Green leader will run again in Toronto Centre

Annamie Paul believes she can build on 32.7 per cent support received in October byelection

OTTAWA—Her party has never won a seat at the federal level in Ontario, and she’s already lost twice trying, but Green Leader Annamie Paul is taking another run at Toronto Centre, the dense downtown riding the Liberals have held since the Blue Jays last won the World Series in 1993.

Speaking to journalists through a laptop she said was propped on a cardboard box outside a St. Jamestown community centre, Paul acknowledged Thursday that her decision to run for a third time in the Liberal stronghold is a “risk.”

But she said that aside from the three seats the Greens hold in Parliament from the last general election, there are no safe ridings for the party in Canada. With more time to campaign in Toronto Centre this time around, Paul believes she can build on the 32.7 per cent support she received there in last October’s byelection, when she placed second to the Liberal candidate, former broadcast journalist Marci Ien.

“I was immensely gratified by the onethird of residents of this community who took the leap just four months ago and voted Green, even though the overwhelming majority of them had never voted Green before,” said Paul, who lives in Toronto but not in the riding she hopes to represent. “Any seat, anywhere that I ran was going to be a challenge.” I had to say to myself, ‘Where do I want to take that challenge? Where do I want to make a stand?’ And for me, it was Toronto Centre.”

Emily McMillan, a former executive director of the federal Green Party, said Paul’s decision gives the Greens another chance to gain a foothold in Canada’s biggest city, and in a province where they’ve never had electoral success at the federal level. “Greens have shown they can win on both coasts,” she said, pointing to the party’s current seats in British Columbia and New Brunswick. “I think it’s a good strategy.”

Paul’s decision also marks a departure from the Green strategy under her predecessor, Elizabeth May, who ran and lost in different parts of the country before she reached the House of Commons as the first Green MP when she was elected in British Columbia’s Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2011. May had previously failed to get elected in London, Ont. in 2006 and in rural Nova Scotia in 2008.

Paul has only ever campaigned for a seat in Toronto Centre. She placed fourth there in the 2019 federal election, with seven per cent of the vote, before surging to almost a third of the votes cast in last October’s byelection.

That election took place barely three weeks after Paul was elected Green leader, finishing atop of a field of nine candidates after eight rounds of voting in the ranked-ballot contest. Now, with Paul indicating she will run again in Toronto Centre, the Greens have also launched a national recruitment drive for candidates in the next federal election — whenever that may come.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is leading a Liberal minority government, which could fall if the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and New Democrats band together to defeat it. Trudeau could also try to trigger an election, although he has repeatedly said recently that the Liberals don’t want one because they’re focused on the pandemic.

While the Conservatives and NDP have said the same thing, the New Democrats are already gearing up for the next campaign. Last week, Leader Jagmeet Singh rolled out the first plank of the NDP’s election platform, promising to overhaul long-term care in Canada.

Paul, meanwhile, is previewing how the Greens will try to win votes in the next federal contest. On Thursday, she highlighted a suite of social and economic issues, including precarious work, affordable housing and the Green push for a guaranteed livable income. She did not mention the primordial Green priorities of climate change and the environment until asked by a reporter.

“For people to be strong climate activists, for them to lend their voices to tackling the climate emergency, their basic needs have to be met,” Paul said, describing how her party will champion expanding Canada’s “social safety net” and stand as “the most progressive voice in Canadian politics.”