Elizabeth May

Elizabeth May is an environmentalist, writer, activist and lawyer. She has been active in the environmental movement since 1970. she first became known in the Canadian media in the mid-1970s through her leadership as a volunteer in the grassroots movement against aerial insecticide spraying proposed for forests near her home on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The effort prevented aerial insecticide spraying from ever occurring in Nova Scotia. Years later, she and a local group of residents went to court to prevent herbicide spraying. Winning a temporary injunction in 1982 held off the spray programme, but after two years, the case was eventually lost. In the course of the litigation, her family sacrificed their home and seventy acres of land in an adverse Court ruling to Scott Paper. However, by the time the judge ruled the chemicals were safe, 2,4,5-T’s export from the U.S, had been banned. The forests of Nova Scotia were spared being the last areas in Canada to be sprayed with Agent Orange.

Her volunteer work also included successful campaigns to prevent approval of uranium mining in Nova Scotia, and extensive work on energy policy issues, primarily opposing nuclear energy.

Elizabeth is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School and was admitted to the Bar in both Nova Scotia and Ontario. She has held the position of Associate General Council for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, representing consumer, poverty and environment groups in her work.

In 1986, Elizabeth became Senior Policy Advisor to then federal Environment Minister, Tom McMillan. She was instrumental in the creation of several national parks, including South Moresby. she was involved in negotiating the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer and new legislation and pollution control measures. In 1988, she resigned on principle when the Minister granted permits for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan as part of a political trade-off, with no environmental assessment. The permits were later quashed by a Federal court decision that the permits were granted illegally.

Elizabeth is the author of five books, Budworm Battles (1982), Paradise Won: The Struggle to Save South Moresby (1990), At the Cutting Edge: The Crisis in Canada’s Forests (Key Porter Books, 1998, as well as a major new edition in 2004), co-authored with Maude Barlow, Frederick Street; Life and Death on Canada’s Love Canal (Harper Collins, 2000), and most recently, How to Save the World in Your Spare time (Key Porter Books, 2006). Frederick Street focused on the Sydney Tar Ponds, and the health threats to children in the community – the issue that led her to protest in front of Parliament Hill over a seventeen-day hunger strike in May 2001.

She has served on numerous boards of environmental groups and advisory bodies to universities and governments in Canada, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the national Round Table on Environment and Economy and is currently is a member of the Earth Charter International Council, co-chaired by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. Elizabeth is the recipient of many awards including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Sierra Club in 1989, the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, and the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990. In 1996, she was presented with the award for Outstanding leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society for Environmental Education. In 1998, the “Elizabeth May Chair in Women’s Health and Environment” was created in her honour at Dalhousie University. She holds honourary doctorates from Mount Saint Vincent University and the University of New Brunswick. She is also the recipient of the 2002 Harkin Award from the Canadian parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). In 2006, Elizabeth was presented with the prestigious Couchiching award for excellence in public policy. Most importantly, she is the mother of fifteen year-old Victoria Cate.

In March 2006, Elizabeth stepped down as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada, a post She had held since 1989, to run for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. she was successful in her bid, was elected the Green Party’s ninth leader at their national convention in August 2006 with a clear majority of the votes.

Elizabeth is an Officer of the Order of Canada since 2005, and is the mother of fifteen year-old Victoria Cate.