I'm supporting Elizabeth May

With all the attention being paid the Liberal leadership race, and an exciting race it's shaping up to be, we tend to overlook the fact another political party will be electing a leader even sooner. I refer of course to the Green Party which will be holding its biennial leadership vote in Ottawa in late August. The only declared candidate so far is David Chernushenko, candidate for the Greens in Ottawa Centre in the past two elections. Current leader Jim Harris will announce his intentions next week.

But, adding a note of excitement to the race, indeed making it a race, Elizabeth May, Officer of the Order of Canada and executive director of the Sierra Club, has announced she may run. After 17 years of being one of the best-known voices of environmental activism, she is resigning from the Sierra Club to take up other challenges. She will be looking for tips from the country's political class at the award ceremony for Brian Mulroney whom she nominated as Canada's greenest prime minister.

She is distressed at the "easy ride" the opposition parties are giving the Harper government on environmental issues because of their fear of an election. She feels that as leader of the Green Party she could offer the much-needed political criticism. The leadership of the Greens in the last election was debilitatingly weak, and the dynamic and proven Ms. May may be just the remedy.

Anyone or anything that can bring more pressure to bear on a government whose environmental policy drifts somewhere between confused and cavalier is welcome.