Elizabeth May became the leader of the Green Party 10 years ago today after winning more than 60 per cent of the vote at the party's convention in Ottawa. May, a long-time executive director of the Sierra Club executive, won over environmental consultant David Chernushenko, a business-friendly party stalwart. The decisive victory came at a time when the Green Party aimed to improve on its showing at the 2006 federal election, in which 642,000 Canadians voted for them under previous leader Jim Harris, who announced that he would not run for re-election as party leader in April of 2006. The Green Party was still trying to get its first MP elected to the House of Commons, but May remained open to sharing her platform with rival political parties to create change. "I want them to steal our ideas, I want our ideas to take off with a momentum that's unstoppable," May said, adding "there is no left or right on a dead planet." Harris said the party's ideas were already spreading, singling out then-Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff's carbon tax proposal. "When you have what is the supposed leading contender of the supposed governing party taking our platform, it shows how front-and-centre we are to the political debate," said Harris. The Greens would have to wait five more years for Canadians to reward their new leader with a seat of her own in the House of Commons. May lost in a London, Ont. byelection the November after winning the party leadership, and again in 2008 in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, held by then-defence minister Peter MacKay. She was finally elected to Parliament in 2011 to represent the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands.
