Top 60 Elizabeth May Quotes

I don’t think that anyone is for abortion in the sense that you hope people are going to have abortions. You hope in an ideal world that every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy.

I believed Justin Trudeau in 2015. I thought he would be a climate leader. I was wrong.

The oilsands will be phased out by 2030 or 2035.

It’s clear that the Green party loves Quebecers deeply. At the same time, we are Canadians!

The safest way to ship bitumen is by rail. Now, there are other things that you get doing it that way. There’s probably more greenhouse gases in shipping it by rail. I think certainly there are.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was less than respectful for the people with whom I work.

Andrew Scheer talks about an energy corridor. So do I, but his corridor is for pipelines and mine is an electricity grid that’s running 100 per cent on renewable energy.

God, we don’t have nearly enough skilled carpenters, electricians, plumbers for the work that needs to be done in taking every single building in Canada and making it carbon-zero, a net-neutral building, by improving insulation, modernizing furnaces, improving the geothermal possibilities, heat pumps.

Democracy is too important to be left to politicians.

The Lester B. Pearson era is what I hope to replicate.

The greatest level of hostility and venom, really, is between parties closest to each other on the political spectrum.

I don’t use the word ‘lying’ easily.

We import a lot of oil, particularly to eastern Canada, from Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, a lot from the U.S. So if we’re looking at how do we phase out fossil fuels in the period in which we’re phasing them out, let’s only use Canadian.

I prefer the Greens to remain an opposition party that’s able to hold the government to account.

Anyone can have a bad night and anyone can have a bad attempt at comedy.

I’m a sort of in the moment, good on my feet kind of person.

I’ve been working with every single government since June 1992 to try to get climate action.

My funny speech wasn’t funny. That’s not the first time a politician has done that.

Politics is awful.

It’s not as if being leader of the Green party is something that I do because I love being leader of the Green party. I love the Green party and this is a service.

But if we keep doing politics the way we’re doing politics, and we keep doing climate action the way we’re doing climate action, we will not have a history that judges us because we, certainly as a civilization, won’t be here.

When we talk about product by pipeline or product by rail we need to be highly specific about what product we are shipping and under what terms and for what purpose. Solid bitumen by rail is safe as houses, but as again crude by rail poses different risk.

I really think a minority Parliament delivers better democracy in Canada when parties are prepared to cooperate.

Women care about a wide range of issues – climate change, social justice. What the Green Party tries to do is apply gender analysis to a whole lot of questions that people might not think of as women’s issues. For instance, women in developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate crisis.

We have an existential crisis, which is the climate crisis. Canada is one of the laggards in the industrialized world. Our record is terrible.

Individual actions are important because in any democracy, citizens need to feel agency. If you feel powerless, totally powerless, it’s psychologically dangerous.

I’m not interested in a balance of power in order to have power for the Green party. What I’m interested in is the balance of responsibility.

I’ve been a feminist all my life, or at least as long as I’ve been conscious of being a woman.

I’m a firm believer that if we could restore real parliamentary democracy, the best way to do that would be to get rid of political parties.

People who are good at maintaining a deep oil well will also be very helpful in converting it to a geothermal green energy source. People who have been laying pipe, it’s the same skill as putting up a wind turbine.

I know that when I was on my hunger strike, I reacted very negatively to people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.

I think it’s quite unlikely that I’ll be the leader of the Green party going into a future election if it’s on anything like a four-year timing.

I can work with anyone.

One of the things I hate about politicians, I shouldn’t say I hate things, but one of the things I hate about politics is people who repeat the same talking point over and over and over again.

ncrementalism is out, and doing deals with people just for power, when our children’s futures at stake is not something I will ever do.

I don’t love being Leader of the Green Party. It is not really something I’d recommend to a good friend. It’s not fun.

I wanted to repeat we cannot vote confidence at any point on a confidence motion in a government that fails to have a climate target that’s ground in science and consistent with what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we must do.

I certainly know that the NDP and the Liberals talk about understanding climate science; they just haven’t put forward anything that suggests they actually understand it.

But Alberta has the best potential of any province for solar energy. It has enormous potential for wind power. And so replacing coal in Alberta with wind and solar is totally doable, and good for their economy.

We cannot ever accept a government that thinks they can get away with tiny targets on climate which they then don’t achieve.

I was part of Environment Canada’s work to stop acid rain, create national parks, clean up the Great Lakes, develop new environmental legislation and negotiate the treaty that saved the ozone layer.

I loved practising law when I practised law.

I would rather not to have to fly across the country at all, but obviously, as a federal party leader, I do.

Politicians in Canada should not put their religion on their sleeve.

I’m a sort of in the moment, good on my feet kind of person.

For all my life I have had a deep connection to the natural world.

I want a group of Green MPs who will demonstrate to Canadians that it’s possible to be respectful, ethical, hard working and actually stick to principle.

Ah, the first NAFTA was really, had a lot of disastrous elements for Canada’s environment.

When we talk about product by pipeline or product by rail we need to be highly specific about what product we are shipping and under what terms and for what purpose. Solid bitumen by rail is safe as houses, but as again crude by rail poses different risk.

Within the Green Party, we have candidates from every faith and religion and a lot who don’t believe there is a God and wonder why anyone would be so foolish as to think so. And everyone is respected and welcome.

Once you got a solar panel on a roof, energy is free. Once we convert our entire electricity grid to green and renewable energy, cost of living goes down.

I don’t like protecting pharmaceutical industries and increasing their profits and making our drugs cost more. If the U.S. Democrats could get rid of those problems I’d be much happier.

Whether we make it a condition or just through persuasion or just through popular support, whatever it takes, we really do need to shift through a system of voting where the way the Canadian public votes is the way the Canadian Parliament is formed after the election.

For as long as we’re using fossil fuels at all, globally, Canadians should be using Canadian sources.

I am always interested in looking for the strongest possible leadership.

I ran for parliament in 1980 as an independent against Allan J. MacEachen.

I don’t think that, you know, adherence to ignorance is really something that encourages voters to support you.

Justin Trudeau certainly understands climate science, as do his ministers. But they’re refusing to take action on it because of short-term political concerns.

The movement across Canada to fight toxic chemicals is a women’s movement. It’s a concern about health; it’s very intimate.

First and foremost we are Earthlings.