Elizabeth May timeline: Green leader to step down after 13 years at head of party
Credit to Author: Cheryl Chan| Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2019 01:27:32 +0000
Born in Connecticut, a teenage Elizabeth May moved to Nova Scotia with her family in 1973, working in the family’s restaurant and gift shop on the Cabot Trail. May first stepped into the public spotlight in the mid-1970s to protest aerial insecticide spraying of forests near her home, and has stayed true to those environmental roots throughout her career.
May received a law degree from Dalhousie University and studied theology at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of eight books, including the memoir Who We Are: Reflections of My Life and Canada.
• 1986. Worked as senior policy adviser to an environment minister in the Brian Mulroney government. Helped create national parks and was involved in negotiating the ozone-protecting Montreal protocol.
• 1989. Became executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, a position she will hold for 17 years.
• 2001. Launched a 17-day hunger strike over the federal government’s slow response to toxic waste from a shutdown coal refinery in Sydney, N.S.
• 2005. Received the Order of Canada for her environmental work.
• August 2006. Ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada after resigning her position at the Sierra Club. In a Vancouver Sun interview at the time, May said she planned to shake up the political scene: “I plan to tell the truth, all the time.”
• November 2006. Ran in a federal byelection in London North Centre, Ont., and lost.
• 2008. Threatened to sue the media consortium for excluding her in the federal leaders’ debate (at the time, only parties with seats in Parliament were invited), calling the move “anti-democratic” and an attempt to keep the event an “old-boy’s club.” After a public outcry, the consortium allowed May to join the debate.
• October 2008. Ran in the riding of Central Nova, N.S., and lost. Under her helm, the Green party gained close to seven per cent of the national vote.
• May 2011. Wins in the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, becoming the first elected Green party MP to sit in the House of Commons.
• October 2015. Re-elected in the Vancouver Island riding.
• March 2018. Arrested at a protest against Kinder Morgan’s expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline along with then-NDP MP and current Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart. She pleaded guilty to a contempt-of-court charge and was ordered to pay a $1,500 fine. Outside court, May said: “I”m holding my head up high.”
• April 2019. Marries retired entrepreneur John Kidder at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria. The Earth Day nuptials were a low-carbon affair that included a convoy of electric vehicles, repurposed flowers and a cross-Canada train trip as the honeymoon.
• October 2019. Re-elected in Saanich-Gulf Islands, along with Paul Manly in Nanaimo-Ladysmith and Jenica Atwin in Fredericton — the most Green MPs elected in history but short of the 12 required to gain official party status.
• November 2019. After 13 years May steps down as leader of the Green party. Names Deputy Leader Jo-Ann Roberts as interim successor.
— With files from Postmedia News and The Canadian Press