May stays as Green leader despite row over Israel

OTTAWA • Elizabeth May will remain Green party leader despite a controversy over the Middle East that divided members and prompted her to consider stepping down.

The party will revisit a convention resolution to support a movement to boycott Israel, along with any other recent policy decisions that lacked genuine consensus, May told a news conference Monday.

Meantime, May will focus on her work as a member of a parliamentary committee studying options for remodelling Canada’s electoral system before the next national ballot in three years.

“This is a decision that I think the party needs as we build our strength, and as I work on electoral reform and we prepare for 2019,” May said.

May, the lone Green MP, spent the last several days pondering her future during a vacation in Cape Breton.

At the party’s convention earlier this month, members voted to express support for the so-called boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel — a move May opposed and which Jewish groups swiftly denounced.

May has attributed the resolution’s passage to the process — brief statements followed by a majority vote rather than the party’s traditional approach of a concerted effort to arrive at consensus.

“We let ourselves down, and I take blame for that myself,” she said Monday.