Elizabeth May, seen celebrating her re-election last October in Victoria, hopes to settle the question of her Green Party leadership Monday morning.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
Elizabeth May is poised to make a decision regarding her future as leader of the federal Green Party – one that could come as early as Monday morning.
Ms. May, who has led the party for nearly a decade, has said she is considering quitting the post after the Greens passed a resolution at an early August policy convention backing sanctions against Israel.
The leader has tentatively booked a news conference for Monday morning in Ottawa but it's still unclear whether she will have resolved the matter by then. She was scheduled to hold a teleconference with Green Party executive officials Sunday night but weather-related flight delays threatened to affect her schedule.
Ms. May, who has been mulling her options during a vacation in Nova Scotia, has said she could step down if her party doesn't reconsider its newly adopted policy on economic measures against Israel.
The resolution, approved by party members, says the Greens support "the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions (BDS) that are targeted to those sectors of Israel's economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation" of disputed territories to which Israel and the Palestinians have claims.
The Green Party Leader said Sunday she hoped to get the matter wrapped up Monday morning before hearings at the special parliamentary committee for electoral reform resume later the same day. She's a member of that committee and said she'd prefer attention in Ottawa be focused on witnesses appearing at the hearings.
Ms. May has attributed the passage of the anti-Israel resolution to a number of factors including "single-issue people" joining the Green Party just to vote to support the BDS motion.
Regardless of whether she remains leader, Ms. May intends to run in the next federal election. She said her priority is representing the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands.
One of the Green Party's deputies said Sunday it would be a "great blow" if Ms. May quits the helm.
Daniel Green, a Quebec environmentalist who joined the party specifically because Ms. May asked him, said he is hopeful she will be persuaded to stick with the Greens as they attempt to close the policy divide on Israel.
"If she was in front of me now, what I would tell her is 'give us a chance to try to resolve this issue,' " Mr. Green told The Canadian Press.
"Elizabeth is the figurehead, is the heart and soul of the Green Party of Canada."
The Greens won 3.45 per cent of the popular vote in the 2015 election, down from 3.91 per cent in the 2011 ballot and a more significant drop from 6.80 per cent in the 2008 election.
With files from The Canadian Press
Steven Chase