Green Party deputy leader Jonathan Pedneau announced he was stepping down for “personal reasons”.
Pedneau made the announcement in Ottawa on Tuesday and said he would not be making any further comment on his decision.
“It has been the honour of a lifetime to have served alongside Elizabeth May and Mike Morris, two incredible MPs who dedicate every waking hour to serving Canadians. Unfortunately, partisan politics in Ottawa today is not representative of that,” he said.
Before entering politics, Pedneau was a journalist and activist working in conflict zones around the world with organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
He said the decision to step down had been under consideration for “several weeks” and that it was “highly likely” he would return to his previous overseas role now that he was free of responsibility to the party.
Pedneau and Leader Elizabeth May replace Annamie Paul, who stepped down as leader in 2021 after just over a year in the role.
Pedneau was named as co-leader with May, who served as party leader from 2006 to 2019, to take up the role in autumn 2022.
Since then, Pedneau has served as deputy leader under May’s leadership, pending changes to the party’s rules to allow for co-leadership.
Green Party deputy leader steps down, calls role ‘honour of a lifetime’
Jonathan Pedneau, deputy leader of the federal Green Party, announced he was stepping down for “personal reasons”.
Pedneau ran in a federal by-election in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount electoral district in June 2023 for a seat in the House of Commons, which was won by Liberal candidate Anna Gainey with about 51 per cent of the vote.
Pedneau came in fourth with 13.4% of the vote, with the Conservatives in third place with 13.5% and the New Democrats in second place with 13.8%.
May will remain as party leader
May indicated on Tuesday she would continue to apply pressure from within her party to introduce a joint leadership structure.
“We will see what happens at the extraordinary meeting and what model of joint leadership is accepted or rejected,” May said.
“It’s a process and the Green Party’s system is a world apart from the top-down structures that exist in other political parties.”
May said the party had specifically asked her not to resign and to stay on in her job to lead the party until the next federal election, and said Green candidates would run in every constituency across the country.
May, 70, suffered a brain haemorrhage a year ago, but despite the setback she claims to be “amazingly healthy” and “works longer hours than most people half my age could manage”.
May said she was heartbroken to lose Mr Pednaud but would stay on at the party’s request because “the stakes here are really high”.
“Am I ready? Absolutely,” she said. “I would have been much happier if I had been doing this with Jonathan, because that was our plan from the beginning. If we hadn’t met, I would not have run for leadership.”
May passionately reiterated her commitment to continuing to advocate for the environment, even using foul language to describe the current situation.
“I have a very strong sense of responsibility, and I think everyone my age should have,” she said. “The Baby Boomers messed up this planet, and we can’t just go away and leave it to our kids to fix it.”
