Senior Green quits over lack of leadership debate
OTTAWA — A mutiny against Green leader Elizabeth May accelerated on Thursday when an official resigned over the refusal by the party’s ruling body to allow a debate on May’s leadership.
Colin Griffiths, chair of the party’s internal nominations and elections fairness committee, said the decision sprung from his failure to convince other members of the federal council during a Sunday conference call to accept his viewpoint.
The party is asking about 20,000 members to vote by email by next month on whether they support May’s continued leadership. If she gets less than 60 per cent, a leadership convention would be held.
However, the party has rejected pleas from Griffiths and other senior party
“Further, our failure to accommodate a mechanism of wider discussion ... will very likely result in a more acrimonious and divisive process.
COLIN GRIFFITHS CHAIR OF THE GREEN PARTY’S INTERNAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS FAIRNESS COMMITTEE
members who say there should be a public online forum to debate May’s leadership and the direction she’s taken the party.
May easily won her Saanich-Gulf Islands seat in the October election, but for the second federal election in a row the party’s share of the vote shrank. Griffiths, in a letter on Thursday to other federal council members and May’s “shadow cabinet,” said this is akin to Quebec holding a separation referendum without having a debate on the merits of staying versus leaving.
Griffiths refused to do an interview Thursday, but The Vancouver Sun obtained a copy of his Thursday letter to members and a more explicit one to party president Bob MacKie on Monday.
“Greater engagement by members is something that I feel is essential in a democratic leadership review,” he wrote to MacKie. “Further, our failure to accommodate a mechanism of wider discussion, given the strong feelings that have already been voiced within council and cabinet emails, will very likely result in a more acrimonious and divisive process.”
May, in an interview Wednesday in response to three party dissidents who are also arguing for a leadership debate, said the party is simply following the constitution by conducting the review without a formal debate.
But Griffiths argued in his letter Thursday that the party could have provided an opportunity for a party-wide discussion while staying within the constitution.