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Written by: Connor Kelly

At the Green Party of Canada’s federal convention in 2016, party members voted in favour of Dimitri Lascaris’ motion on boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. According to Green Party of Canada procedures that requires “more than 60% of the voting members present vote in favour of the motion”—a clear, democratic majority.

However, after this motion passed, Elizabeth May denounced her party’s decision and threatened to resign. She then tried to blacklist the leader of the Green Party of Quebec, Alex Tyrrell, for criticizing her response, and fired Dimitri Lascaris as Justice Critic of the Green’s Shadow Cabinet. Because a vote did not go the way she wanted it to.

This year’s leadership election shows a similar pattern. Initially May said that she would remain neutral in the race, but there was clear behind-the-scenes bias. The federal council initially wanted an initial entry fee of $50,000 from each leadership candidate, which was later reduced to $30,000 only because of COVID-19. The council also set up an anonymous tribunal that could reject candidates from entering the race without giving any reason, and that tribunal initially tried to reject Dimitri Lascaris from entering the leadership race while Elizabeth May went on tour with Annamie Paul despite her pledge of neutrality.

Later on, when ecosocialist candidates like Dimitri Lascaris and Meryam Haddad were seeing a spike in popularity, the executive council reneged on their agreement with Meryam to offer free youth registrations until the September 3rd deadline. However, they have since decided to let lapsed members of the party renew after the registration deadline to vote for the next leader. Later, Meryam Haddad was expelled from the race for a tweet that praised the BC Ecosocialist Party.

In Green Party of Canada, things always have to go Elizabeth May’s way. If they don’t, the party tries to bend the rules and smear and shun anyone who speaks out or disagrees.

So when Global News published an article accusing leadership candidate Dimitri Lascaris of anti-Semitism, two days ago, I just saw more of the same anti-democratic behaviour that revolves around Elizabeth May. She didn’t want to support BDS, so she fired Dimitri. Later, the executive council tried to reject his candidacy in the leadership race. She doesn’t like his left politics, so she blacklisted Alex Tyrrell for an op-ed and tried to expel Meryam Haddad over a tweet. She’s scared Dimitri Lascaris might win over her preferred centrist Annamie Paul, so she tries to smear him for his record of speaking up against apartheid and genocide.

To clarify: no, Dimitri Lascaris is not an anti-Semite. Criticizing Israel for its genocide of Palestinians doesn’t mean you hate Jewish people, just like how criticizing the Catholic Church for concealing rampant pedophilia doesn’t mean you hate Catholics. Individuals aren’t institutions.

Except in the Green Party. Or, rather, the May Party.

The Green Party of Canada calls itself a grassroots party. A transparent, democratic organization that puts the real problems first and considers itself above the petty internal politics found in the other parties.

That’s all a mask. And now it’s slipping.

According to the above CBC article and this series of tweets from Chelsey Rhodes, the Green Party of Canada hired Prateek Awatshi as their Executive Director despite—according to May’s own internal investigation—a history of bullying at least one employee. Her response to these findings was to hesitate and wait, and to pressure Meryam Haddad into writing a letter of support. These aren’t the actions of a grassroots party. In the words of May’s ex-local campaign manager:

"There's no accountability," said Strumberger. "Members don't have a lot of visibility into the decisions that are made. More and more, our federal council, our governing board is operating in-camera and obviously not reporting what happens. So that's a pattern."

Under Elizabeth May the Green Party is just another neoliberal institution, but now with bikes and green paint. They avoid radical, humanitarian positions and court centrists so they can cling to power. When challenged they blacklist members like Alex Tyrrell, and when their status quo is threatened they twist rules, break promises, and expel candidates like they did to Meryam Haddad. Now they’re trying to smear Dimitri Lascaris as an anti-Semite, because they know that if he wins the mask’s getting torn off and the truth’s going to come out: when faced with speaking out against genocide, Elizabeth May’s Green Party of Canada cared less about showing basic humanity and more about damn swing voters.

Addendum: The election results must be looking good for Dimitri and Meryam, now that Elizabeth May’s downplaying the importance of the Green party’s leader and is even teasing a possible attempted comeback despite previously insisting easing her work demands would let her spend some much-wanted time with her family. You can see where the mask's already come off with mention of how the main role of the next leader is, apparently, “to build on May’s legacy” of dodging humanitarian positions on genocide and whether or not women should have control of their bodies.

Connor Kelly is a member of the Justice Greens, an ecosocialist advocacy group made up of Green Party members. He has been involved with the Green Party for over a year, having worked on a federal campaign in 2019. He grew up all across Canada, and has lived in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia.

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