The Green Party Needs New Leadership

Jonathan has resigned as Co-Leader; Elizabeth May should follow.

This morning on BlueSky, Green Party Co-Leader Jonathan Pedneault resigned from his role following the poor election results of this past Monday. We not only failed to get a full slate, were dropped from the debates, and failed to be part of the conversation in any meaningful sense - we also lost one of our two incumbents, and Jonathan himself ended up fourth in his targeted seat of Outremont despite spending most of the campaign there.

Jonathan isn’t to blame for a campaign trajectory far outside his control, and I think he did an admirable job where able - but the results were catastrophic. Look at this:

• 1% of the vote nationally, with entire target areas from 2015 and 2019, heck from 2021, reduced to sub-5% support;

• A muddled communications strategy which made us look like jokes (Fabrice, the GPC media contact, needs to be fired for the constant “this candidate doesn’t have a media strategy” line);

• A party hollowed out and barely functioning as support for most of its candidates, zero direction from above except when it involved possible embarrassing media questions;

• And an overstuffed platform with no clear message or raison d'être for the party.

There’s no survivable condition here, whether or not Jonathan had a hand in any of it directly. He made the right call. No other party would accept this record.

Which means Elizabeth May also needs to resign as Co-Leader. How can we justify Jonathan’s resignation, but not Elizabeth’s?

Look - I’m very happy she was reelected in Saanich-Gulf Islands. She will always be one of our party’s primary spokespeople, not just because she’s our MP, but simply because she’s so damn good at it. Elizabeth has my full respect and support for her critical advocacy in Ottawa and beyond.

But I don’t see how Greens move forward with her still in the leadership role, deciding the direction of the party. It’s untenable for her and us both to continue this way. I know the Greens aren’t actually the “Elizabeth May Party” - but how can I sell that to anyone else when disaster doesn’t lead to reflection and change?

She should come out stating her intention to resign after a new leadership contest, don’t leave it up in the air. Let’s get this process going. Whoever comes next has big issues to tackle, and there’s zero guarantee of success, possibly even more of failure - and that’s okay. I’d rather take the chance of something different than accepting continued decay.