Elizabeth May

An environmental activist since her teens, Elizabeth May left her position as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada to run successfully for leader of the Green Party of Canada in 2006. Elizabeth May, who is a lawyer and author, is media savvy and knows how to get attention for her causes. Although she failed to win a seat in Parliament when she ran in a by-election in London North in 2006, it may well be under her leadership that the Green Party elects its first member of parliament.

1954 in Connecticut. Moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia as a teenager.

LL.B. - Dalhousie University Law School, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Environmental activist, lawyer and writer

Green Party of Canada

• Elizabeth May was an environmental activist as early as the 1970s when she became involved in Cape Breton Landowners Against the Spray, a campaign against the use of aerial spraying of insecticides by the forest industry in Cape Breton.

• After graduating from law school in 1983, Elizabeth May worked as Associate General Council at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

• In 1986, Elizabeth May was appointed Senior Policy Advisor to Tom McMillan, Environment Minister in the Brian Mulroney cabinet. She resigned when the minister granted permits for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan without an environmental assessment.

• Elizabeth May has been involved with many natural resource management and environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth Canada, the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund, Cultural Survival Canada, Pollution Probe, the Canadian Environmental Network, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

• In 1989, Elizabeth May became Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada.

• Elizabeth May became Assistant Professor, Elizabeth May Chair in Women's Health and Environment at Dalhousie University in 1998.

• In 2001, Elizabeth May undertook a 17-day hunger strike on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to have families living near the Sydney Tar Ponds in Cape Breton moved to a safer location.

• Elizabeth May stepped down as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada in 2006 to run for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. She was elected leader in August 2006.

• Elizabeth May ran as a federal candidate in a by-election in the riding of London North in November 2006. She finished second.

• She plans to run in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova in the next federal election.