New Green Party Leader Annamie Paul: Another imperialist rises to power

Oct. 10, 2020

Annamie Paul was elected as the leader of the federal greens in a contentious and extremely tight race, which she won on October 3. While left-leaning candidates such as Meryam Haddad and Dimitri Lascaris offered improvements from the foreign policy status quo, Paul’s policy is a continuation of the neo-liberal consensus established under Elizabeth May.

Throughout the race, Paul received extensive support from Elizabeth May and the party apparatus. While Lascaris was nearly denied entry onto the ballot, Haddad was temporarily expelled from the race, both for farcical reasons which didn’t hold up to public scrutiny, ensuring they could stay in the race. Meanwhile, Paul was allowed to enter the race with no issues, and received constant support from Elizabeth May in fundraising for her leadership bid.

The foreign policy establishment’s favourite

The defining foreign policy issue of the race was the push for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel, for the apartheid it has maintained against the Palestinian people for nearly a century. Both Lascaris and Haddad were clearly in favour of supporting Palestinians in the face of apartheid, and had embraced BDS for many years. Lascaris had spent years fighting against the pro-Israeli apartheid lobby which works to crush solidarity with Palestine, and spent time as the leader of CJPME (Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East).

As Justice Greens member Connor Kelly noted, support for BDS is Green Party policy:

“At the Green Party of Canada’s federal convention in 2016, party members voted in favour of Dimitri Lascaris’ motion on boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. According to Green Party of Canada procedures that requires “more than 60% of the voting members present vote in favour of the motion”—a clear, democratic majority.

However, after this motion passed, Elizabeth May denounced her party’s decision and threatened to resign.”

In the CJPME’s GPC Leadership Assessment, focused on Middle East policy, Paul received a ‘C-‘, the lowest out of nine candidates. Paul refused to submit the questionnaire sent out by the group. In lieu of responses, they analyzed her foreign policy record. Of particular concern to the organization was Paul’s opposition to BDS, refusal to endorse their pledge to oppose Israeli annexation and that she “has generally pursued a neutral ‘both sides are at fault’ approach” to Israeli apartheid.”

Paul pursued a smear campaign against Lascaris and Haddad for their support of BDS, and said that Lascaris shouldn’t have been allowed to run for the position of GPC leader. This dovetailed with Elizabeth May’s constant attacks on the two left-leaning candidates, with May consistently retweeting tweets stating the Haddad and Lascaris were unfit to become the party’s new leader.

Annamie Paul: The silent imperialist
It would be a mistake to say that Paul’s imperialist nature is only applicable to Israeli apartheid.

Annamie Paul became the Green Party’s International Affairs Critic in August 2019.

In November 2019, the cowardly Green Party response to the violent coup against Bolivian socialist leader Evo Morales was led by Paul. The response uncritically parroted a fraudulent OAS Electoral Observer Mission report, inferred that Morales’ resignation was a voluntary choice, and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint”.

In January 2020, Paul signaled her support for “internationally facilitated negotiations culminating in free and fair elections” for Venezuela. This statement failed to address the US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela, attempted to take a “neutral” position between supporting US puppet Juan Guaido and the democratically elected president Nicholas Maduro, and served to delegitimize the free and fairly held 2018 elections, in which Maduro won a majority and retained the presidency.

In the September 2020 foreign policy focused leadership debate, Paul’s silence took centre stage. The left-leaning candidates pushed for Canada to leave NATO, impose sanctions on apartheid Israel, and challenge the mining sector which drives much of Canadian imperialism. Rather than stand up against imperialism, Paul chose silent complicity, endorsing rampant imperialism through a refusal to resist it.

Silent complicity really is what we can expect on foreign policy from a Paul led Green Party. The only aspect of foreign policy Paul will be vocal on, is purging Palestine solidarity protesters from the party.

There was a dream of a democratic socialist led Green Party, but that dream is dead.

To be clear, this is no endorsement of the NDP. There are many reasons why leftists left the party to support Haddad and Lascaris, and support for imperialism is a major one.

The sooner the left accepts this, the sooner the movement to grow a revolutionary socialist organization can truly begin.