Green Party Leader Elizabeth May to set terms for supporting government
Credit to Author: Tiffany Crawford| Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2019 14:48:57 +0000
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May will lay out the party’s terms today for supporting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal minority government.
May has scheduled a news conference on Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. at her Saanich-Gulf Islands campaign office in Sidney, B.C.
She will be joined by the two other Green MPs-elect Paul Manly (Nanaimo-Ladysmith) and Jenica Atwin (Fredericton.)
It’s not clear what May’s terms are for support, but she has said she wants a firm commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 C, which means making some tough decisions by government to meet that target.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May reacts following the federal election results in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada October 21, 2019.
Shortly before the campaign began, May called on the federal government to create an inner war cabinet to battle the climate crisis.
Trudeau’s press secretary Matt Pascuzzo did not say whether the prime minister is in favour of a special cabinet, but said he was always happy to work with May on fighting climate change.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has said he is in favour of a special inner cabinet on climate change.
On Tuesday, May said she was “wasting no time” in making the point to Trudeau “that most Canadian voters voted for parties that said they were ready to step up and take climate change seriously.”
She said she won’t let the issue rest while preparations are made to open the 43rd session of parliament.
During the campaign, the Greens also said they would create a citizens’ assembly with a mandate to make recommendations to Parliament on a new electoral system based on proportional representation, and would push to lower the voting age to 16.
May’s terms of support come one day before thousands of youth and their supporters are expected to rally at a strike in Vancouver with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. The students on are strike on Fridays to protest government inaction on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avert a climate and ecological crisis.
ticrawford@postmedia.com
-With files from Derrick Penner
More to come…