In a sharply worded open letter to Elizabeth May and Green Party of Canada (GPC) members, long-time Green supporter and activist Constantine Kritsonis has offered a searing indictment of the party’s leadership, priorities, and recent strategic decisions.
Kritsonis, writing in response to a recent email from May, takes issue with her claim that the Green Party’s top priority should be electoral reform. “The Greens’ top priority is not getting rid of the FPTP electoral system as you suggest… The Greens’ top priority is new leadership!” he wrote. The comment reflects a growing sentiment within the party base that leadership renewal, not policy refinement, is essential for the party’s survival.
He also pushed back on May’s suggestion that former MP Mike Morrice lost his seat due to strategic voting. Kritsonis argues that the party’s poor state under May’s ongoing influence is the true culprit. “The reason Mike lost is that you Annamie-Pauled the party and we never recovered. You cost Mike his seat,” he stated. He points to May’s controversial support for Annamie Paul in 2020—including hosting five fundraising events and penning a glowing letter of endorsement—as the moment the party lost its momentum, and he argues the consequences have only deepened since.
Kritsonis further challenges the leadership’s strategic hypocrisy on vote-splitting. He notes that while May denounces strategic voting in principle, the party under her and Jonathan Pedneault’s leadership actively implemented it by withdrawing candidates in key ridings to benefit Liberals over Conservatives. “How do you criticize the strategic vote while actively promoting it?” he asks.
That decision, according to Kritsonis, not only betrayed grassroots values but also triggered a major self-inflicted wound: the party’s exclusion from the leaders’ debates. He points to the debate commission’s justification that the Greens’ failure to nominate candidates in 90% of ridings disqualified them—a threshold the GPC had previously insisted upon. “Had you and Pedneault not made that strategic decision, Greens would be in the leaders’ debates — a massive PR boost giving Manly and Morrice a much better chance of being elected.”
Taken together, these criticisms underscore a growing rift between Green leadership and grassroots activists. Kritsonis paints a picture of a party drifting from its founding democratic values and sabotaging itself through poor leadership decisions. With the party’s popular vote collapsing to 1.2%, his call for a new direction may resonate far beyond his inbox.
