Skip to main content

Green Party boots second candidate from leadership race

Green Party leadership candidate Meryam Haddad, a Montreal immigration lawyer, has been removed from the race to succeed Elizabeth May. Handout photo

Help us raise $150,000 by December 31

Goal: $150k
$5,000

Green leadership candidate Meryam Haddad says she will appeal after the party expelled her from the race to succeed Elizabeth May, days before online voting was due to begin.

Haddad, a Montreal lawyer who was running as a socialist and pushed the idea of a green new deal, said the party informed her Tuesday that she had been kicked out of the leadership race.

"This is an attack on democracy, youth, progress and ideas that threaten the status quo," she said in a statement.

Mail-in voting in the leadership race began earlier this month, and online voting will begin on Sept. 26. The winner will be announced Oct. 3.

May, the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, stepped down as leader after the last federal election. In that vote, the Greens picked up three seats in Parliament, their best result ever. (May will retain her seat and remains the party’s parliamentary leader.)

Montreal lawyer Meryam Haddad said she will appeal after she was kicked out of the Green Party leadership race days before online voting was due to begin. #cdnpoli

In an email, Haddad's campaign said she had been booted from the race for "not explicitly endorsing" the B.C. Green Party in that province's snap election, announced this week. In a tweet Tuesday, Haddad she would only endorse the B.C. Greens if their platform included plans for a green new deal, defunding police and "land back policies," a term usually used to talk about Indigenous sovereignty.

"We do not believe that we have brought the Green Party of Canada into disrepute for staying true to our principles," campaign volunteer Kolby Zinger-Harris said in an email.

Haddad has 48 hours to file an appeal.

In an email, federal Green Party spokesperson Rosie Emery declined to comment.

Another candidate, Dylan Perceval-Maxwell, was ejected from the race in June after he proposed that police should “give $20 to every person of colour they stop.” At the time, the party said the comments were "inappropriate” and “not aligned with the party’s core values, in particular respect for diversity.”

Seven candidates remain on the ballot.

Emma McIntosh / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's Naitonal Observer

Comments