New Green leader wastes no time going on attack
Throne speech was full ‘platitudes’ of
OT TAWA • In her first official press conference on Parliament Hill Monday, new Green Party of Canada leader Annamie Paul came out swinging against her political opponents all the while asking Canadians to consider her party as a solid alternative to her four federal rivals.
Saturday evening, Paul became the first Black person to lead a federal Canadian party when she won the Green leadership race with just over 12,000 votes.
Monday she made it clear that the Greens were going to be playing hardball with their political rivals.
“When I listened to the speech from the throne I think, like many of you, I was hoping to hear something extremely inspirational. I was hoping to hear a vision for Canada,” Paul said in her opening remarks referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s throne speech two weeks ago.
“And what I heard was a lot of platitudes, and unfortunately a platitude is not a plan,” she said, flanked by Green Parliamentary Leader and former party head Elizabeth May, as well as party MP Paul Manly.
She then pleaded with Canadians to consider her party as a real alternative to its political rivals, particularly after seeing how the COVID- 19 pandemic had been managed in Canada.
She said that the Trudeau Liberals and “previous governments” had “dropped the ball” when it came to investing in long- term care homes leading up to and during the pandemic. Because of that, thousands of Canadians, including her father, had died in long-term care, she added.
“I am encouraging people to turn towards the Green Party if they’re looking for a real plan, because what we see is that the other parties unfortunately are intellectually exhausted,” she declared.
Paul is a lawyer who has worked as an adviser for the International Criminal Court and founded a series of non- profit organizations in Canada. She is a first-generation Canadian born of Caribbean parents.
She is currently unelected, but was nominated as the Green candidate in the byelection for Toronto Centre, the riding held by former Finance Minister Bill Morneau until his resignation in late August.
She is running against a candidate from all other major federal parties, which led to some choice words from the former Green leader.
During the press conference, May lambasted other parties for not showing “courtesy” by withdrawing their candidate from the byelection in order to help clear the way for Paul.
May was particularly frustrated at NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, reminding him that the Greens had pulled their candidate from the 2019 byelection in Burnaby South to help him.
“I communicated with Jagmeet Singh realizing that he might have lost because he absolutely did not have a shoo- in in Burnaby South” and offered to remove the Green candidate
from the race, May said. She said Singh accepted her offer and described it as “classy.”
“So I’d like Jagmeet Singh to think about it. I’d like New Democrats to reach out to him and say, ‘ How classy is it to try to block the entry to the House of Commons of the first Black woman leader of a federal political party?’ Consider what Rosemary Brown would think,” May said.
Rosemary Brown was the first Black woman to be elected in Canada, winning a seat for the New Democrats in the British Columbia legislature in 1972.
Paul acknowledged that it would be a “tough” race for her, but that she didn’t expect any favours from the NDP.
Monday afternoon, NDP National Director Anne McGrath said that the party’s candidate in Toronto Centre, Brian Chang, would not be withdrawing from the race.
“Every Canadian deserves to vote for the party they believe in, and with Brian Chang, they can count on someone who will fight for them," Mcgrath said in a statement.
Paul had few answers for specific policy or political questions from reporters, deflecting them by saying that it’s up to party membership and caucus, not just her as leader, to make such important decisions going forward.
For example, she would not say whether her party would support the Trudeau government in upcoming confidence votes.
In keeping with the party’s name, she said the Green caucus would focus on strong environmental policy and pushing the fight against climate change. Her team would also work to strengthen and increase funding for social programs across Canada, as well as creating new ones such as guaranteed livable income and universal pharmacare.
“People say we’re a oneissue party. And I say to them, if it’s the right issue, then it’s OK for it to be the one issue. And in the case of the climate emergency, it is and remains the existential crisis of our times. And we cannot forget about it because it has not forgotten about us,” Paul said.
CLIMATE EMERGENCY ... IS THE CRISIS OF OUR LIFETIMES.