Annamie Paul resigns as leader of the Green Party

OTTAWA – Annamie Paul has announced that she will step down as leader of the Green Party, a week after she suffered a fourth place in her lifetime tour of the Toronto Center and months after the first reports of internal conflicts affecting to the higher echelons of the party.

Paul lost the driver for the third time last Monday, getting just over eight percent of the driver’s vote, a precipitous drop from the 32.7 percent he won during a by-election in driver last fall.

“I wondered if this is something he wanted to continue,” Paul told a news conference in Toronto on Monday morning.

Paul is the first black and Jewish person to lead a major federal party in Canada.

The Star first reported in April that he had faced significant opposition from officials at the Federal Council of the Greens, the party’s highest governing body, during the first six months of his leadership.

In July, the beleaguered leader called the resulting conflict one of the most “painful” moments of her life.

At the time, Paul said he had thought “many times” to step aside.

“I think anyone in my situation, who is in it for the right reasons, would have considered quitting. It has been incredibly difficult and has had a great impact. “

While the Greens emerged from last week’s election with the party’s first MP in Ontario (Mike Morrice took the Kitchener Center from ousted former Liberal Raj Saini), the party also lost Paul Manly’s Nanaimo-Ladysmith seat to him. NDP.

Former environmental leader Elizabeth May won her seat again in the Saanich Gulf Islands, though she garnered her smallest share of the vote since she first participated in 2011.