Elizabeth May Comes to StFX

Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green party, and perhaps the face of Climate Politics in Canada, came to campus last week for her fellowship lecture. It was titled, “The Planet Is on Fire: Can the Canadian Federation Respond or Do Our Provincial-Federal Squabbles Threaten Our Future?” It was presented by the The Brian Mulroney Institute of Government’s Distinguished Speakers Series. Her speech included several harsh critiques of Canada's environmental record, which May calls “the worst in the G7.”

May, as evidenced by the title of the speech, believes intergovernmental disputes between the provinces amongst themselves, and then with the federal government, are problematic. May points to the Atlantic Loop, a proposed project that would allow Quebec to provide the Atlantic provinces with energy as evidence. The province's publicly-owned energy utility, Hydro Quebec, sells the vast majority of its surplus energy to the United States. Some Nova Scotia politicians claim the Atlantic Loop would allow the province to shut down a majority, if not all, of their fossil fuel plants. May also talked about how the European Union, with dozens of different countries and official languages, has done a much better job at climate action and policy than Canada.

Elizabeth May strongly condemned the government of Stephen Harper for pulling out of the Kyoto Agreement, but there was another Conservative Prime Minister who received her favour. Unsurprisingly, the policies that Brian Muroney used to combat acid rain during his term received much support from May, “Objectively speaking, what [Mulroney] did worked.” She also touted his political work, “When was federalism working in this country? It was working when Brian Mulroney was Prime minister.” Evidently, what Brian Mulroney did worked.

During a Q&A with the audience, May was warm and welcoming to the diversity of questions asked. She criticized Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as encouraged students to stand up for their future. A low point came when a student asked May if she would ever consider running for office, seemingly unaware that Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party and has been a sitting member of parliament for almost two decades. Nonetheless, May took the question in stride, did not make the student feel small, and gave an eloquent elaboration on her role in politics. The overarching message of her speech seemed summed up in her quote, ‘“We have to figure out how to think like a country.”

The day before the speech, Elizabeth May sat down for a luncheon on the fourth floor of Mulroney Hall with a selection of Political Science students. Next year's Vice President Academic, Jack Harding, told May about the work he and the Antigonish League of People for Climate Action (ALPACA) have been doing to get StFX to move towards renewable energy and away from highly polluting Bunker-C Oil , as is currently used on campus.

I was lucky enough to snag an interview with May after the luncheon. It was scheduled for 15 minutes but lasted closer to an hour.

May explained a couple of the bills she is currently sponsoring and  jointly seconding in parliament;  C-210 would lower the voting age to 16, and

C-226 would “Confront environmental racism by bringing in a program for environmental justice.”