Mike Morrice to learn if he has mandate as Green Party prepares to announce leader

OTTAWA · The Green Party of Canada will announce its next leader on Saturday evening, with the party's sole candidate, MP Mike Morrice, awaiting the results of a membership vote. Morrice is running unopposed after the only other candidate withdrew, but members are still casting ballots using a ranked system that includes the option "none of the above." The vote proceeds because participatory democracy is a founding value of the party, Morrice said. Outgoing leader Elizabeth May announced her departure after the 2025 federal election and plans to hand over leadership this month.

"As someone running, it is important to me that I do have a mandate for members. And we'll see what that mandate looks like," Morrice said. He suggested it would be difficult for the party not to proceed with the vote, noting that leading with values is what attracted him to the Greens. The leadership search began officially in June, and the second candidate, Nira Dookeran of Ottawa, dropped out in September. Dookeran said in a statement she made the decision "for personal and family reasons" and "after much soul-searching."

Morrice was elected to Parliament in 2021 but lost his Kitchener Centre seat in the 2025 election by 358 votes. Soon after the defeat, he was named deputy leader of the party and declared the next Green candidate for Kitchener Centre. He has travelled across the country to meet members from Nanaimo, B.C., to Charlottetown. "I've enjoyed having the chance to connect with Greens, to talk about both the challenges we faced as a party, but also get their ideas on the path forward," Morrice said.

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Éric Grenier, a polling analyst and publisher of The Writ, said if an election was called today, Morrice would be a competitive candidate along with May, who has been the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands for 15 years. "But apart from that, the Greens aren't really in a strong position anywhere," Grenier said. He called the uncontested race a missed opportunity for the party. "Certainly a contested race with some a number of quality candidates would have been a better outcome for everybody involved," Grenier said. "It's helpful for engaging members. It's helpful for raising money. It's helpful for getting media attention."

The Greens endured one of their worst defeats in the April 2025 election, with the party's national vote share dropping below two per cent for the first time in 25 years. The party's co-leader, Jonathan Pedneault, failed to secure a seat and resigned. May was first elected Green Party leader in 2006 and stepped down in 2019 before returning to lead the party in 2022 following the resignation of Annamie Paul. She remains the party's sole member of Parliament.

With files from CBC News