The Greens' new deal

Who is Annamie Paul, the new leader of Canada's Green party?

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings.

On Saturday night, the Green Party of Canada ticked a whole bunch of "nation's first" boxes by electing a Black Jewish woman to lead their party. Annamie Paul, a lawyer from Toronto, won the hotly contested race on the eighth and final ballot. Paul was the frontrunner throughout the race, having raised the most money ($260,000) and earning the most endorsements. She will hit the ground running in the Oct. 26 byelection in Toronto Centre, the riding of former finance minister Bill Morneau.

Maclean's Marie-Danielle Smith sat down for an in-depth Q&A with Paul to understand her roots and vision for the Greens in 2020 and beyond.

While Paul mostly campaigned on environmental causes—raising the carbon tax, banning fracking, levying new taxes on high-emission imports—her election has disappointed Greens who were hoping for a more radical shift away from the relatively moderate stances of former leader Elizabeth May. One clear dividing line has been Israel, with many insiders pushing for the party to formally adopt stances one could call pro-Palestinian or anti-Semitic, depending on one's political leanings. To illustrate the divide, look no further than Saturday night's runner-up: lawyer and activist Dimitri Lascaris, a self-described "eco-socialist" who is well known in Canadian Jewish circles for his aggressive and litigious anti-Israel stance, lost the leadership race with 10,081 votes to Paul's 12,090 on the final ballot. Paul, who converted to Judaism in 2000 and is married to a Jewish man, endorses a two-state solution and condemns Israeli expansion in the West Bank, but has been mum on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that's popular within the party. Add that Paul is a capitalist, and you'll find some aggravated Green supporters.

Trump's diagnosis. Most of the news this weekend swirled around Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis, including conflicting reports by the White House's physician, Sean Conley. First we thought Trump wasn't on oxygen, then it was revealed he was; his condition was improving, but we later learned it was in frightening shape hours earlier. We know Trump has been given a steroid treatment of dexamethasone to raise his blood oxygen level, and he's well enough to have taken a drive around the hospital , potentially endagering secret service members who had to sit in a car with him with the windows rolled down. Trump's team is hoping he will return to the White House today.

The president's illness earned a brief allusion in the 46th season premiere of Saturday Night Live, which is notable here only because the world's favourite '90s Canadian comedy star, Jim Carrey, made his debut as Joe Biden. The result is... fine. If you want this newsletter writer's honest opinion, the overlong 13-minute (!) cold open is a typical reminder of just how far SNL has fallen.

If you had a baby around May or June: congratulations! Your child may well have been Canada's 38-millionth person. StatsCan reported that the national population topped 38 million on July 1, 2020, capping a year of modest population growth (411,854 new Canadians, up 1.1 per cent from the previous year). That growth is slightly down from the previous two years, both of which exceeded 500,000 new Canadians, but that downturn is presumably because of the border closure from March.

The Canada Revenue Agency tells CBC News that Canadians have voluntarily returned more than 830,000 instances of COVID emergency benefits. A CRA spokesperson cites mistaken applications, returning to work earlier than expected and accidental double applications for the reasons. Regardless of whether these good Samaritans returned the money because they didn't want to contribute to Canada's ballooning deficit or didn't think they could get away with it, it's a nice gesture. The government's critics interpreted the revelation as proof that the Liberals sent mixed messages by quickly pushing out these programs without clarifying eligibility first.

For her part, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough admitted the Liberals rushed their relief rollout on CBC's The House this weekend. It jibes with a familiar defence Justin Trudeau has used in the past: uncharted territory, Canadians needed help quickly, and so forth. When asked if the government programs could have been improved with review by parliamentary committees, Qualtrough replied, "I would say probably. I don't know. I mean, I think we ended up in a really good place."

A good gamble. In his latest 338Canada column at Maclean's, Philippe J. Fournier believes B.C. Premier John Horgan may get as lucky as the premier of New Brunswick, Blaine Higgs. The latter's minority government got boosted to a majority after a controversial election call during the pandemic last month. According to 338Canada's exclusive poll, conducted by Mainstreet Research, even though British Columbians didn't like Horgan's election call, they still like Horgan: the NDP is enjoying a commanding lead with 39 per cent support, followed by Liberals with 29 per cent.

Elsewhere in provincial politics: With an election just three weeks away, the Saskatchewan Party has booted one of their candidates after learning that he promoted a wide range of fringe conspiracy theories. Daryl Cooper was running in Saskatoon Eastview, a riding left vacant since Corey Tochor resigned in 2019 to run for the federal Conservatives. On Friday, Press Progress reported that Cooper posted several COVID-19 conspiracy theories to Facebook, including that it was caused by 5G technology ("Interesting," he noted) or sunspot cycles. Cooper also liked several tweets related to baseless QAnon conspiracy theories. Premier Scott Moe swiftly condemned the conspiracies during a press conference with his party's new candidate, Chris Guérette.

Doing Twitter right. In a broad plea and excellent Twitter thread, the comms team behind Ottawa Public Health reiterated in 10 tweets why social distancing matters, especially now, during a critical turning point in the pandemic. In brief: hospitals, labs and long-term care homes are working at capacity right now. The public has to step up and stay safe. Prevention, as they say, is the best medicine.

—Michael Fraiman

Politics News & Analysis