By TONIA KELLY
From her birth in rural Connecticut in June 1954 to leader of a Canadian political party in August 2006, Elizabeth May has filled her 52 years to the brim.
“I was trained at my mother’s knee to be an activist,” says May, whose mother, Stephanie May, was a life-long political activist, protesting issues of her day – nuclear weapons testing, civil rights, and the Vietnam War. “My mom’s the example that I live by.”
May won the leadership of the Green Party of Canada four months after her resignation as executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, a position she held for 17 years. Even without a seat in the House of Commons, May plans to bring her environmental concerns to the political forefront.
Conrad Winn, a professor of political science at Carleton University, doesn’t think the heightened profile of the Green Party under May’s leadership will have much political upside for the party, “given that by their conduct, voters show that their lip service may exceed their commitment.”
Winn added, however, that the environmental movement has never had as much moral justification as it has today. “If we can reduce petroleum consumption, we both reduce pollutants and reduce international political risks by moderating the income of the highest risk-taking regimes.”
The national headquarters for the Green Party of Canada, located on Cooper Street in Centretown, are spartan and unadorned. With scant nod to fashion or comfort, May is cheerful and animated as she talks, cramming memories, anecdotes and complex issues into every sentence.
When she was 18 years old, she moved with her parents and younger brother to Margaree Harbour in Cape Breton, N.S., because they loved the place, and because of the anxiety they felt surrounding the VietnamWar.
Her parents bought a restaurant that had been closed by the health department because it didn’t have a septic treatment system. They ran it for more than 30 years. “They stuck their life savings into it,” she says. “But it was a disaster.”
They also purchased 100 acres of land in Baddeck with a panoramic view of the Bras d’Or Lakes but soon had to sell 20 acres because of financial hardship.
May worked in her parents’ restaurant for 12 years, supporting the family business and, in later years, putting herself through university. She graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1983.
In the early ‘80s, May and her family were among the plaintiffs protesting the spraying of the defoliant Agent Orange in parts of Nova Scotia by Scott Paper Limited. Even though they lost the case, they managed to stop further spraying of the chemical in the province. The battle cost them dearly — they had to sell their 80 acres of land.
“[That land] was a nestegg,” May says with sorrow. “Since my parents had been financially devastated by the move to Cape Breton in the first place, my family in Cape Breton is still struggling. That land was a big sacrifice.”
May laughs as she remembers her brother’s comment at the time, reflecting that peculiar, sardonic humour that comes only at times of deep despair. Referring to the Scott Paper salesmen who sold paper products to their restaurant, he said, “We’ve got the bastards on the run. No more toilet paper from them.”
During the court case, May was fundraising to pay their lawyers while she was completing her third year of law school.
“It was a long and miserable time,” she recalls, “the only point of my life I never want to live through again.”
May is a self-proclaimed genetically happy person. “If you’re not having fun you can’t do this work long term, right? So 90 percent of the time has been fun.” And for May, South Moresby in 1987 was euphoric.
South Moresby is the beautiful, wild and windswept southern portion of the Queen Charlotte Islands. May protested against logging companies that were operating chain saws on triple shift. “The closer we got to saving it, the more they logged,” says May.
The area became Canada’s largest national park in 1987 and her book Paradise Won: The Struggle for South Moresby tells the story.
Five years ago, May undertook a 17-day hunger strike on Parliament Hill to draw attention to the tar ponds in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where there are concerns of high cancer rates and other health issues, with toxic substances seeping into people’s basements.
A comment from a disheartened Sydney resident motivated her hunger strike. “Nobody in Ottawa cares what we do here,” she recalls him saying. “We’re invisible to them, they don’t care.”
It was at church with her parents in Margaree Harbour the next day that the idea crystalized. “I’m not saying God spoke to me, but I was praying and thinking.”
“I went back to Ottawa and said to my staff, ‘Guys, I’m going to have to take a leave of absence to go on a hunger strike on Parliament Hill. They asked when, and I said ‘Later today.’”
Members of Parliament from all parties were concerned during her strike. “Carolyn Bennett came out to take my blood pressure, Keith Martin told me I had to drink Gatorade. So I had MPs making house calls.”
“In hindsight,” May recalls, “it was one of the best things I ever did, bearing witness to something important.”
The official position of the federal and provincial government is that the high cancer rates in Sydney are just a mystery. “It’s a long, sad story,” says May, “and it’s still going on.”
Asked about the Green Party’s focus on the prevalence of cancer, she refers to the upcoming Run For The Cure on Oct. 1 as an example of the focus on fundraising, rather than on the causes of cancer. “Why aren’t we eliminating carcinogens from our cosmetics, make-up, hair dye, food additives, lawn pesticides?”
Childhood cancers are of special concern to her. “These are children, many of them babies. They’re not drinking, smoking – they’re just living in a carcinogen-soaked environment.”
May’s 14 year old daughter, Victoria-Cate, is a supporter of her mother’s environmental crusades. In fact, she accompanied her on a whistle-stop tour across Canada after her mother’s leadership victory.
“I think I appreciate what she does a lot more than most kids appreciate what their parents do.”
May remains on friendly terms with her former husband, Ian Burton, who lives in Toronto.
The Green Party of Canada, launched in 1983, has yet to elect a member of Parliament, but May is determined to end her party’s 23-year interval in the political wilderness. She will seek a seat in the riding of Cape Breton-Canso in the next election, challenging her friend and Liberal incumbent Rodger Cuzner.
May is full of surprises. She counts Bill Clinton and Sting among her friends and has called Brian Mulroney ‘the greenest PM.’ “If you don’t like one thing about a person don’t write them off altogether,” says May. “They might surprise you.”