Friday May 23, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 2:28 pm PT | Updated 2:33 pm May 24, 2025]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
In her fifth term as the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is heading back to Ottawa for the start of the 45th Parliament.
She’s in Vancouver today for the UN Model Parliament of Vancouver with international youth. Tomorrow she heads to Ottawa to be sworn in as the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
This is a Mark Carney Liberal government that she is arriving to. Will that make a difference in her politics? Not at all!
In representing the Greens she will still address climate change issues wherever possible as well as the key need for electoral reform, as she sees it. Other things from the campaign — like guaranteed livable income and employment insurance reform — may need to take a back seat.
The Green Party of Canada is now down to one MP. May is the solo Green voice in the House of Commons starting next week.
Electoral reform:
The belief is that with a ranked ballot voting system (instead of first-past-the-post) that the result of federal elections would show more representation for all parties.
The Greens had two seats (May and Mike Morrice in Ontario) just ahead of the April 28, 2025 election. Now Elizabeth May alone represents the party that she had led for decades.
The NDP, as well, suffered electoral losses in the recent federal election, seeing reduction from a previous 25 seats (24 at dissolution) down to seven.
May says to expect a Canada-wide campaign to garner the support of Canadians for electoral reform such that first-past-the-post would be replaced with something that more fairly values each voter’s choice. Generally that is a ranked ballot system resulting in proportional representation, something already used in many European countries.
In a report a few years ago, there was a conclusion that in a multi-party system like we have in Canada that first-past-the-post is unsuitable to represent the voting intentions of Canadians. First-past-the-post is a parliamentary system from England where their tradition is to flip back and forth between the equivalent of Liberal and Conservative. The UK system is based much more on the power of elites whereas in Canada we believe, at least, that anyone should be able to run for a political seat and win.
“It only requires political will,” says Elizabeth May. Herself quite the expert on parliamentary process, she says that changing the electoral system can be done by cabinet in directing amendments to the Elections Act. “It’s do-able logistically.”
“We must persuade the prime minister and cabinet of this as a priority for the health of our democracy,” Elizabeth May told Island Social Trends today. Groups like Lead Now and Fair Vote Canada are already doing work in this area.
May points out that after winning a majority in 2015, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dropped his government’s pursuit of electoral reform. Though by the time Trudeau retired in 2025 he said his biggest regret was not achieving electoral reform.
Short of legislative changes, there are several changes sensibly required in the process by which Elections Canada carries out their election activity. [See Editorial by Island Social Trends – Elections Canada voting processes need a significant rethink – May 16, 2025]
Climate change:
The Greens through Elizabeth May will bring forward key points about climate change during the 45th Parliament, the Green Party leader said today.
They will continue to push for climate change action “that matches the science”.
Constituency win:
May attributes her win for a fifth term as the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands largely to the dedicated work of her 350-person team of campaign volunteers. She refers to the campaign as having been a ‘long job interview’ and that she’s been rehired to represent her constituents in Ottawa.
But she also lends credit to the media for stirring up interest in her challenge to win against strong campaigns from the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP in her riding.
Island Social Trends had reported early on in 2024 that the NDP campaign was operating on the belief that May was ‘too old’ and ‘unwell’ for winning in 2025. She announced her intention to run and proved them wrong.
She emerged stronger than ever from that four-way race, she believes.
Mandate letter & budget:
The one-size-fits-all mandate letter from Prime Minister Mark Carney to his cabinet this week (with essentially seven broad priorities) garners comment from the Green Party leader.
Elizabeth May says that mandate letters individually to each cabinet minister “is a tradition for a reason”. It was former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who made them public, as a way to reinforce public accountability.
“Things will change as he sits with them,” says May about Carney and his cabinet.
She says she was “shocked” at first that a federal budget would not be coming in 2025. She believes that Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne was well-intentioned in first saying there would be only a fall economic statement.
Likely this is a matter of the speed at which Carney has had to launch his government and cabinet; a few days later it was announced by Carney during his press conference in Rome that a Fall 2025 Budget will be coming.
King Charles in town:
May is excited about King Charles III coming to Ottawa to deliver the Speech from the Throne on May 27. “It’s a strong statement for sovereignty. He’s not a visiting dignitary he’s Canada’s head of state,” May told Island Social Trends today.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is the head of government and the King is the head of state, represented by Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon on a day-to-day basis.
In Canada’s parliamentary system, Throne speech content is written by the government of the day.
May says that the King travelling to Canada to deliver the Throne Speech of the day (something that hasn’t happened since 1977) will be a loud statement to US President Donald Trump and his administration as to who is the head of state for Canada. A sort of ‘don’t mess with us’ type of message, delivered with visuals rather than words.
May gave out King Charles III Coronation Medals in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands to deserving members of her constituency. She says she is glad that for this medal an actual medal was struck (as was not the case for some of the medals delivered under the late Queen’s name).
$100,000 campaign:
Currently the Green Party of Canada is seeking $100,000 in donations by May 26. That’s to cover all the election expenses that the party won’t have covered by Elections Canada due to not achieving at least two percent of the vote in the April 28, 2025 federal election.
Some staffers may lose their jobs if funds are not covered, it was learned from a party representative this week.
May feels that when the Greens were dropped from the federal campaign debates that it dissolved some of the support for Greens this time around. The campaign became all about who could best stand up to the US President’s economic threat against Canada and our sovereignty.
The Trump factor:
“It was a very strange election,” says May. Canadians perhaps forgot that they were not electing a prime minister. “That’s not our system of government,” she said today.
It resulted in “a fluky election”, with razor-thin margins across many ridings as people who might normally vote NDP or Green tipped their votes to the Liberals or the Conservatives depending on assessments of strategic voting on a riding by riding basis.
Direction of the party evolution:
After the April 28 election, Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault resigned. There have been other ups and downs in the process of Elizabeth May attempting to spread the responsibilities of party leadership.
No talk yet of how the Green Party intends to rebuild over the next few years, other than focussing on the mission of achieving electoral reform. Achieving electoral reformt would of course would be a game-changer not just for the Greens but also the NDP and the entire electoral process for Canada.
Should that happen, it would be a significant legacy for Elizabeth May in her long political career, as she heads solo to Ottawa tomorrow.
Be the speaker?
Elizabeth May has said in recent weeks that she would like to be Speaker of the House of Commons. She is certainly qualified (voted Parliamentarian of the Year in recent years). But that would divert her attention away from representing the Greens in the daily business of the House of Commons.
===== RELATED:
- Carney’s mandate letter to cabinet addresses economy and security (May 21, 2025)
- Elections Canada voting processes need a significant rethink (May 16, 2025)
- 45th General Election – election night results (April 28, 2025)
- Greens articulate poverty elimination for a better Canadian economy and society (April 25, 2025)
- NEWS SECTIONS: CANADA-NATIONAL | 45th PARLIAMENT of CANADA | LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA | GREEN PARTY OF CANADA