‘Green Party is self-destructing’

Aformer Green party president says the party remains “hostile to Jews,” amid turmoil that includes layoffs and a pending non-confidence vote on leader Annamie Paul.

“The Green Party is self-destructing by focusing on Jews and allowing anti-semitism and discrimination to thrive,” former party president Paul Estrin writes in an oped in Friday’s National Post.

Paul remains embattled over her support of her adviser, Noah Zatzman, who was fired by party officials after expressing solidarity with Israel and accusing politicians, including unspecified Green MPS, of anti-semitism.

In his oped, Estrin writes that the Jewish Paul is the target of extremist elements in the party who are preventing the Greens from realizing the “Green agenda.”

“What we are witnessing appears to be the Green Party’s continued effort to exclude Jewish Canadians who are unwilling to check important aspects of their Jewish identity at the door,” writes Estrin, who blames that dynamic for his forced ouster.

“Expelling a party president and now attempting to expel a party leader in regards to a conflict a world away whose implications on the Canadian environmental stage are minimal would seem bizarre and overkill, except that the conflict in question deals with the Jewish state of Israel.”

This week, a party executive sent layoff notices to Green party staff against the wishes of the leader, sources told The Canadian Press. The temporary layoffs leave Paul without paid staff in her office ahead of a non-confidence vote by party brass on July 20 and a likely federal election later this year.