Federal Green party has ‘very real problem with racism,’ insider says in scathing email
OTTAWA—The Green Party of Canada’s diversity co-ordinator has written a scathing condemnation of high-ranking officials who denied there is discrimination in the organization after the Star reported on internal discord affecting Annamie Paul, the first Black leader of a major political party.
In a lengthy email sent Monday to dozens of party officials, Zahra Mitra accused unnamed officials of causing “irreparable harm” by denying reports in the Star about internal party strife.
She said the party has a “very real problem with racism” and that top-ranking officials have hampered efforts to make the organization more inclusive.
Mitra declined to comment when contacted by the Star.
But in the email, which was obtained by the Star, she said those officials should resign so “equity-seeking” party members can feel welcome.
“I would like to state in no uncertain terms that no apology — no matter how sincere — will repair the damage that you have done, unless it is accompanied by actions that hold you accountable,” she wrote.
“By continuing to occupy positions of power in this organization, you are sending equity-seeking participants the message that the party is not a safe space for them, and that their voices will not be valued here,” Mitra wrote.
The party’s interim executive director, Dana Taylor, former leader Elizabeth May and all 18 members of the Green’s federal council declined requests from the Star on Tuesday to be interviewed or to answer questions in writing. Taylor and two council members referred the Star to the party’s spokesperson.
Paul did not respond to a request for comment.
In an emailed statement to the Star, a spokesperson for the Greens, Rosie Emery, said the party “cannot comment on internal communications or staff decisions. However, we take seriously the issues raised in recent articles in the Toronto Star, particularly with regard to equity, diversity and inclusion.”
The statement adds: “We are fully aware that much more remains to be done as we grow, and we must keep working to do better.”
Mitra’s email follows reaction by party officials to a Star report on discord within the party, with several sources describing how Paul has faced obstacles from a group of powerful party officials over her first six months as leader.
Sean Yo, who was Paul’s campaign manager in a federal byelection last October, said the new leader is facing “significant resistance” inside her party and that the situation is difficult to understand without looking at it through the “lens of race, gender and religion.”
Paul is the first Black leader of a major political party in Canada. She is also Jewish.
In her email, Mitra said official denials of the Star’s reporting were aimed at discrediting “a man of colour for speaking out against discrimination” — Yo told the Star that he identifies as a person of colour — and signal “to a national audience that the party is an unsafe space for equity-seeking participants.
“Whether or not you believe that someone’s view of your actions has merit, it is incumbent upon you to listen to them, seek to understand their concerns,
and interrogate your own behaviour,” Mitra wrote. “That the most senior leadership of a federal political party cannot grasp it is unconscionable.”
In her email, Mitra refers to the responses of two members of the federal council who disputed Yo’s account. Kate Storey wrote that “board due diligence is being falsely interpreted as resistance” while Beverley Eert accused the Star of publishing “slander” and wrote that “clearly a small group of people are discontented ... and prepared to frame their discontent to suit their own purpose.”
May, the longtime former Green leader who remains the MP for Saanich—Gulf Islands, told the Star last week that she disagrees race is a factor inside the party.
The Star has obtained an email Storey sent to dozens of party insiders on April 8, in which she said she had “never seen any evidence of actual racism or bias against the leader from councillor.
“On the contrary,” she wrote, “we are attempting to accommodate her requests and to add all of her diversity, equity and inclusion suggestions to our procedures.”
Two days later, Storey sent another email to “retract and apologize” for her statement that no racism exists on federal council. “Thank you and everyone for helping me see that we are all products of an inherently
racist society and that therefore I am racist and have benefited from racism,” she wrote. “I am committed to doing better.”
Storey did not respond to a request for comment about the emails.
Mitra’s email also singled out Taylor, the party’s interim executive director, to whom she said she would normally have directed her concerns. However, she wrote, Taylor’s “positioning on the serious allegations in the original Toronto Star article at last week’s all-staff meeting” makes it clear “he is not prepared to lead the party’s efforts to dismantle systemic discrimination.”
A party staff member who attended that meeting, and who agreed to speak to the Star on condition they weren’t named, said Taylor told those in attendance to deny what the Star reported and asserted that the Green party is not a “racist institution.”
The staff member said some employees pushed back, and said discrimination is a known issue in the party because of an internal report on diversity.
Taylor did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the meeting.
The Star has been unable to obtain a copy of the party’s diversity report, which two sources with knowledge of party affairs said was produced after concerns were raised about a lack of diversity in the slate of
Green candidates for the 2019 federal election. The Canadian Press reported that less than 10 per cent of Green candidates in that election were visible minorities — less than the NDP, Liberals, Conservatives and the far-right People’s Party of Canada.
Mitra’s email also quoted from the party’s post-election diversity report, the recommendations of which the federal council voted to accept: “The party’s commitment to diversity and inclusion will remain an empty promise unless those in positions of power recognize their role and responsibility not only to act on the contents of this report, but also to step back or step down if they are unwilling or unable to give this important issue the attention and dedication it requires.”
In last year’s Green leadership campaign, Paul vowed to increase diversity in the party. She also endured racial slurs from online commentators during party events, something her leadership rival Amita Kuttner also experienced as a trans person in the political contest.
Kuttner told the Star recently that they submitted complaints to the party about transphobia that they experienced during the race, but that they felt they were not taken seriously by the federal council.
Ben Linnick, a Métis man from Manitoba and former
Green member, said he also submitted a complaint to the party about his experience on the organization’s policy committee. Linnick ran for the Greens in the 2019 election and told the Star he joined the committee to help improve the party’s policies on Indigenous issues. He ended up quitting in June 2020 after a dispute with Storey, the party fund representative who chaired the policy committee.
According to an email chain Linnick provided to the Star, as well as his verbal account of what happened, Storey proposed a candidate to fill a vacancy on the committee and asked Linnick and others for feedback. Linnick objected to Storey’s proposed candidate — a white woman — after finding a write-up about her online that described her “forays” into various religions and her “lifelong friendship with Indigenous culture.” Linnick argued the party could do better if it wants to increase diversity on the committee.
Storey then wrote an email accusing Linnick of “defamatory, libelous and false accusations,” and demanded he apologize to the committee and to the candidate herself.
Linnick responded by resigning from the committee, and wrote to Storey that “it is no secret this party has struggled on Indigenous issues, here is a stellar reason why. An Indigenous perspective being offered and then quickly slapped down and declared to be defamatory and unfit to be voiced.”
The email chain shows Storey went on to apologize and state she would step down as committee chair.
Storey did not respond to the Star’s request for comment about this dispute with Linnick.
In an interview with the Star, Linnick said he believes systemic racism exists in the Green party, just as it does in Canadian society at large. “I think the Green party is more of a symptom of a larger problem,” he said.
Speaking last week to the Star’s editorial board, Paul downplayed the significance of the internal situation in the party. She also pledged she would “root out” any discrimination that might turn up in the party, and expressed confidence that she can lead the party as a “Black Jewish woman.”