An Accidental Canadian Finds Her Environmental Footing

For Ms. May, her parents’ impulsive move soon meant trading a life of relative affluence for periods of near poverty. Undergraduate life at Smith was exchanged for years of waiting tables and cooking in a restaurant. And instead of her parents’ circle of politically active friends, including George McGovern and a young Bill Clinton, there were villagers who were suspicious of, and sometimes unfriendly toward, all who were, as they put it, “from away.” That situation, however, gave Ms. May a perspective that was critical in her development into one of Canada’s most prominent environmentalists. After founding the Sierra Club of Canada and running it for almost 17 years, Ms. May has emerged as the leader of the Green Party of Canada, an also-ran in Canadian politics but a group with a platform nonetheless. Under Canadian election law, the 5 percent of votes the party won in the past two national elections entitles it to about 1 million Canadian dollars a year, or about $800,000, in government campaign financing. And in Ms. May, the party — which has yet to send a single member to Parliament — has its first leader who is a well-known figure. Ms. May’s switch from environmentalism to politics was prompted, she says, by the election of a minority Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper in January. “I was going through a nail-biting, wrist-slashing phase of my life known as watching Harper get to victory,” she said. Perhaps the most surprising factor in Ms. May’s ascent is that she has overcome misgivings about her American upbringing, though she did become a Canadian citizen. Many Canadians, particularly voters on the left, are mistrustful of politicians who have simply lived in the United States, not to speak of being born there. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1014-02.htm [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 16, 2006]

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