Non-confidence vote against Green Party Leader Annamie Paul cancelled

A planned non-confidence vote against leader Annamie Paul is off the table until at least the next general meeting of members, the Green Party has confirmed.

In a short statement posted to the party website Monday, the Greens said no further non-confidence motions against Paul will be proposed by the current federal council or before a party convention is held.

Sources told The Canadian Press on Sunday that the council — the party's main governing body — had called off the imminent threat to Paul's leadership, but the terms of the decision remained unclear.

The change appears to keep Paul insulated from an ouster until a likely federal election in the coming months, as the party council will turn over on Aug. 20 and no general meeting is on the immediate horizon.

The move also helps cement the prospect that a Black Canadian will lead a mainstream party into a national campaign for the first time in the country's history.

Despite the retreat by party executives who have clashed openly with Paul, tensions remain as Greens struggle to pitch an agenda that has been overshadowed by months of internal strife.

Paul is slated to hold an afternoon news conference in Toronto Centre, the riding she hopes to win following two unsuccessful attempts that have kept her out of the House of Commons.

Party bigwigs have agreed to a ceasefire, but the temporary truce doesn't mean scars have healed, said Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

"This is a wounded party," he said Monday.

An Angus Reid poll published Friday showed only three per cent of respondents intended to cast a ballot for the Greens.

The figure falls far short of the 6.55 per cent of the vote they garnered in the 2019 election, despite climate change and the environment now tying for the most important issue in voters' minds, according to the poll.

"You see what’s happening in B.C. with the fires and what’s happening in Europe with the floods, and people tie that to climate change. So it would normally be a very good time to be the leader of the Green Party, because the main issue that your party is about is really popular right now. But that's not the case," Béland said.

“Parties often have internal debates, but this exploded in public and on social media and the newspapers and so forth, and this has affected the image of Annamie Paul as the leader but also the image of the Green Party," Béland said.

Other problems have hampered the Greens, including a halving of the payroll this month — despite Paul's objections — due to financial imbalances reported by party brass. Green executives also moved to withhold funding from Paul's campaign to win the Toronto Centre seat as Canada's 44th federal election looms.

Paul came in second to Liberal Marci Ien in a byelection last fall — they earned about 33 per cent and 42 per cent of the vote, respectively — to replace former finance minister Bill Morneau in the riding.

The Liberal stronghold has remained red since 1993 and hosted prominent MPs including Bill Graham and Bob Rae.

Paul came in fourth place when she ran there in the 2019 general election.

The party has been riven by infighting and factionalism for months as Paul, who was elected leader in October 2020, attempts to steer the Greens in a new direction.

Federal council members passed a motion in June demanding that Paul hold a press conference with Green MP Paul Manly and repudiate comments from a top adviser to the leader.

Paul fired back against party executives on June 16, calling them out for "racist" and "sexist" accusations that were included in the written motion obtained by The Canadian Press.

On June 30, party president Liana Canton Cusmano told members at a virtual town hall that Paul has failed to live up to council's ultimatum or to "meet her obligations as leader," citing Green MP Jenica Atwin's defection to the Liberals earlier in the month.

Council's demands followed long-simmering feuds that boiled over after a social media post from Noah Zatzman — the Paul adviser, who has since stepped aside — that called out unspecified Green MPs for antisemitism.

Atwin had warned about Israeli "apartheid" in a Twitter post on May 11, deeming Paul's more traditional statement on violence in the region "completely inadequate." The Fredericton MP cited the "distraction" of party turmoil over the Mideast crisis in May when she crossed the floor.

Atwin's post has since been deleted, though she told CTV's Question Period on June 13 that "I certainly stand by what I'm saying." The next day, she adjusted her stance on Israel to align with the governing Liberal party she had just joined.

Paul called Atwin's stated rationale for joining the Liberals a "completely manufactured reason," and noted that the parliamentarian said the Green leader was not a key factor in her departure.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 19, 2021.