Annamie Paul formally resigns as Green leader and leaves party

Annamie Paul formally resigned as leader of the Greens and also handed over her membership card, leaving the future of the party up in the air as she tries to recover from infighting and repudiation at the polls.

Paul sent a letter of resignation to the Green Party on Wednesday, following his announcement in September of his plans to resign.

The Green leader, the first black and Jewish woman to lead a major political party in Canada, said a week after the election that leading the Greens had been the worst period of her life, due in part to the broken glass ceiling.

“I had crawled over that glass, it was spitting blood, but I was determined to be there,” she told reporters on September 27.

The Greens returned just two MPs in the September 20 election and Paul failed to win her race at the Toronto Center, placing fourth in her third race at the Liberal stronghold.

The party’s weak performance at the polls (it won 2.3 percent of the popular vote versus 6.6 percent in 2019) followed a period of infighting and sniping against Paul. She faced insults from Green Party members on Twitter and claimed that the party executive did not do enough to protect or support her.

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Earlier this year, Paul received criticism from various Greens, including MPs, for failing to publicly condemn Israel in stronger terms following a new outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. At least 230 Palestinians and 12 Israelis died in the 11-day war.

In a May 10 tweet, Paul called for “an immediate reduction in violence and a return to dialogue as a means to seek a peaceful resolution.”

This dispute, started after a senior adviser to Paul pledged on social media to defeat unspecified green MPs, among others, whom he accused of anti-Semitism, played a role in Jenica Atwin’s crossover to join the Liberals. . First elected as a green deputy in the 2019 elections, Atwin was re-elected under a red flag last month in Fredericton.

A lawyer by training, Paul became a green leader in October 2020 after Elizabeth May resigned after 13 years in charge.

“I think it is regrettable that she has surrendered her membership to the party,” May said in an evening interview from Glasgow, where she and fellow Green MP Mike Morrice are attending the United Nations conference on climate change.

“We are, in Canada as a Green Party, essential to our democracy and essential to climate action, and we will rebuild and be fine,” he added.

“We were paralyzed. This is the moment when we can move forward.”

During the elections, the Greens struggled with financial problems and since then laid off more than half of their staff.

Paul did not visit key seats during the elections, barely leaving Toronto due to lack of funds and because some candidates asked him to stay away so that the party’s bitter internal politics did not spread to their districts.

Paul complained about a lack of cash, staff and a national campaign manager. Originally, $ 250,000 was earmarked for his local campaign, but party executives rejected the funds.

During the English leaders debate, Paul put on a confident performance that received praise for a series of terse zingers.

A week after the elections, he announced his intention to resign, but negotiations with the party and an ongoing court dispute meant that he did not immediately resign. Negotiations are continuing, according to two high-ranking party sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss non-public matters.

Since then, several Greens have posted messages of support for Paul.

Dr. Courtney Howard, who came third behind Paul in the last race for leadership, tweeted that it meant a lot to have a “strong, intelligent, articulate woman on stage.”

In a tweet Wednesday, Paul said: “It was an honor working for the people of Canada and I look forward to serving in new ways.”

The party will now elect an interim leader until there is a new election for Paul’s successor.

Party spokesman John Chenery confirmed that he received notice of Paul’s resignation.

Questions about when it will go into effect, when Paul actually ceases to be a leader, and whether he will continue a leadership review launched last month remained unanswered.

Mark Winfield, a York University professor who researches the Greens, says the Greens face an “existential crisis.”

“There are very serious questions about whether they are going to survive as an entity or organization. Because in addition to the question of leadership there is also the financial crisis,” he said, pointing to the financial problems of the Greens, which precede Paul’s. time at the top.

“It should be their time,” Winfield said, noting increased public awareness of environmental issues. “But it definitely isn’t.

“This is not due to external factors; it is completely internal to the party. They destroyed themselves,” he said.

The frenzied infighting showed no signs of abating this week.

On Monday, Green’s acting CEO Dana Taylor shut down two of the party’s Slack channels, saying in a post that aggressive talk had made the spaces “unsafe” for members and hurt their “well-being.”

Taylor also removed the ability for users to create new public channels.

The announcement was visible in a screenshot obtained by The Canadian Press and confirmed with three Green Party sources.

This Canadian Press report was first published on November 10, 2021.