Green party considers dumping leader as internal tensions boil over

OTTAWA — Pressure is mounting on federal Green Leader Annamie Paul to resign as party tensions burst into plain view and top officials weigh whether to trigger a process that could dethrone her.

Four Green insiders told the Star that the party’s federal council was expected to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday night at which officials would vote on whether to start a months-long process to declare lost confidence in Paul’s leadership.

Party spokesperson Rosie Emery confirmed a “special session” was scheduled but declined to say anything more.

Paul did not respond to the Star’s requests for comment about the meeting.

The meeting was set as Alex Tyrrell, leader of the Quebec provincial Green party, added his voice to calls for Paul to resign after revelations of party infighting and former Green MP Jenica Atwin’s decision cross the floor and join the Liberals last week.

“This crisis has really gotten out of control within the party,” Tyrrell said. “I’m calling on Annamie Paul to step back from the leadership of the federal party, for the good of the party. And the sooner that happens, the better.”

Last week, the federal Green party’s Quebec wing also called on Paul to resign over Atwin’s departure, and for the party to remove her if she refuses to step down.

Ahead of Tuesday’s federal council meeting, more than 650 Green members had signed letters calling for a special session to take “the crucial first step in” removing Paul as leader.

The party’s constitution requires council to give Paul 30 days’ notice before it votes on a non-confidence motion, meaning the soonest that could happen after Tuesday’s meeting is July 15.

Three quarters of the federal council’s members would then have to declare non-confidence in Paul before her fate would be decided by a vote at the party’s next annual general meeting, which sources said is expected to be held before the end of the summer.

Paul responded to these calls during a Tuesday news conference, saying that despite her efforts to bring the party together, “there are those that are going to continue to support others.”

“I would just encourage them, again, to respect the will of the members who made it very clear who they were seeking to have lead them at this point,” she said. “We will have an automatic leadership review directly after the next election, as will the other parties, so the members will be able to pass judgment soon enough.”

When asked Tuesday how she planned to rebuild public trust in the Greens, Paul said it was clear that internal party strife and Atwin’s defection had “caused harm.”

“I’m willing to recognize anything that I might have done to contribute to the situation. It’s important for me to grow and learn always as a leader and be humble enough to recognize that,” she said.

The Star first reported on discord within the Green party in April, with several party sources describing how Paul has faced obstacles from top party officials since she was elected federal leader last October. Sean Yo, a top member of Paul’s political circle who managed her campaign in a federal byelection last year, said at the time that the situation cannot be understood without looking through the “lens of race, gender and religion.”

Paul is the first Black leader of a major federal party. She is also Jewish.

When party officials denied Paul was facing internal resistance and questioned Yo’s comment about race, that triggered calls for high-ranking members of the federal council to resign ahead of party elections this summer. Zahra Mitra, the Green party’s diversity co-ordinator, also wrote a scathing denunciation of unnamed officials and claimed the organization has a “very real problem with racism.”

Weeks later, Atwin crossed the floor to the Liberals after she openly criticized Paul’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Atwin took to Twitter last month to denounce Paul’s calls for peace in the region as “totally inadequate” and aligned herself with Palestinians facing violence. Paul’s senior adviser, Noah Zatzman, later accused other politicians and unnamed Green MPs in a Facebook post of stoking anti-Semitism and discrimination.

Atwin initially stuck to that position when announcing her move to the governing Liberals, but issued a statement Monday acknowledging suffering on both sides of the conflict and expressing regret over her previous choice of words.

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The move exposed differences between Paul, who does not have a seat in Parliament, and the two remaining Green MPs — former leader Elizabeth May and Nanaimo MP Paul Manly — who blamed Atwin’s departure on Zatzman’s “attack.”

Tyrrell, the provincial Green leader in Quebec, was an outspoken critic of May’s leadership, but said Tuesday that it might make sense for her to return to the role if Paul is ousted with a federal election possibly looming. May told the Star last October that she was open to the idea of returning as leader if needed in the future.

“It may not be the worst idea,” Tyrrell said, adding that the party can’t “go forward to the election like this, with the leadership being openly contested by so many people at all levels.”

RP

Raisa Patel is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @R_SPatel