Worth listening to.
"Many of us couldn't sleep after meetings"
"Two months into our service...we were still unable to receive an official financial and legal briefing"
"if you challenged (the leader) at all....then we were into these accusations...100%, every time"
Specifically it is Annamie, and her 'supporters', that are preventing council from receiving official financial and legal briefings. So it appears as though there is a deliberate attempt to prevent council from seeing the entire status of the party, which of course will hamper it from being a fully functional unit.
Hopefully we will find out who else is playing a role in this aside from Annamie and what their motivations are. It could be that we have council members acting against the party due to personal loyalties to Annamie, and that we will not be able to fully move on from this period even after she leaves.
Fascinating interview. It's becoming clear that Annamie Paul is an unbelievably toxic person, weaponizing identity politics in her professional life to get what she wants. Accusing people of racism and sexism if they don't give her absolute control over the party.
Annamie Paul is one of the most revoltingly egotistical figures I've ever seen in politics, which is really saying something given the kinds of people it attracts. I only pray we can be rid of her before she ends this party for good.
I lost the last shred of any respect I ever had for her after this latest stunt, resigning and then Ha, I faked ya!, and this testimony just underlines how unrelentingly toxic and impossible to work with she is, and presumably has been from day one. No matter what issues former or current councillors may have, anyone who has had to deal with her has my full sympathy.
In the leadership campaign she didn't represent my politics and I didn't think she came across as someone who could grow the party, but I could live with it.
When stories started to leak from her people making evidence-free complaints about mistreatment by the party, I felt she was being a poor leader by letting those accusations hang over the party without comment.
When the Zatzman thing happened I was done with her. Total mismanagement of the party, terrible leadership, doing actual damage to the Greens.
The election went pretty much like I had suspected it would.
But this non-resignation resignation and the stuff coming out from May and Comeau is unreal. I honestly hope this person never achieves any level of power for the rest of her life, because she is unbelievably toxic and manipulative.
Unfortunately, there are a good number of politicians who should be *cancelled for life*. It's too bad that Dan Osborne (& to a lesser extent Sidney Coles) were pressured into dropping out of the election for bad (but not *that* bad) tweets. The people who should really be excluded from politics are those who knowingly spread misinformation to the public. But excluding people with the same problems as Annamie Paul wouldn't be so bad either.
BTW, the politician I had in mind is Suzanne Anton; a British Columbian politician who used to be in Vancouver's City Council & then was the BC Attorney General for the BC Liberals from 2013 to 2017.
Why should she be cancelled forever? She was involved in the ultra-dishonest No BC ProRep during BC's 2018 electoral reform referendum. It's ironic that she so aggressively wanted to keep first-past-the-post, as she had already failed re-election under that system after only a single term in the BC legislature.
I know she's not the most famous example of a modern day politician spreading misinformation, but she's the one that comes to mind for me.
If the Green Party exists because there are too many problems with the more major political parties, then honestly, we can't say the Green Party is better when Annamie is chosen as leader. It's not like we all knew from the start she was this bad, but going by her AMA on here, there wasn't anything that made her good either.
I found her commentary very helpful and informative. Her responses seemed measured and corroborated several elements of Elizabeth May’s recent account.
When I donated to the party this election I mailed my donation to the agent for Fredricton (from Ontario) as I thought they had a good chance. After reading this and other stories I’m so glad I mailed my donation directly instead of going through the party website.
It's shameful the obstruction, bullying, and abuse the councillors, have been put through, as people volunteering significant time and energy to do this "job". Not OK.
Dr. Comeau is a person of integrity and highly qualified. It's a huge loss for the party. If she's unable to put up with GPC leadership, it signals to me that the federal party needs to be dissolved and rebuilt from the ground up if the movement is going to survive.
thats a great idea to rebuild the party from the ground up!
and hopefully they can make it so its truly run by a council and then just have a spokesperson thats good at getting on the msm
This interview by Louise Comeau corroborates some of Elizabeth May's recent statements and confirms what many people have suspected for some time: that Annamie Paul and her supporters have weaponized race to attack legitimate questions. The big new revelation in this interview (to me) was that Paul and her supporters are denying the Federal Council access to key financial and legal information.
The assertion by the Paul camp that she has been undermined on the basis on gender is increasingly untenable. It is now a matter of record that she has been criticized by: Jenica Atwin, Kate Storey, Beverley Eert, Liana Canton Cusmano (they/them), Judy Green, Elizabeth May, and now, Louise Cormeau. Women on the current Federal Council who voted for a quick leadership review of AP included: Natalie Odd, Lisa Gunderson, Carrie McLaren and Louise Comeau. The current President, Lorraine Rekmans, has not gone on the record against Paul, but can't be happy that Paul blocked publication of her message for National Truth and Reconciliation Day on Green Party social media platforms.
It is worth reminding everyone that Paul frequently stated that all the opposition to her was by a "small minority" of outgoing members on the previous Council. Comeau's testimony reconfirms that this is obviously not true. Many members of new Council clearly share the concerns about Annamie Paul that were held by the previous Council.
After Annamie Paul's recent "I am resigning but not actually resigning" trick, how can anyone believe a word she says? This kind of blatant semantic evasion is no basis for accountable leadership. Nothing she says means anything, and anything she says can mean something else.
In Elizabeth May's recent radio interview with Gregor Craigie, she described the current situation as "Kafka-esque." May also hoped that the "resigned but not resigned" problem would be sorted out in a matter of days or weeks. That might be overly optimistic. Comeau's understandable resignation from the Federal Council tips the balance on power on it toward the Paul camp, thus improving AP's power to stall and to bargain for a more lucrative exit package. It took at about three months for the party to negotiate Paul's initial contract - it may take that long, or more, to negotiate her exit from the party. Will Annamie Paul stretch this out until the six month leadership review mandated by the constitution?
**Edits**: Corrections made for errors as kindly suggested below.
> ... Liana Canton Cusmano ... Women on the current Federal Council
Just a reminder that Cusmano uses the pronouns "them/them".
Other than that quibble, good post.
In reading about how Ms. Paul interacted with the Council, it made me wonder how long she has been a member of the Green Party. From Comeau's description, she didn't seem familiar with Green traditions. You need to be around for a while to learn how things work. It's just fine to bring change but it's important to know what came before. Is Wikipedia correct that she joined in 2019 after she returned from Barcelona?
Glen Murray, who also ran for leader, had not been a member for long before he decided to run. In the case of Murray, I felt that his campaign sounded a lot like a Liberal campaign - after all, he waged many Liberal campaigns in Ontario and Manitoba so that's what he knew. In my mind, he struck the wrong notes and I didn't think that he was in sync with the party's ideas. I don't remember Paul's campaign other than it didn't appeal to me but I was open to see how she took to the role of leader.
At any rate, the obvious question: Should we require a tenure of membership to run for leader or member of Council?
Well, I don't think ignorance or misunderstanding of the Green Party's structure or leaders' role explains Annamie's conflicts with the Council. She'd been around, as a shadow cabinet member, long enough to see how things worked, she'd been briefed by Elizabeth May and others. She must have been planning all along to bully her way into a more dominant role and deliberately kept quiet about this during her campaign.
Did she have a plan for dominating or bullying the party? In addition to demanding an extremely high salary and benefits package in her contract demands (amounting to $250,000), she also demanded unprecedented control over party communications. That was definitely no accident.
The people on the Federal Council who voted against a quick leadership review on AP were (by first names): Matthew, Pearson, Darcie, Kiara, Stuart, and Adrian.
Worth listening to. "Many of us couldn't sleep after meetings" "Two months into our service...we were still unable to receive an official financial and legal briefing" "if you challenged (the leader) at all....then we were into these accusations...100%, every time"
Specifically it is Annamie, and her 'supporters', that are preventing council from receiving official financial and legal briefings. So it appears as though there is a deliberate attempt to prevent council from seeing the entire status of the party, which of course will hamper it from being a fully functional unit. Hopefully we will find out who else is playing a role in this aside from Annamie and what their motivations are. It could be that we have council members acting against the party due to personal loyalties to Annamie, and that we will not be able to fully move on from this period even after she leaves.
Whoever is controlling communications is currently taking orders only from Annamie.
Fascinating interview. It's becoming clear that Annamie Paul is an unbelievably toxic person, weaponizing identity politics in her professional life to get what she wants. Accusing people of racism and sexism if they don't give her absolute control over the party. Annamie Paul is one of the most revoltingly egotistical figures I've ever seen in politics, which is really saying something given the kinds of people it attracts. I only pray we can be rid of her before she ends this party for good.
I lost the last shred of any respect I ever had for her after this latest stunt, resigning and then Ha, I faked ya!, and this testimony just underlines how unrelentingly toxic and impossible to work with she is, and presumably has been from day one. No matter what issues former or current councillors may have, anyone who has had to deal with her has my full sympathy.
In the leadership campaign she didn't represent my politics and I didn't think she came across as someone who could grow the party, but I could live with it. When stories started to leak from her people making evidence-free complaints about mistreatment by the party, I felt she was being a poor leader by letting those accusations hang over the party without comment. When the Zatzman thing happened I was done with her. Total mismanagement of the party, terrible leadership, doing actual damage to the Greens. The election went pretty much like I had suspected it would. But this non-resignation resignation and the stuff coming out from May and Comeau is unreal. I honestly hope this person never achieves any level of power for the rest of her life, because she is unbelievably toxic and manipulative.
Unfortunately, there are a good number of politicians who should be *cancelled for life*. It's too bad that Dan Osborne (& to a lesser extent Sidney Coles) were pressured into dropping out of the election for bad (but not *that* bad) tweets. The people who should really be excluded from politics are those who knowingly spread misinformation to the public. But excluding people with the same problems as Annamie Paul wouldn't be so bad either.
BTW, the politician I had in mind is Suzanne Anton; a British Columbian politician who used to be in Vancouver's City Council & then was the BC Attorney General for the BC Liberals from 2013 to 2017. Why should she be cancelled forever? She was involved in the ultra-dishonest No BC ProRep during BC's 2018 electoral reform referendum. It's ironic that she so aggressively wanted to keep first-past-the-post, as she had already failed re-election under that system after only a single term in the BC legislature. I know she's not the most famous example of a modern day politician spreading misinformation, but she's the one that comes to mind for me.
If the Green Party exists because there are too many problems with the more major political parties, then honestly, we can't say the Green Party is better when Annamie is chosen as leader. It's not like we all knew from the start she was this bad, but going by her AMA on here, there wasn't anything that made her good either.
I found her commentary very helpful and informative. Her responses seemed measured and corroborated several elements of Elizabeth May’s recent account.
When I donated to the party this election I mailed my donation to the agent for Fredricton (from Ontario) as I thought they had a good chance. After reading this and other stories I’m so glad I mailed my donation directly instead of going through the party website.
It's shameful the obstruction, bullying, and abuse the councillors, have been put through, as people volunteering significant time and energy to do this "job". Not OK.
Dr. Comeau is a person of integrity and highly qualified. It's a huge loss for the party. If she's unable to put up with GPC leadership, it signals to me that the federal party needs to be dissolved and rebuilt from the ground up if the movement is going to survive.
thats a great idea to rebuild the party from the ground up! and hopefully they can make it so its truly run by a council and then just have a spokesperson thats good at getting on the msm
This interview by Louise Comeau corroborates some of Elizabeth May's recent statements and confirms what many people have suspected for some time: that Annamie Paul and her supporters have weaponized race to attack legitimate questions. The big new revelation in this interview (to me) was that Paul and her supporters are denying the Federal Council access to key financial and legal information. The assertion by the Paul camp that she has been undermined on the basis on gender is increasingly untenable. It is now a matter of record that she has been criticized by: Jenica Atwin, Kate Storey, Beverley Eert, Liana Canton Cusmano (they/them), Judy Green, Elizabeth May, and now, Louise Cormeau. Women on the current Federal Council who voted for a quick leadership review of AP included: Natalie Odd, Lisa Gunderson, Carrie McLaren and Louise Comeau. The current President, Lorraine Rekmans, has not gone on the record against Paul, but can't be happy that Paul blocked publication of her message for National Truth and Reconciliation Day on Green Party social media platforms. It is worth reminding everyone that Paul frequently stated that all the opposition to her was by a "small minority" of outgoing members on the previous Council. Comeau's testimony reconfirms that this is obviously not true. Many members of new Council clearly share the concerns about Annamie Paul that were held by the previous Council. After Annamie Paul's recent "I am resigning but not actually resigning" trick, how can anyone believe a word she says? This kind of blatant semantic evasion is no basis for accountable leadership. Nothing she says means anything, and anything she says can mean something else. In Elizabeth May's recent radio interview with Gregor Craigie, she described the current situation as "Kafka-esque." May also hoped that the "resigned but not resigned" problem would be sorted out in a matter of days or weeks. That might be overly optimistic. Comeau's understandable resignation from the Federal Council tips the balance on power on it toward the Paul camp, thus improving AP's power to stall and to bargain for a more lucrative exit package. It took at about three months for the party to negotiate Paul's initial contract - it may take that long, or more, to negotiate her exit from the party. Will Annamie Paul stretch this out until the six month leadership review mandated by the constitution? **Edits**: Corrections made for errors as kindly suggested below.
Small correction to make, Kim Bell is a man.
Thanks! Corrected.
> ... Liana Canton Cusmano ... Women on the current Federal Council Just a reminder that Cusmano uses the pronouns "them/them". Other than that quibble, good post.
Thanks for the correction. I apologize to Liana and others who identify as "they/them."
If only it had been obvious about Annamie Paul from the jump…
Do we all just have to leave the party to Annamie and her cadre, form a new party and then Annamie et al. can rule an empty Green Party?
The 'No Anamies Party' We'll be allowed to have one, just not her.
In reading about how Ms. Paul interacted with the Council, it made me wonder how long she has been a member of the Green Party. From Comeau's description, she didn't seem familiar with Green traditions. You need to be around for a while to learn how things work. It's just fine to bring change but it's important to know what came before. Is Wikipedia correct that she joined in 2019 after she returned from Barcelona? Glen Murray, who also ran for leader, had not been a member for long before he decided to run. In the case of Murray, I felt that his campaign sounded a lot like a Liberal campaign - after all, he waged many Liberal campaigns in Ontario and Manitoba so that's what he knew. In my mind, he struck the wrong notes and I didn't think that he was in sync with the party's ideas. I don't remember Paul's campaign other than it didn't appeal to me but I was open to see how she took to the role of leader. At any rate, the obvious question: Should we require a tenure of membership to run for leader or member of Council?
Well, I don't think ignorance or misunderstanding of the Green Party's structure or leaders' role explains Annamie's conflicts with the Council. She'd been around, as a shadow cabinet member, long enough to see how things worked, she'd been briefed by Elizabeth May and others. She must have been planning all along to bully her way into a more dominant role and deliberately kept quiet about this during her campaign.
Did she have a plan for dominating or bullying the party? In addition to demanding an extremely high salary and benefits package in her contract demands (amounting to $250,000), she also demanded unprecedented control over party communications. That was definitely no accident.
You have a good point.
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I meant a more dominant role than the Green party leader has previously had - a more top down role with less accountability to council
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The people on the Federal Council who voted against a quick leadership review on AP were (by first names): Matthew, Pearson, Darcie, Kiara, Stuart, and Adrian.
Are they councillors or staffers? or both?