Elizabeth May wins Green Party of Canada leadership, set to co-lead with Jonathan Pedneault
CBC
Elizabeth May will once more lead the Green Party of Canada, along with Jonathan Pedneault, after her victory in the party's leadership race on Saturday.
May and Pedneault have promised to helm the party under a co-leadership model, which will require an amendment to the party's constitution. For now, Pedneault will serve as deputy leader, according to the joint ticket's platform.
"It's difficult to put into words what it means to take the stage as the next leader of the Green Party of Canada," May said.
She said it was a bit of "déjà vu," but Pedneault's presence was a major difference. May acknowledged that there was a desire in the party for change, and she hoped that the co-leadership with Pedneault, 32, would combine experience and youth.
Pedneault, who has not held elected office, has worked as a journalist and an activist, including with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Just over 8,000 people voted in the leadership election, representing a turnout of about 36 per cent of the 22,000 eligible to cast ballots.
That represents a substantial decline from the 2020 race won by Annamie Paul, in which almost 24,000 people voted, with a turnout of 69 per cent.
May defeated another joint ticket, made up of Anna Keenan and Chad Walcott, and two individual candidates, Sarah Gabrielle Baron and Simon Gnocchini-Messier.
May, 68, led the party from 2006 to 2019, breaking through as its first MP in 2011, and expanding the party's holdings to three seats in 2019 and more than one million votes. But the Greens suffered in the 2021 election, earning just under 400,000 votes.
May struck a positive tone in the leadership race, inviting the other candidates up to the stage for her speech.
"We're a team," she said.
May also made the case for the co-leader model, but noted that members would have the final say. Interim leader Amita Kuttner, meanwhile, expressed some uncertainty about how the a potential shift to the co-leader model would actually be implemented.
The Green Party has been embroiled in internal disputes and fought the 2021 election facing severe fundraising challenges. The party continues to face financial struggles and has had to scramble after the resignation of the former party president, Lorraine Rekmans.
It has been reeling since acrimonious divisions over former leader Annamie Paul, who described her time as leader as "the worst period in my life" in many respects.
Calgary police have charged a man with defrauding numerous seniors out of about $186,000 in a string of incidents over a five-week period.
A Brampton lawyer allegedly connected to fugitive Ryan Wedding was granted bail Tuesday morning by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Rankin Inlet hamlet councillors recently passed a motion that has had them avoid drinking alcohol for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, with the goal of setting a positive example for the community.
Jason Jacques says he learned a lot about the importance of choosing his words carefully in his first few months as the interim parliamentary budget officer (PBO).
Durham police say a man is dead after suffering multiple stab wounds in Oshawa Tuesday morning.
An internal review of technical outages that caused significant delays at airports and international land borders this fall has exposed critical flaws with the Canada Border Services Agency's IT services.
Two people are in life-threatening condition after being pulled from a house fire in Scarborough Tuesday morning, according to Toronto Fire Services.
Whenever the door opens at the British Grenadier Bookshop, proprietor Steve Douglas doesn’t know who is going to walk through.
A northeastern Ontario potato farmer says he’s shipping more bags of potatoes to southern Ontario to make up for waning demand.
Halifax’s registry of rental properties is now available to the public online, showing what HRM staff believe are the “bulk” of rentals in the city.
A New Brunswick tenant says he’s being pushed out of his rented bungalow as retribution for complaining about his landlord, but his landlord says she’s the victim of an unfair tenancy tribunal ruling that is preventing her from using the unit to house family.
Snow and freezing rain could affect morning commutes on Tuesday, according to a special weather statement issued by Environment Canada.
Daniel Jolivet, 68, had his first taste of freedom this weekend after spending the last 33 years behind bars.