The future is grim for Canada’s Green party

Jenica Atwin’s crossing the floor is likely a sign she saw the writing on the wall

The Green Party of Canada is close to dead in the water. In the postElizabeth May era, the party is disintegrating before Parliament and the eyes of the nation. Lost byelections, Annamie Paul’s invisible leadership, porous polling and parliamentary defections have sent the Greens crashing into crisis and rapid decline. Jenica Atwin’s abandonment of the Greens should come as no surprise.

It is hard not to feel bad for Paul, the Greens’ leader. Replacing May was never going to be easy but Paul is not even close to taking the former leader’s place in the national consciousness. Paul rarely makes the national news and many Canadians probably could not remember her name if asked on the spot. Still without a seat since winning leadership of the Greens in 2020, Paul is a ghost in Parliament. Her Twitter profile has less than 30,000 followers while Elizabeth May still has almost 327,000.

As of June 10, May’s profile still features a photo of former Green MP Atwin who made recent headlines, dramatically crossing the virtual floor of Zoom to the reigning Liberal Party. Atwin’s defection ostensibly resulted from Paul’s decidedly moderate statements on the recent battles in Gaza, which Atwin found insufficiently critical of Israel.

It is difficult to believe Atwin joined the Liberals solely because of Paul’s moderate stance on foreign policy. If pro-Israel stances were what drove Atwin to leave the Green party, it definitely wasn’t an impediment to joining the Grits as her new party’s leadership remains staunchly pro-Israel. The New Democratic Party under Jagmeet Singh is much more sharply critical of Israel and is a more natural fit for Atwin’s anti-Israel positions. Atwin’s pretext for joining the Liberals should therefore raise eyebrows.

Atwin likely left the Greens because the party is sinking beneath the political waves and she and her nascent political career won’t go down with the ship.

Prior to the 2019 federal election, the Green party under May flirted with close to 10 per cent in the polls. In the election itself, the party expanded its geographic distribution with Atwin’s victory in New Brunswick, briefly making it a party from sea to sea. Atwin’s departure has relegated the Greens back to being a party solely in southern Vancouver Island.

Atwin’s 2019 victory in her Fredericton riding was close and did not indicate the Green party made a permanent impression in New Brunswick. Fredericton usually votes either Liberal or Conservative, making Atwin well-positioned to retain her seat as a Grit instead of a Green.

Under Paul’s leadership, current polling gives the Greens eight per cent on a good day and seven or six on average. Paul still has no seat in Parliament and failed her first test in the 2020 Toronto-Centre byelection. She placed second but it was a distant, uncompetitive second. By comparison, Singh passed his first test with flying colours in Burnaby South’s 2019 byelection, comfortably winning a riding that had been competitive in previous elections.

The Green party started being treated as a serious political entity in 2019 by the Canadian media, being given a place in televised national leaders’ debates, giving it a veneer of credibility despite its tiny parliamentary presence. With the end of May’s leadership, the Greens are on the verge of irrelevance. They hold two seats, but have only made the news lately due to disputes within the party. Maxime Bernier and the People’s Party have no parliamentary seats, but Bernier has been a better newsmaker than Paul, if only due to being the champion of the anti-lockdown and antimask electorate.

It is a surprising decline given the Green party achieved its greatest electoral triumph less than two years ago.

Maybe Paul will turn things around and surprise us all. Perhaps May will return to lead the party to its former glory of three or more parliamentary seats. For now however, with one of their few MPs joining the Liberals, decline in the polls and a seatless leader with no real following, the future looks grim for the Green Party of Canada.

Replacing May was never going to be easy but Paul is not even close to taking the former leader’s place in the national consciousness

Geoff Russ is a journalist and freelance writer covering political developments in Canada.