Greens improve on last election, win three seats nationally

By Liza Yuzda, Hana Mae Nassar

VICTORIA, B.C. – It’s not the result they were looking for, but the Greens will take it: the party has won three seats across the country.

Leader Elizabeth May was re-elected in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, while Paul Manley secured another seat further up on the Island in the riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith. In a first for the party, the Greens won their first ever federal seat in New Brunswick on Monday, with Jenica Atwin winning the riding of Fredericton.

“The good news is, Andrew Scheer owes me $50,” May joked as she took to the podium in Victoria, B.C. on Monday night. “We made a small wager at the end of the English-language debate, in which I said definitely he wasn’t going to be prime minister.”

While the Greens improved on their performance in the last federal election, they didn’t pick up as many seats as they had hoped for.

Six seats or more would have put May over the moon, she said earlier in the night from Victoria, B.C. However, at the end of the day, May said getting more seats than the party had won four years ago is a win, regardless.

She congratulated the other leaders, including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau on his win, but noted the big winners in this federal race were the Greens and the Bloc Quebecois.

“We have more than doubled our popular vote, and tripled our seat count,” she said.

As it stands, May said the Canadian Green Party has achieved more than most Greens around the world in a first-past-the-post system.

“We will keep fighting across this country. We know that we had great candidates — we’ve never had as many finishes in close seconds and in 10 per cents,” May said, adding her party has been handed an opportunity.

“We know we can work hard and through… hard work, and a sense of duty, and deep ethics, we can make a really significant contribution in a minority parliament, and we will.”

Highlighting the environment — a major pillar of May’s campaign — during her speech, the Green leader vowed her party would do whatever it took to fight climate change.

May added her Green Party is now the only one with two thirds women.

The Greens would have needed 12 seats to achieve official party status, federally.

Despite the party picking up triple the number of seats as it did in 2015, May’s team said there will be — as there is after every election — a review of her leadership.

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