Elizabeth Evans May (born June 9, 1954) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, lawyer, activist, and author. She has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011. May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada, having first held the position from 2006 to 2019. She returned to the leadership in 2022, initially as co-leader with Jonathan Pedneault and is now serving as the party's sole and outgoing leader following his resignation.
May is the longest-serving female leader of a Canadian federal party, and the first member of the Green Party to be elected to the House of Commons. From 1989 to 2006, she was the executive director of the Sierra Club Canada.
In 2005, May was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, and the United Nations has recognized her as one of the world's leading women environmentalists. She is the author of eight books, including her memoir Who We Are – Reflections of My Life and Canada, which was a Globe and Mail bestseller.
May was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Stephanie (Middleton), a sculptor, pianist, and writer, and John Middleton May, an accountant. Her father was born in New York City and raised in England, and her mother was also a native New Yorker. She has a younger brother named Geoffrey. Her mother was a prominent anti-nuclear activist and her father was Assistant Vice President of Aetna Life and Casualty.
In 1972, the family relocated to Margaree Harbour, Nova Scotia, after a visit to Cape Breton Island. There, they purchased and operated a converted schooner, the Marion Elizabeth, as a gift shop and restaurant until 2002. May relinquished her U.S. citizenship in 1978, when she became a Canadian citizen, in accordance with American nationality law at the time.
May attended St. Francis Xavier University in rural Nova Scotia, but dropped out. Returning to Margaree Harbour, May took correspondence courses in restaurant management. Beginning in 1980, she attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, graduating in 1983 with a degree in law. May later studied theology at Saint Paul University, a federated college of the University of Ottawa, but withdrew from the program due to conflicting schedule demands.
Environmental activism and legal career
May 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. 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. In 1982, they won a temporary injunction, halting the spray programme, but after two years, the case was eventually lost. Legal costs associated with the case resulted in her family sacrificing their home and seventy acres of land due to litigation from 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 from being the last areas in Canada to be sprayed with Agent Orange.
In 1980, May and others launched a political party to raise environmental and anti-nuclear issues dubbed "the Small Party". The party ran 12 candidates in six provinces in the 1980 federal election. May, at the time a 25-year-old waitress, ran against the former Deputy Prime Minister, Allan J. MacEachen in Cape Breton Highlands—Canso. She placed last out of four candidates receiving 272 votes.
Following her graduation from Dalhousie University, May worked as an environmental lawyer in Halifax. In 1985, May moved to Ottawa to work with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. She held the position of Associate General Counsel, representing consumer, poverty and environmental groups from 1985 to 1986.
In 1986, May was named Senior Policy Advisor to Thomas McMillan, then-Minister of the Environment in the Progressive Conservative Mulroney government. As senior policy advisor, May was involved in the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer. She was instrumental in the creation of several national parks, including South Moresby. In 1988, May resigned on principle after permits were granted for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan without proper environmental assessment. The permits were later struck down by a Federal Court decision that found that the permits had been granted illegally.
May helped found the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund with the aim of funding groups and individuals in environmental cases. She has worked with Indigenous peoples internationally, particularly in the Amazon rainforest, as well as with First Nations in Canada. She was the first volunteer executive director of Cultural Survival Canada from 1989 to 1992 and worked for the Algonquian of Barriere Lake from 1991 to 1992.
She has taught courses at Queen's University School of Policy Studies, and was the first holder of the Elizabeth May Chair in Women's Health and Environment at Dalhousie University in 1998.
In 1989, May became the founding executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. During her tenure with the Sierra Club of Canada, May received several awards in recognition of her environmental leadership, including: the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990, the award for Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society for Environmental Education in 1996, and in November 2005 was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her "decades of leadership in the Canadian environmental movement".
In April 2006, May announced her resignation as the Sierra Club's executive director. Upon leaving the Sierra Club, Board President Louise Comeau noted, "Elizabeth has led the Club at the national level from its infancy to the enormously effective entity it is today."
On May 9, 2006, May entered the Green Party of Canada's leadership race.
On August 26, 2006, May won the leadership election on the first ballot. She tallied 65.3% of the votes, beating her main rival, David Chernushenko (33.3%) and Jim Fannon (0.88%). She said one of the main platforms for the next election would be to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At the time of her election as leader, May said she intended to run in the riding of Cape Breton—Canso in the next federal election, although she also said she would stand in a federal byelection if one occurred prior to the next general election. In the fall of 2006, May ran for election in London North Centre, finishing second to Glen Pearson of the Liberal Party. While she lost, May's showing in this by-election was the best result, in terms of percentage, achieved by the Green Party of Canada at that time.
In April 2007, during a speech by May to a London, Ontario United Church of Canada, she condemned Prime Minister Stephen Harper's stance on climate change, comparing it to "a grievance worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis." The statement drew criticism from the Canadian Jewish Congress and opposition parties. While Opposition leader Stéphane Dion refused to respond to Harper's request for him to distance himself from May and these remarks during Question Period, Dion did state to reporters outside Commons that May should withdraw the remarks, and that the Nazi regime is beyond any comparison.