'You have to be daring': groundbreaking leader of Canada's Greens ready to seize her moment

As Annamie Paul waited for the results of Canada’s Green party leadership race, she started to worry that her months-long candidacy was about to end in disappointment.

Ballots had been cast virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the candidates were waiting in separate rooms at an Ottawa arts centre.

Party officials had told them the winner would receive a knock at the door at 8pm. But by 8.30, there was still no news.

“Our two young volunteers were on the verge of tears,” said Paul. “My sister was pacing and looked like she was going to throw up.”

Then came a rap on the door, and the group erupted in joy. “I just let out a sob,” she said.

Their excitement at her victory wasn’t just personal: the vote marked a milestone in Canadian history, as Paul became the first permanent Black leader of a federal party.

But as she mounts her next challenge – a long-shot bid for a seat in parliament on 26 October – she must also shepherd a party that continues to disappoint electorally and whose policy visions are often laughed off as unrealistic.

The daughter of Caribbean immigrants, Paul represents a course-correction to what she sees as the “profound lack of diversity” in federal politics. Apart from the Greens, all Canadian parties are led by men. Paul is only the second party leader of colour after the New Democratic party’s Jagmeet Singh.

“And of course, we’ve never had a Black person or a woman of colour lead a party,” said Paul, who is also the first Jewish woman to lead a national party. “It’s highly symbolic – and it’s about time.”

The Princeton-educated lawyer, who worked as an adviser at the international criminal court and in the non-profit sector, knows the power of those symbols.

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“People who don’t see themselves reflected in an institution tend not to associate themselves with those institutions,” she said. “And so it’s extremely unhealthy for our democracy when we don’t have that representation.”

Paul replaces the retiring Green leader, Elizabeth May, a towering figure even though the party does not officially have a top-down leadership structure.

Keenly aware of the challenges she faces, Paul is nonetheless optimistic for the party’s future, not least, she says, because coronavirus has altered what people believe the government is capable of.

“Those of us who have lost loved ones, who’ve lost their jobs, know it can’t be possible that politics will remain the same,” she said.

Many of the Green party’s ideas appear tailor-made for the pandemic moment: they have long called for a universal basic income, improved care for seniors and greater support for small businesses.

And the governing Liberals appear to have taken notice.

In the spring, Justin Trudeau unveiled a C$2,000 (US$1,500) per month benefit for workers affected by the pandemic and pledged to overhaul long-term care homes. And in his government’s throne speech, the prime minister touted the importance of a “green” recovery.

“The Liberals are intellectually exhausted,” said Paul. “Without [Green party] ideas to put out there – I don’t know what else there would have been.”

But ideas only matter if the party is winning seats.

In the 2019 election it seemed that the Greens were finally poised to capitalize on a polling surge – until that support evaporated on election day. “A third of Canadians decided to vote strategically. They were voting against something – and not for something,” said Paul.

Much of the problem lies with the first-past-the-post system, she said: the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois party won 7.69% of the national vote (after only fielding candidates in Quebec) and captured 32 seats. In contrast, the Greens won 6.55% of the national vote, but took only three seats.

For now, the party will have to pin its hopes to an electorate hungry for bold ideas.

“We have a proof of concept for many of the things that we’ve been talking about,” said Paul. “The more Greens there are in parliament, the more likely it is that we’re going to have these kinds of ideas.”

Paul has big visions for the country, but first she has a more pressing challenge: winning a seat in parliament.

On Monday, the Green leader will contest a special election in downtown Toronto, where she placed fourth in the last election.

Paul is running in the neighbourhood where she grew up, despite misgivings over the wisdom of holding an election during a pandemic.

“It’s the centre of the city’s opioid crisis, 40% of children live in poverty and it has the highest rates of Covid infections in the city of Toronto,” she said. “Picking this moment to hold an opportunistic and unnecessary election really outraged me on behalf of a community that is really already on its knees.”

The seat was vacated after the resignation of the former finance minister Bill Morneau and remains a Liberal stronghold, and Paul acknowledges that to win, she will need a political miracle.

“But I would not have been the leader that I hoped to be if I hadn’t put my name forward to represent this community,” said Paul. “You have to be daring.”