Elizabeth May Bio
Elizabeth Evans May OC MP (born 9 June 1954) is a Canadian politician, environmentalist, lawyer, activist, and author. She has served as the Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011 and is the leader of the Green Party of Canada. May is the first Green Party member elected to the House of Commons and the longest-serving female leader of a Canadian federal party.
Before entering federal politics, she was the founding executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada from 1989 to 2006. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 for her decades of environmental leadership and has written eight books on environmental and public-policy issues.
Early Life and Background
Elizabeth Evans May was born on 9 June 1954 in Hartford, Connecticut, in the United States. She is the daughter of Stephanie (Middleton), a sculptor, pianist, and writer, and John Middleton May, an accountant who served as Assistant Vice President of Aetna Life and Casualty. Her father was born in New York City and raised in England, while her mother was also a native New Yorker. May has a younger brother named Geoffrey, and her mother was a prominent anti-nuclear activist whose beliefs shaped the household.
In 1972, the family relocated to Margaree Harbour, Nova Scotia, after a visit to Cape Breton Island. They purchased and operated a converted schooner, the Marion Elizabeth, as a gift shop and restaurant, which they ran until 2002. May relinquished her U.S. citizenship in 1978 when she became a Canadian citizen, in accordance with American nationality law at the time.
She attended St. Francis Xavier University in rural Nova Scotia but dropped out before returning to Margaree Harbour, where she took correspondence courses in restaurant management. Beginning in 1980, she attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, graduating in 1983 with a degree in law. She later studied theology at Saint Paul University, a federated college of the University of Ottawa, before withdrawing from the program due to scheduling demands.
Path to Politics
May first gained attention in the Canadian media in the mid-1970s through her volunteer leadership in a grassroots movement that opposed proposed aerial insecticide spraying near her home on Cape Breton Island. The campaign successfully prevented aerial spraying in Nova Scotia, and May later joined a local group that secured a temporary court injunction in 1982 halting herbicide spraying, though the case was eventually lost and legal costs forced her family to sacrifice their home and seventy acres of land.
In 1980, May and others launched the Small Party to raise environmental and anti-nuclear issues. The party ran twelve candidates in six provinces in the 1980 federal election, and May, then a 25-year-old waitress, ran against former Deputy Prime Minister Allan J. MacEachen in Cape Breton Highlands—Canso, finishing last with 272 votes.
Following her graduation from Dalhousie, May worked as an environmental lawyer in Halifax before moving to Ottawa in 1985 to serve as Associate General Counsel at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. In 1986, she was named Senior Policy Advisor to Environment Minister Thomas McMillan in the Progressive Conservative Mulroney government, where she helped negotiate the Montreal Protocol and was instrumental in creating several national parks, including South Moresby. She resigned in 1988 on principle after permits were issued for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan without proper environmental assessment.
Elizabeth May Career
Early Career (1989–2005)
In 1989, Elizabeth May became the founding executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, a position she held for seventeen years. During her tenure she helped build the organization from its infancy into an effective national entity and received several awards for her environmental leadership, including the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990, the award for Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education from the Ontario Society for Environmental Education in 1996, and appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada in November 2005.
She also co-founded the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund, served as the first volunteer executive director of Cultural Survival Canada from 1989 to 1992, and worked with the Algonquin of Barriere Lake from 1991 to 1992. In 1998, she became the first holder of the Elizabeth May Chair in Women’s Health and Environment at Dalhousie University and taught courses at Queen’s University School of Policy Studies.
Green Party Leadership (2006–2019)
On 9 May 2006, May entered the Green Party of Canada’s leadership race and won the election on 26 August 2006 on the first ballot with 65.3 percent of the vote. In the fall of 2006, she ran in a London North Centre by-election, finishing second to Liberal candidate Glen Pearson in what was, at that time, the Green Party’s strongest by-election performance.
In 2007, May announced she would run in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova in the 2008 federal election against Conservative National Defence Minister Peter MacKay. The Liberal Party agreed not to run a candidate there in exchange for the Greens not running against Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion in his safe riding. After being initially excluded from the televised national leaders’ debate, May was eventually invited to participate and received 32 percent of the vote in Central Nova against MacKay’s 47 percent, while the Greens took 6.8 percent of the national popular vote.
In 2010, following a survey of favourable electoral districts, May announced her intention to run in Saanich—Gulf Islands in British Columbia against Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn. Despite being excluded from the 2011 national televised leaders’ debate, she won the riding, defeating Lunn and becoming the first Green Party MP ever elected to the House of Commons.
Member of Parliament Era (2011–Present)
As MP for Saanich—Gulf Islands, May tabled a Private Member’s bill, Bill C-442, aimed at creating a national framework to address Lyme disease. The bill received royal assent on 16 December 2014, becoming the first piece of Green Party legislation enacted in Canadian history, passed with unanimous consent by both houses of Parliament.
May became a prominent voice in Parliament, voted Parliamentarian of the Year in 2012, Hardest Working MP in 2013, and Best Orator in 2014 by her colleagues. In 2015, she was the first MP to take a stand against Bill C-51, tabling sixty amendments during clause-by-clause consideration, all of which were rejected. She also secured the first Green Party amendments to a government bill ever adopted when two of her amendments to Bill C-46, the Pipelines Safety Act, were accepted on 23 April 2015. On 23 March 2018, May was arrested for civil contempt during a demonstration against the Kinder Morgan pipeline and later pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of court on 28 May 2018, receiving a $1,500 fine.
Notable Events and Milestones
One of May’s signature achievements is Bill C-442, Canada’s first national framework for addressing Lyme disease, which she steered through Parliament to unanimous passage. She is also recognized for her early opposition to aerial insecticide spraying on Cape Breton Island, which prevented Nova Scotia from being sprayed with Agent Orange, and for her role in the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol as a senior policy advisor in 1986.
Elizabeth May Career Wins
Elizabeth May has built a career marked by groundbreaking political firsts, including becoming the first Green Party member ever elected to the House of Commons in 2011 and the longest-serving female leader of a Canadian federal party. Her legislative wins include the passage of Bill C-442 on Lyme disease and the first Green Party amendments ever adopted to a government bill in Canada.
Green Party Highlights
May won the Green Party of Canada leadership on the first ballot in August 2006 with 65.3 percent of the vote and led the party through several general elections. She returned to the leadership in November 2022 on a joint ticket with Jonathan Pedneault, won re-election in Saanich—Gulf Islands in the 2025 federal election, and became the party’s sole representative in Parliament.
Other Wins & Achievements
May received the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990, the Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education award from the Ontario Society for Environmental Education in 1996, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005.
Elizabeth May Family
Family Background and Public Service Lineage
May is the daughter of Stephanie (Middleton), a sculptor, pianist, writer, and prominent anti-nuclear activist, and John Middleton May, an accountant who served as Assistant Vice President of Aetna Life and Casualty. She has a younger brother, Geoffrey, and her mother was a native New Yorker while her father was born in New York City and raised in England.
Personal Life
May has one daughter, Victoria Cate May Burton, with former partner Ian Burton; Victoria ran as the Green candidate in Berthier—Maskinongé in 2015. On 27 November 2018, May announced her engagement to John Kidder, brother of actress Margot Kidder and one of the founders of the Green Party of British Columbia, and the two married on 22 April 2019 at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, British Columbia. May is a practising Anglican who has expressed interest in becoming ordained as an Anglican priest and has named Jesus Christ as her personal hero.