Court threat won't distract me, Paul says
`Excited' to work with next group of councillors
OTTAWA • Green leader Annamie Paul refused to say Thursday how, or even if, she will respond to the latest threat to her leadership, saying her focus is turning to the coming election campaign.
Paul's leadership has been under threat since June, as members of her party's federal council, effectively the board of directors, have pursued a confidence vote and membership review as avenues to remove her as leader.
A confidence vote in Paul's leadership that had been scheduled for this past Tuesday was called off, and on Monday Paul said the party was prepared to move forward.
But on Wednesday, news emerged that the confidence vote had been called off only because an arbitrator had forced the party to do so.
Paul has an employment contract with the Green Party Fund — the party's fundraising arm — and she pursued arbitration through that agreement to stop the confidence vote. Federal councillors are seeking a court ruling to overturn the arbitrator's decision, but Paul would not say Thursday how she would respond.
“I'm not going to discuss things that are internal party matters and things that are not supposed to be in public domain,” she said when asked repeatedly if she would defend the court challenge.
Paul's press conference Thursday was for the opening of her Toronto Centre campaign office.
She has campaigned in the riding twice before, once in the 2019 election where she finished fourth, and then again in the 2020 byelection, where she came a strong second, but still nearly ten points behind Liberal MP Marci Ien.
Paul said she wants to focus on winning the riding and not on internal party disputes.
“Even as the leader of the party, my first duty always is to the people who elected me, my first duty always is going to be to represent the people of this riding in Ottawa.”
The party has not so far agreed to provide additional funding to Paul's campaign in Toronto Centre and they stripped her of staff due to financial constraints.
She said the court challenge is an effort by a handful of the party's federal councillors to cause problems just as their terms are set to end.
Elections for new members of the council are underway and Paul said she expects a new council to be more supportive.
“I am asking people to just have patience as we transition, as we are in the midst of elections,” she said. “I'm very excited to work with our next group of councillors, and I am not going to be distracted any further from the work that has to be done.”
Paul said she wants to focus on the expected election call.
“Every single person who is a member of our party deserves to have certainty. They deserve to know that my attention and focus is where it belongs,” she said.
“We are running a national campaign. And of course, we're seeking seats to win votes all over the country.”
No date has been set for a hearing on the application to overturn the arbitrator's ruling. The party members who filed the application argue that Paul's contract is specifically with the party's fundraising arm, not the party itself.
In their application, they argue the court should overturn the ruling allowing the party to decide on a non-confidence vote.
If it were to go ahead, the non-confidence vote would need 75 per cent support among the party's federal
EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO IS A MEMBER OF OUR PARTY DESERVES TO HAVE CERTAINTY.
council to move ahead. If it achieved that, the issue would be settled next month with a full vote of the party's membership.
While sources have told the National Post there were long-running issues in the party, the dispute became public when Green MP Jenica Atwin crossed the floor to sit with the Liberals in June.
Before her defection, Atwin denounced a statement from Paul on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “totally inadequate,” because it called for both sides to de-escalate and reduce violence.
Atwin called on Israel to “end apartheid,” but apologized for her remarks after joining the Liberals.
Shortly after Atwin's tweet, Paul's then-adviser and spokesperson Noah Zatzman wrote a post on Facebook calling out anti-Semitism among MPs of all parties, including the Greens, and calling for MPs who supported anti-Semitism to be defeated.
The federal council has asked Paul to repudiate Zatzman for those comments publicly, which she has not so far done.