Good Sunday Morning,
I write today as officially the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands. I am back in Ottawa. Saturday afternoon I took my oath and signed the ledger, once again, as the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands. I had to fly overnight to make it for the swearing in because I could not leave BC until I delivered a speech in Vancouver on Friday.
I had the wonderful honour of being the opening speaker for the Canada International Model United Nations. I addressed hundreds of bright engaged young people from across Canada as well as from Ukraine, Japan, United States, Mexico and around the world. I shared with them how important it is that all nations respect international law and uphold the commitments of the 1945 United Nations Charter. For all its faults, if we did not have the United Nations we would need to invent it. Without a shared place of respectful dialogue, the world would be a far more dangerous place. I shared stories from the negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations that protected all life on earth by saving the Ozone Layer (In Montreal in 1987) and less successfully, a work still in progress – the 2015 negotiations of the Paris Climate Agreement at COP21.
I stayed clear of mentioning the US President, whose rhetoric of disrespect skates perilously close to violating that Charter. He does so daily in his abusive conduct. He does so in displays of open contempt for other nations and their leaders. The painful spectacle of his Oval Office attack on the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was a new low from a man who had arguably already plumbed every depth of toxic lows – and still he goes lower. Writing for the Guardian, South African Justice Malala called it a “fact-free reality show.”
“And there was the emperor, naked: an unethical leader who worships the dollar and has no concept of how corrupt his actions look to the rest of the world. This is what Wednesday was all about: an America led by a man susceptible to lies and lacking in a moral centre.
Wednesday was not about South Africa. It was all about America today.” Well said!
As you likely know, I have been struggling with the question of whether or not I should make a serious run at being our next Speaker of the House. It was a decision with obvious impacts on the Green Party of Canada. I could not decide without a conversation and an attempt to find consensus with the governing body of the party. Under our Constitution, when meeting in general session the members of the Green Party are our highest authority. In between, it is the elected council of the party that governs. As leader, my role in governance is to cast my one vote of about 20 voting members, although under Green Rules the council attempts to avoid votes and agree by consensus. I am very grateful to our current council, elected in the last council vote of November 2024. To a person this is an excellent and dedicated group of volunteers, now steering the party through some very difficult times. We met for the first time since the election (other than lots of emails and informal chats) on Thursday night May 21.
I have until 6 pm ET tonight to withdraw my name from consideration on Monday’s vote by secret ballot. I have been torn. I have a sense of conflicting duties. I think and I hope, without sounding boastful, that I could be a very good Speaker, but the role would not be ceremonial. I would be in a fight to restore our rules and shut down the interference from the partisan hacks in every big parties’ back rooms.
But the truth is, and was confirmed as we discussed my role and the party’s future in our council meeting, that the timing could not be worse for me to adopt a non-partisan role. If I became Speaker on Monday it would immediately be as though we had no elected MP at all. If I were Speaker I could not attend events like Toronto Pride or the Calgary Stampede to help drum up local support for the Green Party. The 2025 election, despite my re-election, was the worst ever for us as a party. We are in a big financial hole. We can and will climb out of it before the next election. I am sure it could be done without my help, but another 6-8 months with me giving it my all is going to be critical. I will be asking if you have already joined the Green Party? Have you considered becoming a monthly donor? You can visit greenparty.ca to accomplish both.
Since the election we have had to lay off almost all of the national staff, and the remaining staff are on reduced hours. As an MP all of my work for the Green Party is volunteer, and the hours I have to put in burning the candle at both ends and the middle. I do not do this for the Green Party. I do it for myself. As a climate activist, if I was not doing everything possible to fight to shut down fossil fuels in this country, I think I would lose my mind. So after a lot of internal struggle, including, I admit it, thinking how nice it would be to live at the Speaker’s residence in Chelsea Quebec, never mind, I have work to do!
Below is the letter I will be sending out a few hours after you read this – a message to all MPs. I know some of you will be disappointed I am not running for Speaker. I hope you understand and I hope you will work with me to ensure the Green Party of Canada is debt-free as soon as possible, and I hope to bring back friends from staff I miss very much.
With love and thanks,
Elizabeth
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“Dear Parliamentary Colleagues
First, congratulations to all for the trust your constituents have placed in you. We Members of Parliament, are a small community. We are the largest parliament ever with 343 people. It is a large parliament but it remains a very small village. We all have much more in common than in difference.
To all of you elected for the first time, deep congratulations and an open hand of friendship. I have been working in this challenging environment for some time. Without sounding presumptuous, if I can help in any way, please feel free to ask questions about how you can best serve your constituents and make a difference.
The truth of Westminster Parliamentary Democracy is that, just as every Canadian is equal to every other Canadian, every Member of Parliament is equal to every other Member of Parliament. The Prime Minister is First among Equals, primus inter pares. So read our founding principles.
There are many ways of describing the job of our Speaker, but fundamentally our Speaker works to protect our rights. Chief among these is our fundamental right of free speech on behalf of our constituents and our right to work constructively in the business of legislative change.
Over the decades the Speaker has allowed that role to be eroded to accommodate the larger political parties and their back rooms and whips, as they try to control their Members’ free speech. In my years of parliamentary service only one brave MP, the late Mark Warawa, Conservative member from Langley City, ever complained to the Speaker that his right of free speech had been denied to him by his party whip. Our Speaker at the time, the Hon Member for Regina Qu’appelle, confirmed two important things in that 2013 ruling: 1) that it is the Speaker’s job to defend individual MPs and our rights, and 2) that only the Speaker decides who will speak.
Since the early 1980’s, lists of MPs who are to speak, drawn up by party whips, are given to the Speaker, but as Speaker John Fraser had confirmed years before, the Speaker is not obliged to follow those lists. In the event, our former Speaker ruled that Mark Warawa’s rights were not infringed because Mark had not attempted to rise in his place to “catch the Speaker’s eye.” The Whip telling him moments before Members’ Statements that he could not speak was not a denial of his rights.
I share this now because our first order of business Monday morning is to elect our Speaker. It is an institution that cannot exist without respect. The rulings of the Speaker are final. There is no appeal. The Speaker is not a person or a personality. Respect for each other and our institutions is the glue that hold our democracy together.
Two things – within our control – threaten the health of our democracy – the excessive power of party strategists and the unholy growth in power of the Prime Minister’s Office.
In truth, I would love to be your Speaker and try to redress the imbalance as party whips and partisan games – on all sides – bog down the work of democracy. I have, however, reached the inescapable conclusion that I cannot let down Canadians who know we need at least one Green voice in this place to address critical threats to our children’s future. I cannot silence myself no matter how much I would enjoy the experiment of using our existing rules in the service of democracy.
I know all those friends and colleagues who have written appeals to gain our votes and support. They are all good people. Solid citizens. I worry that none of them is up to the task of restoring Westminster parliamentary democracy to Canada. But I see glimmers of hope in conversations I have had over the last number of days. I will vote for the Honourable Member for Hull-Aylmer. We have to put our hope and trust in the Institution of Speaker and support the next Speaker wholeheartedly whomever it may be. But in truth, getting this next parliament to work, to be an example for children across Canada of how grown-ups should behave, is up to all of us more than to any one miracle-worker of a Speaker.
With that, best wishes to us all in finding wisdom in the exercise of our duties of service to our nation.
Elizabeth May”