The Green Party and its governing body have legal proceedings underway related to the continued internal party turmoil and its leader, Annamie Paul, an email sent to party members confirmed on Wednesday.
The e-mail, which one source told Global News was sent to your entire membership of the party, alluded to the legal motion but shared no specific details, citing a disputed understanding of the confidential nature of the documents.
“We’re writing to tell you that the Green Party of Canada and the Green Party of Canada Fund have filed an application within the Superior Court of Justice for Ontario. The appliance pertains to certain internal proceedings of the Federal Council and the Executive Director related to the Leader of the Party,” read the e-mail.
“We understand that the Leader is of the view that the Party is certain by certain rules of confidentiality, which we dispute. As such, we is not going to be providing you with further details regarding the character of the proceedings right now.”
The e-mail added that the document is public, and may be viewed by searching the case number.
The Green Party of Canada Fund said that an arbitrator exceeded their authority after they required party executives to call off their vote of non-confidence against Paul last weekend, in response to court filings.
The filings argued that Paul’s employment contract was with the Green Fund and never with the federal council, the latter of which is the primary governing body of the party that had tried in addition the green leader.
In line with the Canadian Press, the filings said that the arbitrator had no authority to impose orders, like backing down on the non-confidence vote, on the council, which is just not connected to Paul’s contract.
Green Party spokesperson Rosie Emery didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Just this morning, Paul said she felt the questions on her leadership are within the rearview mirror — for now. Her sentiments come after party tensions have cooled in recent days. On Sunday, party executives called off a non-confidence vote set to happen this week. Had that vote taken place, it could have kick-started the strategy of booting Paul from her position because the party’s leader.
A celebration membership review, which was launched last week and would have seen Paul’s membership suspended, has also halted.
“It’s definitely great that that has been put behind us for now,” Paul said, speaking with host Greg Brady in an interview for 640 Toronto on Wednesday morning.
“What we didn’t have, and what we have now now, is just more certainty or clarity for our candidates, for our volunteers … about my leadership in order that they will plan.”
Paul won the leadership in October of last yr with 54 per cent of the vote on the eighth ballot. Paul’s 12,090 votes allowed her to drag ahead of runner-up Dimitri Lascaris in a race that saw 69 per cent of party members vote.
But lower than two months after taking up on the party’s helm, Paul began experiencing internal bumps within the road. At the tip of November 2020, the party’s federal council was sent a letter that alleged a “pattern of poor governance” throughout the Green Party.
The inner turmoil burst out from behind closed doors when former Green MP Jenica Atwin crossed the ground to hitch the Liberal Party on June 10, slamming the infighting among the many Greens over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “distraction” on her way out.
Paul, nonetheless, said Atwin’s departure from the party was the results of conversations that predated this yr’s flare-up of violence between Israel and Hamas.
Some members of the Green Party’s governing body, the federal council, held a former advisor of Paul’s answerable for Atwin’s defection from the Greens to the Liberals. They demanded she repudiate him — and if she rejected the request, they said they’d conduct a non-confidence vote.
Nonetheless, Paul dodged that bullet when party members opted to call off the potential vote.
Elizabeth May, who’s currently certainly one of the Greens’ only two MPs, also got here to Paul’s defence in a Tuesday statement.
“I stepped down as leader of the Green Party lower than two years ago, despite our greatest ever ends in electing three MPs, knowing it was time for brand spanking new leadership,” she said in a press release. “That recent leader is Annamie Paul.”
— with files from Global News’ Eric Stober and The Canadian Press
