Good Sunday Morning!
And 24 hours until the voting begins! I do not know whether to be happy it’s almost over or wishing for a time machine to get another few weeks to campaign. I would so love to be able to make another cross-country swing to support our wonderful Green candidates.
The team has been phenomenal. Jonathan has been such an enormous help — taking on travel to the Yukon and BC, New Brunswick and Ontario as well as numerous ridings in Quebec.
I would so love to get back to Kitchener Centre and Fredericton, as well as up to Squamish and Whistler to support the Green candidate there — Lauren Greenlaw. JP got there but I never did. I would love to get back to Guelph to support the amazing Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik. A snap election it is. Snap in the calling and snap in the brevity. JP and I have truly shared the leader role. I am so grateful.
The local campaign to win in Saanich-Gulf Islands has been so much more challenging than we anticipated. Thank heavens we did move to co-leadership so that I was able to cut back on national travel. I did campaign in the Maritimes and Quebec, Ontario and outside Saanich-Gulf Islands, but my campaign manager Tim Maloney saw early that I needed to be knocking on doors here at home. I ran into yet another voter today who wished she had voted for me! But in the advance vote, based on false information about polling, she thought she was voting “strategically” by voting Liberal. As the race has tightened between me and the Conservative candidate she has realized her mistake. A Liberal vote, she realizes now, only helps the Conservative candidate. What to say to a voter who meant well but allowed fear-based voting to scare her out of voting for what she wanted?
Please do talk to friends and neighbours anywhere across Canada about why it is so important to vote Green on Monday. We no longer face any risk of a Conservative government. Poilievre’s support is collapsing. A Green vote sends a clear message to the new government that Canadians DO care about the issues we raise.
We are the only party to have made elimination of poverty a key issue. Paul Manly, who like me is in a neck and neck race to defeat a Conservative, and I held a press conference on Friday about how the Green Party will eliminate poverty and how we will pay for it. Here is a summary from our press release:
Fighting Poverty in Canada: Greens Champion Canada Disability Benefit, Guaranteed Livable Income, and Homelessness Prevention
April 25, 2025
VICTORIA – The Green Party of Canada is calling for bold federal action to eliminate poverty across the country, with a strong focus on improving the long-promised Canada Disability Benefit, introducing a Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI), and investing in homelessness prevention and support services.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” The Green Party believes it is time for Canada to embrace this transformative solution.
“Ending poverty, it’s not only a moral imperative, it makes good economic sense,” said co-Leader Elizabeth May. “A Guaranteed Livable Income, for example, would take pressure off our healthcare system and off our criminal justice system. Poverty not only grinds an individual down, it weakens us as a country. Ending poverty makes for a stronger Canada, and today, more than ever, we need a strong Canada.”
“People with disabilities in Canada are disproportionately living in poverty,” May further added. “The Canada Disability Benefit must be equitable and rolled out without further delay. Along with a Guaranteed Livable Income, this policy is rooted in compassion, fairness, and evidence.”
The Canada Disability Benefit, which passed in Parliament with unanimous support but remains underfunded and difficult to access, would provide much-needed income support to too few people with disabilities living below the poverty line. Meanwhile, the Green Party has long advocated for a GLI—a universal basic income approach that would replace existing income support programs. Greens agree with the late and former Progressive Conservative Senator Hugh Segal who said a basic income puts “a floor under all Canadians beneath which they could not fall.”
“The disability community deserves so much better than half-measures,” said Mike Morrice, the incumbent for Kitchener Centre and Green Party of Canada Disability Critic. “We have the resources. What’s lacking is political will. The Green Party is the only party ready to take bold steps to make sure no one in this country has to choose between rent and food, between medication and heat.”
Greens are continuing to fight to increase the maximum Canada Disability Benefit amount above $200 a month, to remove the burdensome Disability Tax Credit requirement to reduce barriers, and to support independence through individual income assessments.
In his first term as an MP, Morrice secured more improvements to the Canada Disability Benefit Act than all other parliamentarians combined. His efforts included mandating public disclosure of federal-provincial agreements, ensuring the benefit is indexed to inflation, and requiring meaningful engagement with the disability community. Morrice also rallied 79 MPs from four parties in support of the benefit, sponsored multiple petitions that gathered tens of thousands of signatures, and ensured regulations were approved by the Treasury Board to guarantee a July 2025 launch date.
In addition to these income measures, the Green Party is prioritizing robust action to prevent and end homelessness across the country. The party is committed to creating a new, consistent Homelessness Prevention and Eradication Fund of $3.5 billion annually to cut chronic homelessness in half. This includes:
• Expanding investments in Housing First programs and wraparound services—ensuring those experiencing homelessness have access to permanent housing along with mental health care, harm reduction, and addiction recovery supports.
• Increasing municipal funding for emergency shelters and transitional housing, so cities can count on long-term, stable federal support.
• Expanding the Rapid Housing Initiative to accelerate the creation of supportive housing across the country.
“In my time as an MP and as executive director of the Nanaimo Unitarian Shelter, I met countless people trapped in homelessness by a system that punishes poverty rather than preventing it,” said Paul Manly, Nanaimo city councillor and Green candidate for Nanaimo–Ladysmith. “Canada urgently needs a bold federal commitment to end homelessness. Stable housing, strong support services, and serious investments in prevention can transform lives—and our communities.”
“With the cost of living rising and inequality growing, the time to act is now,” said May. “Poverty is a policy choice. And we choose justice.”
And forgive me if I stress another aspect of our work, ignored by the media. Our platform does more to reduce the deficit while spending far more on things that matter — like foreign aid, climate action, improving health care and strengthening our social safety net. How we do that is really cool and based on innovative taxation policy, which we had reviewed by the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
Interestingly, the one study the PBO could not analyze was the amount of fossil fuel subsidies.
Below is our press release from April 26, 2025:
No comprehensive federal accounting exists for public financial support of fossil fuels
OTTAWA – The Green Party of Canada is calling for full transparency on fossil fuel subsidies after the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) was unable to complete a Green Party request to estimate the total amount of federal support for fossil fuel-related activities.
On March 30, the Green Party submitted a request to the PBO for a comprehensive costing of all federal financial support for fossil fuels and fossil fuel-related projects—support that is often dispersed across a wide range of departments and agencies. This included funding through agencies such as Export Development Canada, the Strategic Innovation Fund, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and various regional development agencies.
In a letter released today, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux responded: “I regret to inform you that we are unable to complete the requested cost estimate for the elimination of all federal government financial support for fossil fuels due to insufficient time and a lack of pertinent information.”
“Canadians deserve to know the truth about where their tax dollars are going,” said Jonathan Pedneault, Green Party co-leader and candidate in Outremont. “Billions in public funds are quietly flowing into fossil fuels every year through opaque channels. The refusal or inability of agencies to share information with the PBO highlights the urgent need for transparency and accountability.”
The Green Party notes that while the PBO has successfully produced 17 costed estimates of its platform proposals—more than any other party—this specific request could not be fulfilled because the weaving of fossil fuel subsidies throughout the government of Canada is so pervasive and thorough that it will require an extensive study, not possible during a short campaign.
“The PBO has been incredibly helpful in giving Canadians a clear look at our platform numbers,” said Elizabeth May, Green Party co-leader and MP for Saanich–Gulf Islands. “But when it comes to fossil fuel subsidies, it’s like shining a flashlight into a dense fog. These subsidies are buried deep in government programs and deliberately hidden from public view. That’s unacceptable.”
May also pointed out that the hiding of fossil fuel subsidies is not new: “The deliberate obfuscation from Finance Canada in tracking down fossil fuel subsidies was laid bare when former Auditor General, the late Michael Ferguson, and former Commissioner of the Environment, Julie Gelfand, held a joint press conference. They wanted the public to know that for the first time in the history of the Auditor General’s Office, a federal department refused to hand over its calculations—when the Auditor General asked Finance Canada for its estimates of fossil fuel subsidies,” noted May.
The Greens are committed to ending all fossil fuel subsidies and redirecting those funds toward a just transition for workers and communities, clean energy development, and climate resilience.
The Party intends to take further steps to secure a full public accounting. “If elected, Green MPs will push for a motion in Parliament mandating the PBO to prepare a comprehensive report on all fossil fuel subsidies in Canada,” added May. “We need to pull back the curtain on this pollution funding once and for all.”
Speaking of advance polls, did you see that Saanich-Gulf Islands had the second highest voter turnout in Canada? The highest advance poll voter turnout was in Carleton — the area represented by Pierre Poilievre.
I have been trying to figure out how it is that voter turnout was so high in Carleton and SGI. It may be wishful thinking, but I am hoping people turned out in Carleton to defeat their MP while here people showed up early to support me. But it could be the other way round. No matter what — win, lose or draw, I owe so much to the whole team — of the national campaign team — Robin, Marlene, Audrey-Ann and more! and to my local crew — Tim, Aysha, Stuart, Linda, Marilyn, Robyn, Sue and Rani and dozens more!!
On Monday night I hope we will be celebrating. I will keep calling voters and waving on street corners until the polls close. PLEASE keep on keeping on! Encourage your friends to vote! and Vote Green!
much love,
Elizabeth
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