Roundup: Did Paul hit a glass cliff?

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Not unexpectedly, Green Party leader Annamie Paul announced her resignation yesterday morning, citing that she didn’t have the heart to go through the restarted leadership review process, and saying that she didn’t expect when she smashed the glass ceiling, that the shards would rain down on her and that she’d have to walk over them. Without denying that some of her problems related to racism, misogyny and antisemitism, I find myself somewhat conflicted about the notion that she is a case of a glass cliff.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1442538999579561984

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1442541082126913547

Why I’m unsure this is necessarily applicable is because the party wasn’t in a great deal of a mess when Elizabeth May decided she no longer wanted to be leader, and it was certainly doing well electorally (they had just won two additional seats for the first time ever federally), and they had some provincial successes that they were counting on. Unlike most “glass cliff” scenarios, it wasn’t like a woman or minority was brought in to clean up a mess or was outright set up to fail. But part of what happened is a problem that is getting more common in Canadian politics, which is that we have so utterly bastardised our party leadership selection processes and fetishised “outsiders” coming into parties to lead them that we have set up the expectation for someone like Paul, who had no political experience, to come in and lead a party as though it were an entry-level job. When Mike Moffatt talks about the pipeline of talent to replace a leader, that’s not unique to the Greens either – the federal Conservatives also suffer from that problem, in part because Stephen Harper actively killed the ambitions of anyone else in the party and surrounded himself with yes-men, so it’s no wonder that his successors have largely proven themselves to be duds (and Rona Ambrose was never intended to be a permanent leader, so any course-corrections she made to the party were largely undone by Scheer and O’Toole). Did Paul get mentorship and training to succeed? Erm, was there anyone in the party that could give it to her? Aside from Elizabeth May – which may be the problem. This is also a problem when you choose leaders who don’t have seats, and who lack the political judgment about how to go about seeking one as soon as possible (and when your sitting MPs refuse to give up their seat to the leader). There are a lot of points of failure here, including structural ones in how leadership contests are conducted – but I fear that simply calling this a glass cliff may be absolving Paul a little too much of her own culpability in her political demise.

Where the party goes from here we’ll have to see. May said she had no interest in being interim leader, though I suppose she will be back to being “parliamentary leader” for the party, though I suspect she may also want to make a run for Speaker as she has previously expressed a desire to do (which she will lose). But the party is going to find itself dealing with fairly existential questions pretty shortly.

Good reads:

  • China claims that the two Michaels were released for medical reasons rather than hostage diplomacy. (Sure, Jan).
  • A new book debunks the Winnipeg Lab conspiracy theories – you know, the very ones that the Conservatives were promulgating in Parliament.
  • As Elections Canada finalises their tallies, it looks like voter turnout was actually about average in spite of pandemic problems.
  • The first batch of newbie MPs started their orientation sessions yesterday.
  • Here is a post-mortem of the Liberal campaign by senior advisors.
  • The National Post posits six possible successors to Justin Trudeau.
  • The Liberals have requested a recount in one Quebec riding it lost after “anomalies” were found with one particular poll.
  • Erin O’Toole is expected to have his first post-election caucus meeting on October 5th, where they will vote on the (garbage) Reform Act provisions.
  • A defeated Conservative MP says the party should have done more to reach out to Chinese-Canadians after claims of misinformation posted over WeChat.
  • The is some talk as to whether MPs should consider expelling ousted Liberal MP-elect Kevin Vuong given his “tainted” win (but it will be easier said than done).
  • Alberta is drowning in new COVID cases, but Jason Kenney won’t order a lockdown like doctors are crying for because it would “punish the vaccinated.” I can’t even.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks to the Chamber of Commerce’s survey, and sees that supply chain bottlenecks and shortages will impact the economic recovery for months.
  • Susan Delacourt suggests that after Annamie Paul’s political exit, Trudeau should be magnanimous and invite her to the climate delegation in Glasgow.

Odds and ends:

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5 thoughts on “Roundup: Did Paul hit a glass cliff?”

  1. “Paul was tortured out of politics” says Delacourt, tut-tutting as she clutches her pearls.

    IDGAF. Trudeau has been tortured for six years. Where’s the sympathy from the media for him? Forget metaphorical glass shards. The man had literal *rocks* thrown at him on the campaign trail. There was an Oswald cosplayer who plowed his truck into Rideau Cottage with a weapons arsenal in tow. Yet the media responds with either indifference or victim-blaming as he gets smeared and threatened and his family put through the ringer.

    Paul is just as culpable with her bad-faith invocations of the three weird sisters (JWR et al) as “she-roes” and ridiculous blaming of Trudeau (and Freeland!) for her plight. The man was magnanimous enough in wishing her well. Probably best that he stay away. She seems like another egotistical diva who’d do him dirty, just like the other narcissist who never shut up about “her truth.”

    The Green party itself is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, rife with conspiracy theorists and antisemites. But that doesn’t absolve Paul or anyone else in this drama. Time to move on and let this irrelevant ego vehicle for Elizabeth May go defunct.

  2. The one moment I liked during the English debate was when Paul was yammering at Trudeau about how he wasn’t a real feminist because he had been so very very mean to Phillpot and Raybould by ejecting them from caucus, and he riposted “I won’t take any lessons in caucus management from you!”
    It was absolutely beautiful, and well deserved.
    Susan Delacourt has really lost touch with reality if she thinks Paul has environmental credibility with the Greens or with anyone else in Canada at all. If Trudeau takes any Green to Glasgow it should be Andrew Weaver.

  3. It seems that Paul is yet another of those folks who feel that since they may be qualified by background, education, and/or intellect to be in leadership positions in politics they are entitled to those positions. When they aren’t successful, they naturally assume that external factors must be the problem since, ipso facto, it can’t be their fault.

    Given that Justin isn’t good at learning from his mistakes, it’s just as well that Kevin Vuong, the winning candidate in Spadina-Fort York, isn’t planning on stepping aside. If he did, I’d bet there would be a 70 percent chance that Justin would offer to appoint Paul as the Liberal candidate in the ensuing by-election, and a 95 percent chance she would accept.

  4. While I don’t think for a moment that the timing of the election was directed at undermining the Greens, it is fairly clear to me that if the election was held next spring, Paul would have had enough time to establish her credibility and get past the party infighting that erupted over the summer. Whether she could have accomplished that is something I can’t judge. But the fact that the party went into conniption fit mode so close to an election gave no opportunity to recover, whether massaging wounds or selecting a new leader, and gave voters serious doubts about the policy direction of the party. As I told a friend, you can’t win a game when your star player has two broken legs and a concussion.

    What I can’t understand is how the party of Irwin Cottler and Herb Gray welcomed a floor-crosser with such open arms,; someone who felt she couldn’t remain in a party that wasn’t critical enough of Israel. At least ask her to sit as an independent for a while before taking her into the caucus. I would hope that no one in the PMO is bonehead enough to recommend Atwin for a cabinet position, simply because of gender and regional balance. She may be smart and popular, but she has established herself as NOT a team player. That’s not what you want in your inner circle.

  5. Pingback: Roundup: Green insiders spill the tea | Routine Proceedings

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