Front Burner - ‘It's all or nothing for her’: From environmental lawyer to Green Party leader, a profile of Elizabeth May

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

With the next federal election just around the corner, and environmental issues top of mind for many Canadian voters, the Green Party is riding high on a rise in support. With this momentum comes a lot of pressure on the party’s long-time leader to deliver gains at the polls. Today, as part of our federal election profile series, we’re digging into the life and political legacy of Elizabeth May with Mia Rabson, an energy and environment reporter for The Canadian Press.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So it's a pretty exciting time for the Green Party right now. They're seeing a surge of support. And environmental issues, well, they've really never been more top of mind.

So there's a lot of pressure on their longtime leader to deliver on that momentum. Today, as part of our federal election profile series, we're digging into the life and political legacy of Elizabeth May. I'll be talking with Mia Rabson, an energy and environment reporter for the Canadian Press in Ottawa. This is Frontburner. is from prayer. Mia, hello. Thank you for being here. No problem. So I want to spend some time today getting to know Elizabeth May better. For instance, I did not know that she once studied to become a priest.

She did. She's actually been pretty forthright that her Anglican faith is very important to her, and she's noted that in America, not being a Christian or not having a strong faith is actually often considered a mark against you and in Canada we just don't hear about them and she has been very clear that it's a big part of who she is and how her thinking has been formed. I want to start with another lesson from Isaiah. He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. I don't believe she actually was ordained, but she still wants to be. And it's obviously something that she has felt comfort in and drawn on as she has moved in. I mean, she's been an environment activist for 40, almost 50 years probably, longer than she can probably remember.

And it has sort of helped inform and guide that life that she has led. It's interesting. She's talked about being deeply influenced by C.S. Lewis, which makes sense. Yeah, and I mean, she's obviously drawn on things like that. And obviously her religion is a very big part of the base of what she now believes in. I don't know how I'd do this work if I wasn't able to draw on the strength that I receive through the power of prayer and considering what the challenges we have in front of us, how do I motivate myself to try to live my faith

and reflect the power of our Lord Jesus Christ in the way I do my work. Elizabeth May herself, I know among journalists, she has this reputation of being quite accessible. It's easy to get her on the line. What's she like in person? Tell me what she's like. She is quite accessible. I mean, I think partly that's her personality. I mean, she is very well liked on Parliament Hill. She's friendly.

She's been voted by her fellow MPs as Parliamentarian of the Year a couple times. But it's also sort of the necessity for her. I mean, the Green Party is not even an official party, never has been. Some others complain that they get outsized attention despite their sort of lack of official status. And she is a big part of that because she's accessible. She makes sure she is at every event if there is an issue happening and the other leaders are commenting she makes sure she's in line to take that microphone she is a very large presence i think elections canada must reconsider the targets which are absent from the other party's motions we are not at war with

fossil fuel workers canada is the only country in the OECD with no blank policy. You can fill in the blank. Have you had any interactions with her that were revealing? Yeah, I mean, she's very friendly. I mean, she's also quite forthright. She's definitely not the kind of politician who you think is not telling you the truth or sort of trying to hide something. She has this great laugh that it's sort of almost infectious. They think the world of me, apparently. They just don't want to help something. She has this great laugh that it's sort of almost infectious. They think the

world of me, apparently. They just don't want to help me. One of my favorite recent memories of her was her wedding. She got married in April, actually on Earth Day, which sort of obviously the symbolism for the Green Party leader getting married on Earth Day is high. But as she was coming out of the church, she looked like a giddy schoolgirl. She was giggling and just so clearly, absolutely joyful. Hilariously happy. It was a lovely ceremony. It was kind of amazing. Beautiful and lots of different themes and traditions woven in. You don't really see that from politicians very much, that sort of raw emotion that she tends to wear on her sleeve a lot more than the others.

This idea of like an authenticity, do you think that's the right word? I think so. I mean, she also, to be fair to maybe the other leaders, doesn't undergo the same levels of scrutiny that they do because she is the leader of what we have mostly referred to as a fringe party. Until May, she was the only MP, Green MP ever to be elected in Canada. So she, you know, she doesn't get the same level of attention that way. We're not necessarily fact checking everything she says the way we might some of the other leaders. So she has maybe had some more room to grow into the role. She also kind of sees herself, I think, as almost like the mother of Parliament.

It's conscience. You can often see her standing up in the House of Commons and telling the other MPs to behave, that people are watching, that it's unbecoming, their behavior, whatever, when they're yelling at each other. I heard her say a word that I know is distinctly unparliamentary, and I think she may want to withdraw it. The word was F-A-R-T. Are you serious, Mr. Speaker? Like, is my colleague actually serious? That's definitely a role she has relished to take. And I think it's also probably important to note that in this particular era, she's also been the only female leader we've had.

And I think she sort of relishes that position as well. I want to dig into her upbringing a little bit. So Elizabeth May wasn't born in Canada. Her family immigrated from the U.S. to Nova Scotia. Can you tell me about her family? Yes, she was born in Connecticut. Her father, I believe, was an accountant. Her family was very sort of anti-nuclear activists. So she was brought up in a home where activism against

environmental issues and things like that were a big deal. It was part of who her family was. I was marching with my mother in 1960 in the Aldermaston March to end nuclear weapons testing, marching to Trafalgar Square with wonderful music and trumpeters, and we were singing, Lay down our sword and shield down by the riverside. You'll be grateful I'm not going to sing. They moved to Nova Scotia when she was still in school, but she was quite young and sort of was raised in Cape Breton.

She worked, I think her family had a restaurant, she worked in that, and was sort of always dealing with community issues and sort of pushing back and participating in protests, sort of local community protests, and that's sort of where her activism grew out of. as you mentioned. I also read that, you know, when she was young, she saw her parents mortgage their home to raise cash for US Senator Eugene McCarthy's unsuccessful try for the Democratic presidential nomination. You know, he was seen, you know, back then in 1968 as fairly progressive, but to mortgage one's home is quite a commitment to a cause. Her family was all in on politics. And I think it's also clear to say that, that Elizabeth May has, has was all in on politics, and I think it's also clear to say that Elizabeth May has been all in on politics. I mean, she has either been working for politicians

or activist groups like the Sierra Club or a politician herself for almost her entire adult life. About 150 very, very active people who worked out of their kitchens for about three or four months doing nothing else but trying to get over the facts to the people of Cape Breton. She is a lawyer by trade, but politics and activism have been where she has really sort of made her mark basically since she left high school and even as a kid with her own family, as you mentioned. Has Elizabeth May ever talked to you about why she cares so much about the environment,

particularly in those early years when not as many people were talking about it? Yeah, I think if I remember right, her first campaign was actually a protest when she was quite young about aerial insecticide spraying. Then they switched to a chemical called 7 or carbaryl, and to find out what that was all about, I phoned the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., where I found out they were studying it, presently considered it as, quote, maybe too hazardous to allow continued use. They won eventually. It took a while.

But eventually they won that campaign, and I think that sort of sparked this belief that if you work hard enough and you stand up for what you believe in, you can actually affect change. How many hours a day did you spend on this? 24. Oh, come on, you must have slept some time. That song you just heard, I got up and wrote it at 2 in the morning. This is how you have to, when you know that something is very, very important to you,

to your neighbours, to the children you see all around you, you just can't let a moment go by. And that's what she sort of spent the rest of her life doing since then. She went on to sort of fight, you know, we don't really think about it, but she fought against the application of Agent Orange in Canada. And eventually, the weird part about that fight is they kind of lost with the court, but then the U.S. banned it, so it never actually ended up being sprayed anyway. So, you know, she had some setbacks, but then the U.S. banned it, so it never actually ended up being sprayed anyway.

So, you know, she had some setbacks, but ultimately won indirectly on that particular campaign. I know also there's this one moment, as you mentioned, she goes on to work for the government. And so she's working for the federal minister of the environment under Brian Mulroney's government. And this is happening in the late 80s. And this is sort of the beginning of her playing major politics. And then she ends up very publicly resigning. And so remind me what happened there. She was a senior policy advisor in that environment minister. His name was Tom McMillan. You know, many people now don't necessarily associate the conservatives with environmental protectionism. But the Mulroney government in the 80s made a number of major environment things, the ozone protection, the acid rain treaty with the United States, there were some pretty big things they were doing. She was a policy advisor, as many national parks were getting established. So she sort of felt like this was a good role for her to actually have an impact. And then there was this impasse over a dam. It was a very sort of, it sounded like a backroom deal,

this dam in Saskatchewan that the minister decided to approve even though she had fought very, very hard against it and argued that there were not proper environmental approvals or reviews done and it should not actually be approved. And he went ahead and did it anyway. And she said that she could not continue to work for him. Mr. McMillan let political considerations cloud his environmental commitment. And for that, I feel very, very sad.

And for that reason, I couldn't continue to work for him. There were some other things that were sort of leading up to that, that was sort of the final straw. And she had a very public departure, criticizing him and the government for approving this dam, which later on, she turned out to be right. The court said no, there hadn't been proper processes done, and the approval was illegal. In making decisions, government has to get away from the old notion that environment is a discrete area of public policy. We can no longer call that a good

environmental record if it is discrete and separate from all the other economic decisions that are being made around them. Interestingly, she quits this role and then she goes and lives on a boat as a cook. It's kind of cool. Off the coast of BC, I think, in the Green Charlotte Islands. She's also been to the Amazon. This is what Elizabeth May does. She hears a cause. She sees something that's important to her.

She wants to have this impact. And she goes and just sort of throws herself into it. Right. She doesn't. One thing you can say about Elizabeth May, she never does anything in halves. It's like all or nothing for her. She's a very intense person, which doesn't always appeal to everybody. There's been some people who've complained that she's not that easy to get along with,

that she doesn't like people who disagree with her. There was some members of the party last year that actually quite publicly complained, called her a bully. There was an investigation, there was no evidence to support them, but they haven't withdrawn them, the people that made them. The people who were complaining. They still say that this happened. She, interestingly enough on that case, didn't entirely deny it. She said she wasn't a bully, but she said, you know, sir, we have rigorous disagreements about things, but I'm also the party leader, and sometimes you've got to make decisions

that not everybody agrees with. Not everybody likes me, and that's okay. I accept that. It's life. Not everybody is going to like everybody else. And I, you know, the important thing is to have a respectful workplace, to be able to work together, to have arguments, disagreements. I mean, we've certainly heard sort of similar stories about Justin Trudeau and his temper. Yeah, and I've sort of seen it a little bit. I remember there was a scrum last year. So she actually once described herself as the goody two-shoes of environmentalism.

She wasn't the kind of person to chain herself to a tree and get arrested. But then last year she was. I'm now charged. I have never before put my signature on a line that said signature of accused, but my rights have been read to me. She was protesting the Trans Mountain Pipeline against orders to like that, that protesters not be in this area. And she was arrested and her case was

coming up in court. There was a scrum on something else in Parliament Hill. And I asked her about it. And it was like, she shot me with this look of death. Like, how dare I ask? And of course, she wouldn't answer. She's like, you know, I'm not talking about this case. It's before the courts, etc. But you sort of something you can see the hints of that temper and that sort of I don't want to talk about this. How dare you attitude? It's not always absent from her public persona. What did you do when she shot you that look of death? I just shrugged. I mean, it's she would not be the first politician to shoot me a look like that, and she won't be the last. Fair.

That's for sure. pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. You talked before about how she also spent time heading up the Sierra Club of Canada, an environmental organization, and then she stepped down from that to run the Green Party leadership. And, you know, when she took over the party in 2006, what kind of state was it in? Well, it was a fringe party. They didn't have a lot of money.

They had never elected an MP. And one of the things that the Green Party has done maybe a little differently than others is they have tried very hard to be a national party. They don't just run 12 candidates. They try to run many, many candidates. And in more recent years with her, they've tried to run a candidate in every riding. So sometimes they were seen as sort of maybe trying to bite off more than they could chew because they don't have a lot of organization and money to pay people to organize for them. But she took over a party that at least had gotten a lot more attention. It was maybe the leader of the fringe parties, if you want to call them that. But it was also seen as a party that had one issue, the environment.

And in many ways, it still is. But she decided that she was going to embrace this idea that it was a national party and sort of make it so that it wasn't just, we're going to run on the environment. We are going to have a platform on all issues. I am going to get myself into those leaders' debates. We're the only party that in 2011 had our platform reviewed by the Parliamentary Budget Office to make sure that we could say this is fiscally sound. So we believe in getting to balanced budgets, but we're not an austerity party.

The opposite. We think we need to have adequate revenues to cover the needs of Canadians. These are things that she's fought very hard for. And do you think that she succeeded in that? Or do you think that people largely see her still as a one-issue candidate? I think probably most people still see them as a one-issue party. Very few people would be able to tell you what the green status or platform was on taxes, for example. And honestly, I couldn't tell you what it was from four years ago.

But they have had a platform. And she has argued, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to get into the leaders' debates and be on the stage with them. You don't see the leader of the Rhinoceros Party or the Marijuana Party even fighting to get into those leaders' debates because they know they won't. Or, I mean, to be fair, the People's Party of Canada this year, too. Certainly, though, the Green Party, to be fair, is having a bit of a moment right now. Like they're up in the polls.

There are a lot of candidates that want to run for them, particularly in the Atlantic provinces. They're up very close to the NDP right now. How much of this is because of Elizabeth May? And how much of it is because people just finally understand the imminent threat of climate change? It's a number of factors. She is certainly part of the mix, but she's certainly not the only factor. In fact, it also has a little bit to do with the NDP, which is in a little bit of disarray. We're hearing stories about their inability to organize and just they're just not resonating with the public. And so there's this group of voters on, we'll say, the left of the spectrum who are wondering, where do I go?

And environment groups and voters for whom the environment is a big issue in particular, they all planted their votes with the liberals four years ago. They believed that the liberals were going to deal with climate change. They were going to put in climate change. They were going to put in place protections and cut emissions, knew all these things. And then they bought a pipeline. So now all these environment voters and groups are wondering, well, where do we go? And so the Green Party is a bit of a natural fit, particularly at a time when the NDP doesn't seem as strong as an option. And then is part of that due to her? And she has, as this is all happening, she has positioned the party well to sort of step

into that open space that was becoming available. And so definitely she has been a factor in establishing the Green Party to be ready for this moment. I should say it has not been all be ready for this moment. I should say it has not been all smooth sailing for Elizabeth May. You mentioned before these claims of bullying by her staff members. There have also been these, I don't want to say gaffes for lack of a better word. So in 2015 at the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner, she gave this speech. Welcome back, Omer Cotter. It matters to say it. Welcome back, Omer Cotter. It matters to say it.

Welcome back, Omer Cotter. You're home. There's a lot unusual about your speech, Liz, but we're going to take off. Omer Cotter, you've got more class than the whole cabinet. Thank you. Yes, it was not her best moment. I remember sitting at a table and everybody just sort of staring at the stage willing, like everybody wanted to crawl into a hole because it went on and on. It was one of those very awkward, like, please make it stop moments. Lisa Raitt, who was in cabinet at the time, went up on the stage and basically tried to give her the hook and take her physically off the stage and she wouldn't stop. Lisa, you've got to wait. Lisa, I wake up thinking about a horse is a horse, of course, of course. It was not great.

She apologized the next day and said that she had, she regretted using the foul language and that she, you know, it wasn't a moment that she was proud of. Because it wasn't my intention ever to suggest to Canadians that I was making a speech. I was trying and obviously failing badly, at delivering something a bit edgy. I feel like we've all been to a couple weddings like that, too. I think so. It's like, please, the speech needs to stop right now.

And to be fair to her, she's not the only politician who's had awkward moments at the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner. These speeches are supposed to be a bit self-deprecating, and she didn't quite live up to the spirit of that. Interestingly, she's not done it since. So maybe she learned her lesson. I do want to come back to the point that you made earlier, which I think was really astute, that Elizabeth May has not yet had the kind of scrutiny that the other leaders have had

and the other parties have had. And so it will be really interesting to see what happens during this election cycle. It will be. And it's also important to note the Green Party is definitely polling better than they almost ever have. In some polls, they're actually even ahead of the NDP. She is seen as a better leader than Jagmeet Singh by many Canadians. That said, the Green Party often does better leading into an election. Yes, we just talked about this with Vashi.

Yes. On election day. It will be very interesting to see if the Green Party in this particular election and how Elizabeth May fares under a bit more scrutiny with a little bit more attention. Are they going to be able to withstand some of that? Are they going to have the organization to put behind themselves and get them positioned to win more than one seat? They need to pick those few seats. And if they win, let's say, five or six seats, that's huge. If they get official party status, that's enormous. And the best case scenario for them really is a minority government that they can have some influence over as the balance of power. So their best case is to have enough seats in a minority government to put whoever does win the most seats over the edge. And then they can actually have some influence on policy and keeping that government in office, which is what the Green Party at the provincial level is doing in British Columbia.

Before we go today, I am interested to hear your perspective on Elizabeth May's reaction to Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, like leaving their Liberal cabinet positions. She invited them to join the Green Party. And she even said that she would be willing to step down as leader. You were serious? Yes. Yes. You would have given up the leadership? Yes. Yes. Why not? I want the best possible government for Canada. I want the most Greens elected as possible. I want the best possible government for Canada. I want the most Greens elected as possible. I think she's a very impressive and qualified person who's shown herself to have massive integrity in the face of inappropriate pressure.

What does that tell you about her? Some people saw that as a strategic mistake, that it was suggesting that she maybe wasn't the best person to lead the party. And it was definitely an odd statement for a party leader to make. She seemed to think that, you know, if Jody Wilson-Raybould, as the leader of the Green Party, might be able to get us further ahead than I can, well, then I'm not going to stand in the way of that happening. What does that tell you about her? Well, it says that she's not only in it for herself.

She definitely sees this cause as bigger than just Elizabeth May. She's had a lot of attention throughout her life. I think Newsweek once named her one of the most influential women in the world. Like I said, her parliamentary colleagues love her. She sort of doesn't have much left to prove. So I don't think she would see herself as needing to be the one to lead the Green Party if she thought someone else would actually have a better, bigger success at doing that. Her ego maybe is not as big as politicians often get accused of having. Mia Robinson, thank you May-related news on Monday. In an interview with my colleague Vashie Capello,

May said she wouldn't ban members of her party from trying to reopen the abortion debate. We work to consensus as Greens. So a measure of a private member's bill, we would all discuss it as a caucus. We try to talk people out of something. But I don't have the power of leader of the Green Party to whip votes, nor do I have the power to silence an MP. As you just heard, May is a devout Christian, but when Vashie asked her what her own views on the subject were, she said she believed women have the right to choose. A woman has a right to a safe legal abortion. I've never wavered in that position since I was like eight years old.

But then, a few hours after clips from the interview were released, the Green Party came out with a clarification, saying that while the Green Party leader doesn't whip votes, that all candidates are vetted to ensure that the abortion debate is closed. Basically saying that no Green Party MPs would try to reopen the abortion debate. All right. Well, if you want to hear more, you can check out Vashi's full interview with Elizabeth May on CBC's Power and Politics right now. That's all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and see you tomorrow.