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Media attention, preferably the positive kind, is the currency of modern political parties and personalities. The Green Party has long fought for the national microphone in the shadow of the country’s dominant Liberals, Conservatives and NDP. Lately they’ve been getting attention, but for all the wrong reasons.
Under newly minted leader Annamie Paul, the Greens hoped to position themselves to build on their growth from one to three MPs in the last election. One of those rookie MPs, Jenica Atwin, won a seat in New Brunswick, on the opposite side of the country from BC where the party’s traditional base lives.
An internal spat that has become public and nasty is threatening both Paul’s leadership and any chance that the Greens can capitalize on momentum from their recent gains. The dispute resulted in Atwin’s defection to the Liberals last week resulting in unflattering headlines such as ‘Federal Green Party Loses One Third of its Caucus.’
Paul won last fall’s leadership vote on the eighth ballot in a preferential ballot style election, eventually beating out rival Dimitri Lascaris by 2000 votes, not exactly a knock-out win but seen as something of a continuation of former leader Elizabeth May’s vision for the party.
How it started
In the wake of last month’s flare-up of hostilities between Israel and the militant group Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, Ms. Paul’s office issued a bland statement calling on both sides to step back from the fighting.
Two of her three MPs, Paul Manly and Atwin, followed up with stronger comments criticizing the actions of Israel specifically. Atwin went further by labeling the official Green Party statement “totally inadequate.” A few days later, senior advisor to Annamie Paul, Noah Zatzman, accused certain (unnamed) Green MPs of antisemitism and called for their removal.
In any other party, advisors actively working against elected MPs from their own party would immediately have been shown the door. Paul, however, remained strangely silent over the next number of days.
Former leadership contender Judy Green stated – “If Annamie had immediately come forward and just said, ‘The views of Noah Zatzman are not my views, and he does not speak for me and it was inappropriate of somebody in my employ to say the words that he did and attack sitting Green MPs. I fully support the Green MPs,’ I don’t think we’d have this issue. I think Jenica would still be there.”
Credible reports have stated that Paul ignored repeated attempts by Atwin to have a frank discussion and she ignored requests by many party members to disavow Zatzman’s attack. Even after the party’s governing body, the Federal Green Council, met last week with the leader and insisted that she issue a statement supporting her MPs and repudiating her advisor’s inflammatory comments, we have yet to hear that sort of clarity from her.
Instead, she has gone on the attack, claiming Atwin and the Liberals had been in talks well before the Israel-Zatzman brouhaha. She has publicly denounced the Liberals and especially the Prime Minister for ‘poaching’ her MP. She has called him a fake feminist and said he hides behind his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, his ‘feminist shield.’
The Identity Politics Minefield
As a woman in politics, Paul should know better than to imply that someone as accomplished as Freeland is in a powerful position primarily because of her gender. She can’t claim to work for diversity and inclusion in politics but then denigrate the achievements of those who have prevailed over those very obstacles she claims to work against.
Paul is also lashing out against those in her own party, claiming that a culture of sexism and misogyny is hampering her ability to lead. There is undoubtedly some degree of that in the Green Party but, considering that the party has been led for the last 13 years by Elizabeth May, the charge of rampant sexism is difficult to swallow.
Ms. Paul is also Black and Jewish, a combination that hasn’t been seen at this country’s federal leadership level. She needs to be careful not to weaponize those identities to the extent that any criticism of her or her leadership style becomes off limits. Accusations of an unwillingness to listen or of dismissiveness aren’t illegitimate simply because she’s a woman, or Black or Jewish.
Losing Focus – Losing Support
Judy Green recently learned that despite her many years of hard work in the Green Party, her nomination to run in the upcoming federal election was nixed by Paul and her chief of staff, Philip Spidle. She was given no reason, simply that she had failed the vetting process. My guess is that simply writing this article would result in my own disbarment from running again for the Greens.
People like me who were attracted to the Green Party because of the positive politics of Elizabeth May are feeling abandoned. The party I joined and ran under had a broad range of policies that offered serious alternatives to Canadians.
While the climate crisis is the lens that filters much of what the Green Party proposes, the issues that it champions are many: a guaranteed livable income for all, affordable childcare, robust networks to carry clean energy from coast to coast to coast.
I hope with all my heart that the party weathers this current internal strife so that it can again be the option for Canadians who care about a viable future for their children and grandchildren. Our governments urgently need the benefit of voices in the halls of power that will demand they pay attention to these incredibly critical matters.
I will vote for Green voices at all levels of government no matter who the leader is. The party’s principles and values resonate that strongly for me but I also desperately want leadership that unites us behind those ideals.
Bill Tiessen - Political Commentary 