OTTAWA — The Green Party membership is set to vote on its new leader in November, with a longtime campaigner and a former MP vying for the role, according to a press release.
“The leadership race comes at a defining moment, as Canadians face rising costs, rapidly worsening climate impacts and growing pressure on critical public services,” reads the release from the party’s communications manager, Mercedes Bacon-Traplin.
“The next generation of Green leadership will take on the work of expanding support for the Green policy solutions that can meet these extraordinary challenges,” Bacon-Traplin wrote.
Mike Morrice, who held his Kitchener Centre, Ont., seat in the House of Commons from 2021 to 2025 — when he lost it to Conservative candidate Kelly DeRidder in the federal election — has thrown his hat in the ring.
He formerly served as the party’s deputy leader and its housing and disability inclusion critic. He plans to run again in Kitchener Centre in the next election.
Also running for the party’s top spot is Nira Dookeran, a longtime grassroots Green Party campaigner and organizer. According to the party, she has “put her name on the ballot six times, managed campaigns, served on electoral district association executives and helped revive local Green organizations.”
Race after years of leadership changes
Morrice and Dookeran are running to replace longtime leader Elizabeth May, who took up the helm in 2006, before being elected to the House of Commons in 2011. She served as leader until 2019, but announced shortly after that year’s federal election that she was stepping down.
May was replaced in 2020 by Annamie Paul, who in turn resigned a few weeks after the 2021 federal election, following a leadership review. The embattled former leader called her less-than-a-year at the helm of the party “the worst period” in her life.
The following year, May won back the leadership, on a joint ticket with Jonathan Pedneault, a human rights investigator, activist, and documentary maker.
Pedneault himself stepped back after he failed to win a seat in the House of Commons during a byelection, but put his name back on the ballot in the 2025 general election and campaigned as a co-leader with May.
Then, while May was re-elected to her Saanich–Gulf Islands, B.C., seat, her co-party-leader was not, leading to Pedneault’s resignation shortly afterwards.
May announced last August she would not lead the party into the next election. In an email to members, she said she would stay on as an MP and party leader until her replacement was chosen, the Canadian Press reported at the time.
Party campaign rules
According to the party, Dookeran and Morrice are now set to “recruit new members and raise funds as they work to qualify for the final ballot.”
By the end of September, they must each recruit at least 200 new members, including at least 50 young members, and raise at least $15,000.
Canadians have until October 14 to become members if they want to help choose the next leader, with a ranked ballot vote set for Nov. 2–13, and the winner announced Nov. 14.
With files from CTV News’ Rachel Aiello
