Elizabeth May is once again taking aim at leading anti-war voices in the Canadian and international Green movement. In recent days, she dismissed criticism from Quebec Green Party leader Alex Tyrrell by claiming that he “does not meet Green values.” The attack echoed similar comments she made in 2024 about U.S. Green Party leader and presidential candidate Jill Stein, whom she publicly called on to drop out of the U.S. presidential election for her opposition to NATO and her commitment to ending the war in Ukraine; a move which lead to at least one resignation from May’s shadow cabinet and widespread criticism from Green Party of Canada members.
Jill Stein, a long-time champion of climate justice and non-interventionist foreign policy, has called for peace negotiations in Ukraine and the dismantling of NATO’s Cold War posture. In response, May inserted herself into U.S. Green politics by attacking Stein’s leadership and attempting to delegitimize her candidacy—an unusual move for a Canadian party leader that can be summed up to foreign interference. While the focus of her intervention was in favour of strategic voting May also supported statements by European Greens that values were the issue given Stein’s opposition to war with Russia. Meanwhile, May has heaped praise on hawkish Green figures such as German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who has aggressively pushed for escalating the war with Russia and increasing Germany’s weapons exports to the battlefield.
May’s pattern is clear: if a Green Party leader opposes militarism, she denounces them as being out of step with “Green values.”
The contrast is stark: May denounces anti-war Greens while embracing those who align with the NATO military agenda. In the final days of the Canadian election May suggested Canada take over some of the U.S.’s traditional role as “global cop.”
In this year’s Canadian election, Elizabeth May took the Green Party of Canada in a radically new direction, abandoning the party’s historic anti-war stance. She campaigned daily wearing a Ukrainian flag pin, openly endorsed the NATO-aligned position on the conflict, and reversed her long-standing opposition to fighter jets. Under her leadership, the party platform called for:
• Increased military spending
• Expansion of Canada’s armed forces
• A national civil defence corps
• Militarization of the Arctic
• Canadian leadership in replacing the U.S. as the world’s “global cop”
May’s campaign rhetoric aligned more closely with NATO strategy than with the Green tradition of diplomacy, demilitarization, and peacebuilding.
Now, as she resumes sole leadership of the federal party following Jonathan Pedneault’s resignation, Elizabeth May has doubled down on her attacks against critics like Alex Tyrrell, a long-time advocate for peace, demilitarization, and democratic reform within the party. “He does not meet Green values—and I do,” she told the press, dismissing Tyrrell’s call for her to step aside and allow for a democratic leadership race after she had Tyrrell, who is her main competitor for federal leadership, expelled from the 2022 leadership that she won without significant opposition or challengers.
Many within the Green movement see things differently and are urging May to step down. Both Stein and Tyrrell represent a grassroots pushback against the growing militarism of Western Green parties—a movement that May appears determined to marginalize. Her repeated claim that peace advocates are somehow out of line with “Green values” has left many asking: whose values is she really defending?
This comes as the Green Party of Canada’s youth wing president Jaden Braves was recently criticized for posting a video to social media of himself handling and firing a semi automatic firearm on a table draped in a nato flag. It was recently revealed by Alex Tyrrell that the 16 year old has received training from the NATO Canada association in advocating for militarism. Apparently there is no issue with “Green Values” in that case as May has yet to distance herself or the party from this controversial figure who has turned the youth wing of the Green Party of Canada into a propaganda machine for the world’s most powerful military alliance.
