Protecting Sacred Creation

Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament representing the southern Vancouver Island riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. She is one of Canada’s most respected environmentalists. As well, she practiced law and is also the author of eight books. Elizabeth became active in the environmental movement in the 1970s. She is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School and was admitted to the Bar in both Nova Scotia and Ontario.

She held the position of Associate General Council for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre prior to becoming Senior Policy Advisor to the federal minister of the Environment from 1986 until 1988. Elizabeth became Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada in 1989, a position she held until March 2006, when she stepped down to run for leadership of the Green Party of Canada.

Elizabeth is the author of eight books, including her most recent book Who we are: Reflections on my life and on Canada. She has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development and as Vice-Chair of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy and is currently a Commissioner of the Earth Charter International Council. Elizabeth became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005. In November, 2010,Newsweek magazine named her “one of the world’s most influential women.” In the 2011 Federal Election, Elizabeth made history by being the first Green Party candidate to be elected to the House of Commons and was once again re-elected in Fall 2015 Federal Election. She was chosen (by a vote of all MPs) as Maclean’s magazine’s 2012 Parliamentarian of the Year, 2013 Hardest Working MP, 2014 Best Orator and by the Hill Times in 2013 and 2014 as Hardest Working MP, Best Constituency MP and Best Public Speaker.

Elizabeth May has a long record as a committed and dedicated advocate — for social justice, for the environment, for human rights, and for economic pragmatic solutions. She is an environmentalist, writer, activist and lawyer who has been active in the environmental movement since 1970.

She first became known in the Canadian media in the mid-1970s through her leadership as a volunteer in the grassroots movement against proposed aerial insecticide spraying on forests near her home on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The effort prevented aerial insecticide spraying from ever occurring in Nova Scotia. Years later, she and a local group of residents went to court to prevent herbicide spraying. Winning a temporary injunction in 1982 held off the spray programme, but after two years, the case was eventually lost. In the course of the litigation, her family sacrificed their home and seventy acres of land in an adverse court ruling to Scott Paper. However, by the time the judge ruled the chemicals were safe, 2,4,5-T’s export from the U.S, had been banned. The forests of Nova Scotia were spared being the last areas in Canada to be sprayed with Agent Orange.

Her volunteer work also included successful campaigns to prevent approval of uranium mining in Nova Scotia, and extensive work on energy policy issues, primarily opposing nuclear energy.

For many years, she worked in her family’s business, a restaurant and gift shop on the Cabot Trail. Elizabeth is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School and was admitted to the Bar in both Nova Scotia and Ontario. She has held the position of Associate General Council for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, representing consumer, poverty and environment groups from 1985-86. She has worked extensively with indigenous peoples internationally, particularly in the Amazon, as well as with Canadian First Nations. She was the first volunteer Executive Director of Cultural Survival Canada from 1989-1992 and worked for the Algonquin of Barriere Lake from 1991-1992.

In 1986, Elizabeth became Senior Policy Advisor to then federal Environment Minister, Tom McMillan. She was instrumental in the creation of several national parks, including South Moresby. She was involved in negotiating the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, new legislation and pollution control measures. In 1988, she resigned on principle when the Minister granted permits for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan as part of a political trade-off, with no environmental assessment. The permits were later quashed by a Federal Court decision that the permits were granted illegally.

Elizabeth has taught courses at Queens University School of Policy Studies, as well as teaching for a year at Dalhousie University to develop the programme established in her name in Women’s Health and Environment. She holds three honourary doctorates (Mount Saint Vincent University, Mount Allison, and the University of New Brunswick.)

Elizabeth is the author of eight books, Who We Are: Reflections on my Life and on Canada (2014), Budworm Battles (1982), Paradise Won: The Struggle to Save South Moresby (1990), At the Cutting Edge: The Crisis in Canada’s Forests (Key Porter Books, 1998, as well as a major new edition in 2004), Frederick Street; Life and Death on Canada’s Love Canal (co-authored with Maude Barlow, Harper Collins, 2000), How to Save the World in Your Spare Time (Key Porter Books, 2006), Global Warming for Dummies (co-authored with Zoe Caron, John Wiley and Sons, 2008) and most recently Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy, (MacLelland and Stewart, 2009). Frederick Street focused on the Sydney Tar Ponds, and the health threats to children in the community – the issue that led her to go on a seventeen-day hunger strike in May 2001 in front of Parliament Hill.

She has served on numerous boards of environmental groups and advisory bodies to universities and governments in Canada, including the Earth Charter Commission, co-chaired by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. Elizabeth is the recipient of many awards including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Sierra Club in 1989, the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990 and named one of the world’s leading women environmentalists by the United Nations in 2006. In 1996, she was presented with the award for Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society for Environmental Education. She is also the recipient of the 2002 Harkin Award from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). In 2006, Elizabethwas presented with the prestigious Couchiching award for excellence in public policy. Her environmental work has been profiled in numerous documentaries, including in the final episode of the acclaimed CBC series, “Canada: a Peoples’ History.”

In June 2006, Elizabeth stepped down as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, a post she had held since 1989, to run for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. She was successful in her bid and was elected the Green Party’s ninth leader at their national convention in August 2006.

Elizabeth was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005. In November, 2010, Newsweek magazine named her “one of the world’s most influential women.” She is a mother and grandmother. Elizabeth makes her home in Sidney, British Columbia.

In the 2011 Election, Elizabeth made history by being the first Green Party candidate to be elected to the House of Commons. In the 2015 Fall federal election Elizabeth May was re-elected in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands.