa to work with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. She held the position of Associate General Counsel, representing consumer, poverty and environmental groups from 1985 to 1986.In 1986, May was named Senior Policy Advisor to Thomas McMillan, then-Minister of the Environment in the Progressive Conservative Mulroney government. As senior policy advisor, May was involved in the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer. She was instrumental in the creation of several national parks, including South Moresby. In 1988, May resigned on principle after permits were granted for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan without proper environmental assessment. The permits were later struck down by a Federal Court decision that found that the permits had been granted illegally.
May helped found the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund with the aim of funding groups and individuals in environmental cases. She has worked with Indigenous peoples internationally, particularly in the Amazon rainforest, as well as with First Nations in Canada. She was the first volunteer executive director of Cultural Survival Canada from 1989 to 1992 and worked for the Algonquian of Barriere Lake from 1991 to 1992.
She has taught courses at Queen's University School of Policy Studies, and was the first holder of the Elizabeth May Chair in Women's Health and Environment at Dalhousie University in 1998.
Sierra Club of Canada
In 1989, May became the founding executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. During her tenure with the Sierra Club of Canada, May received several awards in recognition of her environmental leadership, including: the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990, the award for Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society for Environmental Education in 1996, and in November 2005 was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her "decades of leadership in the Canadian environmental movement".In April 2006, May announced her resignation as the Sierra Club's executive director. Upon leaving the Sierra Club, Board President Louise Comeau noted, "Elizabeth has led the Club at the national level from its infancy to the enormously effective entity it is today."
Political career
Early leadership
On May 9, 2006, May entered the Green Party of Canada's leadership race.On August 26, 2006, May won the leadership election on the first ballot. She tallied 65.3% of the votes, beating her main rival, David Chernushenko and Jim Fannon. She said one of the main platforms for the next election would be to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. At the time of her election as leader, May said she intended to run in the riding of Cape Breton—Canso in the next federal election, although she also said she would stand in a federal byelection if one occurred prior to the next general election. In the fall of 2006, May ran for election in London North Centre, finishing second to Glen Pearson of the Liberal Party. While she lost, May's showing in this by-election was the best result, in terms of percentage, achieved by the Green Party of Canada at that time.
In April 2007, during a speech by May to a London, Ontario United Church of Canada, she condemned Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stance on climate change, comparing it to "a grievance worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis." The statement drew criticism from the Canadian Jewish Congress and opposition parties. While Opposition leader Stéphane Dion refused to respond to Harper's request for him to distance himself from May and these remarks during Question Period, Dion did state to reporters outside Commons that May should withdraw the remarks, and that the Nazi regime is beyond any comparison.
May said she was having "a lousy week" because of the federal government's weak action plan on the environment, but stood by her comments. In a Green Party of Canada press release, May stated that she was referencing a Chamberlain Nazi appeasement analogy made by journalist George Monbiot a few days earlier saying "I made reference to Mr. Monbiot's statement to highlight the damage being done to Canada's international reputation, something that should concern all Canadians."
On March 17, 2007, May announced that she would run in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, in the 2008 federal election. The riding was held by Conservative National Defence Minister Peter MacKay. May has explained that she chose Central Nova to avoid running against a Liberal or NDP incumbent.
On April 12, 2007, Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion announced that the Liberals would not run a candidate in Central Nova in return for the Greens not running a candidate in Dion's safe Saint-Laurent—Cartierville riding. There was criticism from prominent Green Party members of May's failing to support all Green candidates unequivocally during the 2008 election, as she made favourable comments about Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and said that supporters in close ridings might consider voting strategically to attempt to defeat the Conservatives.
May was initially excluded from the televised national leadership debate in the 2008 federal election, based on the lack of any elected Green party MPs. She argued that the TV network consortium's initial exclusion of the Green Party of Canada was "anti-democratic" and blamed it on "the decision-making of a small group of TV network executives". Eventually May was invited to attend the televised debate.
May received 32 per cent of the vote in Central Nova in 2008 to MacKay's 47 per cent. Nationally, the Greens received 6.8 per cent of the popular vote.
Member of Parliament
In 2010, following a survey of potentially favourable electoral districts across the country, May announced her intention to run in Saanich—Gulf Islands, in British Columbia against Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn.On March 29, 2011, the broadcast consortium organizing the televised national leaders' debate for the 2011 federal election announced that it would not invite May. Despite her exclusion from the national debates, she won her riding, defeating the incumbent Gary Lunn. Nationally the Greens received 4 per cent of the popular vote.
In 2012, May tabled a Private member's bill, Bill C-442, with the aim of creating a national framework to address Lyme disease. On December 16, 2014, Bill C-442 received royal assent, becoming law. Bill C-442 was the first piece of Green Party legislation enacted in the history of Canada, and was passed with unanimous consent by both houses of Parliament.
The bill was introduced by May in response to the rise of lyme disease across Canada, and in recognition of the findings by groups including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who have noted that as a result of climate change Lyme disease is beginning to spread more quickly, as the number of ticks— who serve as vectors for Lyme disease– steadily increases.
In December 2014, May presented a petition to the House of Commons by members of 9/11 Truth organizations asking the government to review the September 11 attacks in New York. While she personally did not agree with the petition, May defended presenting it and stated "It is an obligation of an MP to present every petition submitted to them." While many MPs consider it a responsibility, House of Commons rules do not require MPs to present all petitions they receive to Parliament. In 2012, the NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar declined to present a similar petition by another 9/11 Truth group to parliament.
Annually, Maclean's Magazine organizes an awards ceremony in which MPs recognize the achievements and hard work of their colleagues. In 2012, May was voted by her colleagues in the House of Commons as Parliamentarian of the Year, in 2013 she was voted Hardest Working MP, and in 2014 she was voted Best Orator.
May was the first MP to take a stand against Bill C-51, on February 3, 2015, Toronto Star National Affairs columnist Thomas Walkom noted that, "So far, the only opposition MP with enough guts to critique the content of the Conservative government's new anti-terror bill is Green Party Leader Elizabeth May." May and fellow Green MP Bruce Hyer tabled sixty amendments during clause-by-clause considerations of Bill C-51 – all sixty amendments were rejected by the government. May later stated of Bill C-51, "It's not fixable. Stop it. Repeal it."
On April 23, 2015, May had two amendments to Bill C-46, the Pipelines Safety Act, accepted. These were the first Green Party amendments to a government bill ever adopted. The first amendment enabled "aboriginal governing bodies to be reimbursed for actions they take in relation to a spill". Prior to the amendment, the bill outlined that those at fault in a spill would only be liable for "costs and expenses reasonably incurred by Her Majesty in right of Canada or a province or any other person". The second amendment was related to the concept of polluter pays. The original line in the bill said that the National Energy Board "may" recover funds to compensate those affected by a spill, the Green Party amendment changed the "may" to "shall".
In October 2015, Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau invited May to be part of the Canadian delegation to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris, France, in late November 2015; the summit was intended to negotiate post-2020 targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and resulted in the GHGPPA. According to Maclean's, "May, who requested and received a 30-minute meeting with Trudeau this week even as he was immersed in transition plans for swearing in a new Liberal government on Nov. 4, said his willingness to engage with opposition parties is also encouraging, suggesting a less hyper-partisan style of governing." In 2016, May gained international media attention for objecting to Conservative MP Michelle Rempel using the word "fart" in a speech in the House of Commons.
On March 23, 2018, May was arrested for civil contempt during a demonstration against the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Other members of the demonstration, including fellow Member of Parliament Kennedy Stewart, were also arrested concerning the same incident. They were accused of violating a court order requiring those demonstrating to stay five meters back from company work sites, when they allegedly blocked the roadway. On April 9, 2018, Justice Kenneth Affleck of the British Columbia Supreme Court recommended that May and the others arrested should be charged with criminal contempt in relation to the alleged incident. On April 16, 2018, it was reported that special prosecutors would be overseeing the charges against May and Stewart. On May 14, 2018, the special prosecutor handling May's case told Justice Affleck that the province was pursuing a criminal contempt of court prosecution against May. On May 28, 2018, May pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of court and was sentenced to pay a fine of $1,500. May has called for a doubling of Canada's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to a 60% reduction from 2005 levels, instead of the current 30%.