Experiments in Co-Leadership in Canada
Two political parties with elected members in Canadian parliaments have or appear to be in the process of adopting co-leadership models. Although the co-leadership option has become well-established among some parties in other countries, this type of structure is still somewhat of a novelty in Canada. In this article, the authors illuminate examples of co-leadership in international contexts, outline the pros and cons of this type of arrangement according to existing political science literature, and explore how co-leadership has worked or may work among its Canadian adherents. The authors conclude that while the co-leadership model has multiple democratic and practical benefits, leadership arrangements where there is centralization in a heroic leader have clear advantages in an era of brand-based politics and that it remains unlikely that parties in government or on the cusp of forming government will adopt this system in the near future.
Devin Penner, Mireille Lalancette and J.P. Lewis
Devin Penner is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies at Trent University. Mireille Lalancette is a professor in Political Communication at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. J.P. Lewis is a professor in the Department of History and Politics at the University of New Brunswick Saint John.
In today’s era of market-oriented, brand-based politics, the leader is especially central to a party’s election strategy. Campaigns often focus more on building a positive image for the leader than on developing innovative policy ideas, and party members are increasingly loyal to a particular leader instead of the party itself. What we have seen over the past few decades is the entrenchment of a “heroic” model of leadership in Canadian political parties. One potential problem with this idea of heroic leadership could be described as the romanticization of leadership. Decisions and achievements are associated with an individual leader, ignoring the many actors involved in developing and implementing a policy or initiating social change.1 While leaders may be seen as solely responsible for achievements, the flipside is that they may be held solely responsible for mistakes as well. Failure is not tolerated, and people are quick to discard leaders who make mistakes.2 What results is a version of party politics centred on the search for a new savior. The Conservative Party of Canada can certainly attest to this dynamic, holding three leadership contests in the five-year period from 2017 to 2022 to find someone who can defeat the Justin Trudeau-led Liberals. As well, within the trappings of the Westminster system, centralization of power in the leader’s office is now seen to be inevitable; the ascension of a dominant leader is a certainty in the Canadian political system.
It seems hard to imagine an alternative to this heroic model of party leadership and the certain centralization of power. However, in recent years we can see the beginnings of one in Québec solidaire’s model of co-leadership, a model that also popped up in two recent team entries into the Green Party of Canada’s leadership contest. In this brief article we examine these initial experiments in co-leadership in Canadian party politics and argue that co-leadership is worth considering as a way to renew party leadership and improve party democracy. Before examining the Québec solidaire and Green Party cases, the following section provides a brief introduction to the concept of co-leadership.
What is Co-Leadership?
Co-leadership (a.k.a. dual leadership) simply means having two leaders instead of one. Alternatively, a party could have a leadership “triad” or “constellation.”3 Dividing leadership positions between more than one person seems like a simple change, but it introduces an important shift in orientation: leadership is seen as something formed in dynamic, interactive social processes, not as a quality possessed by individuals.4 For this reason, co-leadership is a step in the direction of collective or shared leadership, broader terms that stress the blurring of the distinction between leader and follower and a less hierarchical conception of leadership interactions. The result is contrary to Canadian federal and provincial political cultures, which have historically been framed in very hierarchical terms.
Within the category of co-leadership, several further distinctions can be made. We can distinguish first between institutionalized co-leadership and ad hoc or informal forms of co-leadership such as a prime minister or party leader who has a close personal relationship with their deputy.5 The focus of this article is on institutionalized forms because of the longer-term implications they have. Since Canada has a limited history of parties experimenting with co-leadership, we must look to other countries for models. Within the category of institutionalized co-leadership, we can think about two further questions:
Individual versus team elections? Co-leader elections can be structured so that each of the two leaders is elected individually (e.g. Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand), or they can be elected together as a team (e.g. German Social Democrats in 2019). If co-leaders are elected individually, there is a further question as to whether terms are staggered or if the two leaders are always elected at the same time. With regard to team candidacies, there is a further question as to whether solo candidates seeking to lead the party on their own are also allowed to run (e.g. Green Party of Canada 2022 leadership contest).
Representational quotas versus open elections? Co-leadership often (but not always) involves a gender quota to ensure women’s representation (e.g. Québec solidaire). Similarly, there could be ethnic or other quotas, or multiple overlapping quotas. For instance, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand requires that there is at least one female co-leader, and that there is at least one Māori co-leader.6 While this is an example of representational quotas in individual co-leader elections, team elections could also have quota requirements. For instance, the 2019 German Social Democratic Party leadership contest allowed candidates to run on their own for solo leadership or as teams for co-leadership, but team entries had to have at least one female.
Which options are preferable will depend on the main reason for supporting co-leadership. Team elections are particularly valuable if the goal is to ensure complementarity and cohesiveness among the co-leaders. However, individual elections are better if the goal is to have two distinct leaders that represent different constituencies.
Why Co-Leadership? And Why Not…
The Green Party of Canada and Québec solidaire are both minor parties within their respective party systems. Neither party has yet to garner seat totals which would have them on the cusp of forming government and require serious contemplation of how to fit co-leadership into a working legislative arrangement. For now, the risk of experimenting with alternate leadership configurations is low; assessing the pros and cons are influenced by the low risk of adopting a new style of leadership. Again, it is experiences of parties in other jurisdictions which allows us to contemplate the risk and potential benefits.
Since Green parties tend to prioritize decentralized organizational structures, it is not surprising that several Green parties have adopted some form of collective leadership. This includes the dual or co-leadership model, which is used by Green parties in Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The last of these, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, is a useful case study of the benefits of the practice because it has used co-leadership with considerable success since 1995.
The benefits of co-leadership can be divided into democratic/normative benefits and more practical benefits. The most obvious democratic benefit is that co-leadership provides a check on the power of an individual leader. There is an automatic second opinion, someone to consider or even challenge the other leader’s initial inclinations on an issue. In interviews, the first co-leaders of New Zealand’s Green Party (Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald) both noted how significant it was that this second opinion came from a person who was their equal – that they attached much greater weight to the advice of a fellow co-leader.7
This accountability benefit can be framed even more clearly in terms of democracy. The conversation between co-leaders creates a space in which other views can be brought forward. Two co-leaders who agree on most things will still disagree on some things, and this disagreement creates an opening for party representatives and the general membership. The greater the difference between the co-leaders, the greater the opening will be. Quotas, such as the New Zealand Greens’ requirements of female and Māori representation, similarly ensure the representational benefit that the two co-leaders can reflect diverse constituencies.
There are also several practical benefits to co-leadership. A notable one, stressed in the voluminous management and administration literature on collective leadership, is that roles can be divided between two leaders with complementary skills.8 For instance, the first co-leaders of the New Zealand Greens, Fitzsimons and Donald, had different areas of expertise: Fitzsimons had a more academic background and was strong on policy; Donald had more of an activist background, and excelled at media and campaign work such as developing soundbites and slogans.9 Similarly, the second pair of co-leaders, Metiria Turei and Russel Norman, had different skillsets and knowledge: Turei was more charismatic and Norman more attuned to policy details; Turei was strong on social policy issues, while Norman was seen as a “credible spokesperson on economic matters.”10
In addition to complementary skills, co-leadership allows a logistical division of labour. One co-leader can be out campaigning while the other is recording advertisements or preparing for a debate. Fitzsimons claimed that co-leadership often led to extra media coverage too, as each co-leader would receive attention if they held separate events.11 Another practical benefit of co-leadership is that it can allow for greater organizational continuity. The New Zealand Greens have had staggered leadership transitions, changing one co-leader at a time, and this has been at least partly intentional.12 With staggered transitions, there is no need to start from the beginning each time a new leader is elected. There is a potential democratic benefit too, as the focus is de-centred from continually changing individual leaders to a more constant leadership team.
Finally, co-leadership makes leadership less isolating and allows time off. This might increase the pool of candidates willing to put their name forward for a very intense and demanding job.13
The main drawback to co-leadership is the challenge it poses to having a coherent, unified campaign: the media’s focus is split and the possibility of mixed messages increases. It should be noted that – for good or for bad – co-leadership did not prevent the professionalization of the New Zealand Greens and the party’s shift to becoming more pragmatic, election-focused, and market-oriented.14 But message consistency and brand identity in the context of co-leadership requires that co-leaders are in constant communication and their public appearance is carefully managed. For instance, in 2005 interviews, Fitzsimons and Donald indicated they did not feel the need to be in perfect harmony, but they did not want their messages to be too far apart either. They were concerned the media or their staff would “drive a bit of a wedge” between them.15
This possibility of a “wedge” between co-leaders will be greater if co-leaders have significant ideological or other differences. Indeed, the flipside of using co-leadership to represent diverse constituencies is that it might exacerbate divisions within the party. While this has not been a major problem for the New Zealand Greens, there are cases in which this tendency is quite apparent. For instance, scholars examining the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfG) suggest co-leadership posed a significant challenge for message discipline. As Heinze and Weisskircher put it, “the absence of strong leadership has provided plenty of opportunities for the public expression of internal disagreement.”16 Similarly, Campus et al. suggest the relationship between AfG co-leaders has been largely conflictual and competitive because they see their primary role as representing party factions. Instead of compromising and working in a complementary manner, they describe AfG co-leadership as “engaged in a disconnected parallel performance” and generally ineffective.17 While switching to team elections would lead to greater collaboration and complementarity between co-leaders, the trade-off is, of course, that key factions within the party might not think their views are represented by either member of the leadership team.
With these comparative examples in mind, in the next two sections we review the two Canadian cases of co-leadership. It is difficult to compare the Québec solidaire and the federal Green Party experiences since the time frames of their co-leadership arrangements greatly differ, but the exercise provides more context for the Green Party case as we move closer to the next federal election campaign.
Québec Solidaire and Co-Leadership
At the time of its founding, Québec solidaire (QS) marked the imagination of political organizations, citizens and the media by adopting two spokespersons (one man and one woman) rather than one leader. It thus broke with an approach centered on a single leader who embodies the values of the party and is responsible for holding it accountable. To understand the QS co-spokesperson approach, it is necessary to delve into its genesis and the socio-political context that led to its formation. The historical context suggests the choosing of two spokespersons is not insignificant and is more broadly inscribed in the wider values and principles that feed into all the decisions made by the party.
Québec solidaire was created on February 4 and 5, 2006 from the merger of Union des Forces Progressistes (UFP) and Option citoyenne (OC). Despite its growing popularity, the party has not yet been in contention to form government.18 Currently the third largest party in the National Assembly, QS did not make any major breakthroughs in the two previous general elections that would give it a more prominent status in the legislature, but it did elect more MNAs than ever before (10 in 2018 and 11 in 2022, respectively).
Nevertheless, as Dufour notes, “the emergence of QS marks, in several respects, an important transformation of political dynamics and constitutes a significant event in contemporary political history.”19 What are these transformations? First, QS is explicitly left-wing. It also attracts younger and more educated voters and it is more progressive than nationalist.
The first two co-spokespersons were Françoise David, who was the spokesperson for Option citoyenne, and Amir Khadir, who was the spokesperson for Union des Forces Progressistes (UFP) at the time of the merger. Khadir, who won the riding of Mercier (located in Montreal) in 2008, was the first member of the party elected to the National Assembly. In 2012, David won a seat, and QS has continued to slowly increase its seat totals in the National Assembly since that time.
Dufour notes that the creation of the party is part of a specific socio-political context following the failure of the 1995 referendum, the new leadership of the Parti Québécois in 1996 and the mobilizations related to the free trade treaties.20 International examples also inspire QS activists, including the Brazilian Workers’ Party and the election of its presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in October 2002.
Dufour notes, “The internal organization of QS also constitutes a novelty in the Quebec political landscape that imposes a certain learning curve on all political stakeholders, including the media. Indeed, despite its entry into Parliament, Québec solidaire has chosen to pursue the original path it had traced at its founding.”21 Thus, in a desire to “renew the ways of doing politics,” the formation has valued the place of women, emphasized parity in its bodies and, as far as possible, consensual decision-making.22
This new way of doing politics includes the desire to “foster collective leadership, not leadership embodied in an all-powerful leader.”23 The result is the formula of two spokespersons, one man and one woman who are elected separately. One leader is to act as the parliamentary spokesperson and the other as the external spokesperson. The mandate of the latter is to act as a liaison with the parliamentary team and with social movements. Collegiality within the party is also found in the National Coordination Council, which is composed of 12 to 14 members and respects gender parity. Along a similar line, discussion and debate are considered central to the decision-making process at party conventions.24
The principles adopted at the party’s first Congress are still valid in 2023. The first article of the party’s founding document states, “We are environmentalists,” which aims to show the importance given to this issue. It is followed by: “We are of the left,” “We are democrats,” “We are feminists,” “We are alterglobalists,” “We are of a plural Quebec,” and finally “We are of a sovereign and united Quebec.”25 The party’s novel approach to leadership is no doubt related to the resolute nature of its ideology.
François Saillant notes the adoption of a co-leadership model was controversial at the time of the party’s founding. In his words, “These modes of operation clash with the dominant habits in which parties have a well-identified leader who is considered responsible and to whom journalists can turn, and an established, almost immutable program.”26 Although the idea of collegiality seems difficult to accept even almost 17 years after the party was founded, the media seems to have become accustomed to it. This acceptance does not mean that other parties will adopt this way of operating—for QS, co-leadership, collegiality in decision-making, and a greater presence of women in politics are choices based on specific values held within the party. These three elements place QS outside the traditional functioning of political parties in Canada. Recent developments in the federal Green Party of Canada could find it in a similarly anomalous position.
The Green Party of Canada and Co-Leadership
A week after leading the federal Green Party to a disappointing result in the September 2021 general election, leader Annamie Paul announced that she would resign as leader, triggering a 2022 Green Party leadership election. The campaign officially began on May 24, 2022; on August 30, the party announced that six candidates were approved by the party to run. While these steps followed the normal transition of party leadership in Canada, a difference emerged when the candidates were announced: four of the six candidates were running as two-candidate teams following the co-leadership model.27 Anna Keenan and Chad Walcott would be one co-leadership bid, and former leader Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault would be the other. Due to the position of the Green Party in Parliament (two out of 338 seats) and its low popular support in recent polls and elections(2.3 per cent of the vote in the 2021 federal election), the announcement drew curiosity from media outlets, but it was not a major story in the Canadian political landscape. Still, the rarity of this political configuration in both historical and contemporary Canadian politics makes the co-leadership experiment worthy of attention.
Although a new development for Canada, as mentioned earlier, co-leadership is not new to Green Parties. For instance, the Swedish Green Party has used a co-spokesperson model since 1984, Germany followed in 1993 and New Zealand in 1995. The tradition of co-leadership from their international counterparts was featured on the leadership campaign website landing page of May-Pedneault: “Like many Green Parties around the world, we believe the Green Party of Canada should move to the model of co-leadership.”28 When May announced her intention to run to take back the leadership of the party she led from 2006 to 2019, she also made it clear that she thought she and Pednault would make a particularly effective co-leadership team. In her words, “[He] is not just a dear friend but a clear, equal partner. I know I can make a much bigger difference as co-leader than as former leader.”29
The duo’s plan was to leverage the practical benefits of co-leadership. There would be a division of labour, with May advancing the party’s case in Parliament while Pedneault would spend his time touring Canada to build support for the party – a pragmatic plan built more on splitting duties than on congealing ideological positions. To ensure cohesiveness and minimize the possibility of disruptive conflict, May and Pedneault wrote a Memorandum of Understanding before running as co-leaders. The aim is to help them reach consensus on issues where they disagree. For instance, May supports the monarchy and Pedneault prefers Canada to become a republic.30
For May and Pedneault’s co-leadership opponents, the Keenan-Walcott team, the democratic benefits of co-leadership appear central to their decision to run under the model. In the section of their campaign website titled “Democratic Renewal,” the candidates note, “we believe that electoral reform is needed to end ‘the cult of the leader’ and the unilateral decision-making culture that currently exists in Canadian politics.”31 These sentiments clearly echo criticisms of the “heroic” model of leadership and “romanticization of the leader.”
Going beyond the specific reasons for co-leadership put forward by the teams that ran in the 2022 leadership contest, the timing of the idea’s introduction in Canada’s Green Party must be noted. The party had experienced the most tumultuous period in its brief history following Paul’s election as party leader in 2020. Party infighting, which was reported widely in the media, culminated in a disappointing showing in the 2021 federal election. Pedneault, May’s co-leadership partner, claimed during the leadership campaign that the party was in “severe crisis” and resembled a “boat about to capsize or the house on fire.”32
With the victory of Elizabeth May on November 19, 2022 (the final ballot had May at 58.1 per cent over Anna Keenan at 38.5 per cent), the Green Party has a new leader and a future with co-leadership; however, this future will not begin until the party amends its constitution to allow the arrangement. Until the amendment of the party constitution, Jonathan Pedneault will simply be the party’s Deputy Leader, not its Co-Leader.33 It remains to be seen how smoothly and fully the party adapts to co-leadership. Will its 2022 experiment be a one-off or mark a transition to an institutionalized version of co-leadership? Ultimately the success of the Green Party’s experiment with a co-leadership model will depend on whether it provides a way to resurrect the party from a tumultuous period of crisis. At least one election cycle must pass before this model can be effectively evaluated.
The Future of Co-Leadership in Canada
Co-leadership remains a minor experiment in Canadian politics, despite the recent successes of Québec solidaire and the emergence of the idea in the federal Green Party. It is unlikely this status will change any time soon, as centralization in a heroic leader has clear advantages in an era of brand-based politics and the dominant parties (and their heroic leaders) have little incentive to give up this approach. But in Québec solidaire and the federal Green Party we see a glimpse of an alternative, one that is worth exploring further.
In the two Canadian cases we see very different reasons for adopting co-leadership.34 Québec solidaire opted to go this route mainly for ideological reasons, related to its social movement roots and a commitment to democratic values. For the Green Party of Canada, the experiment with co-leadership cannot be dissociated from the period of crisis from which the party hope to emerge – co-leadership represents an attempt at renewal, and a second effort to transition the party beyond May’s longtime leadership. The idea of using co-leadership to ensure continuity while May gradually steps back again suggests that practical benefits have been at the forefront of the Green Party’s flirtation with the idea. But this pragmatism has the opportunity to develop further, as the party considers if and how to institutionalize the practice and perhaps showcase its democratic benefits on the national stage.
Nevertheless, the political system and the ways politics is being mediatized makes it difficult for the co-leadership or co-spokesperson model to work. Changing the approach to leadership means more than co-leadership, it means reviewing how the political system works and is being presented to electors during and in between electoral campaigns.
Notes
1 James Meindl, Sanford Ehrlich, and Janet Dukerich, “The Romance of Leadership,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 30(1), (1985): 79, https://doi.org/10.2307/2392813.
2 Willem Fourie and Florian Höhne, “Thou Shalt Not Fail? Using Theological Impulses to Critique the Heroic Bias in Transformational Leadership Theory,” Leadership, 15(1) (February 2019): 44, https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715017730453.
3 Jean-Louis Denis, Ann Langley, and Viviane Sergi, “Leadership in the Plural,” Academy of Management Annals 6(1) (2012): 231, https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2012.667612.
4 Mary Uhl-Bien, “Relational Leadership Theory: Exploring the Social Processes of Leadership and Organizing,” The Leadership Quarterly 17, no. 6 (2006): 655, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.007.
5 Informal forms of co-leadership could be described as “power sharing” as opposed to more formal “position sharing” arrangements. See Donatella Campus, Niko Switek, and Marco Valbruzzi, Collective Leadership and Divided Power in West Europe Parties (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2021), 21, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75255-2_4.
6 Michael Neilson, “No Changes Afoot, Green Party Co-Leaders Say, after Scrapping Male Rule,” New Zealand Herald, May 3, 2022, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/green-party-co-leaders-say-no-changes-afoot-after-scrapping-male-rule-adding-maori-requirement/4WBIHYSIJMUOHFV4AP6NZHHANM/.
7 Jeanette Fitzsimons quoted in Eva Hartshorn-Sanders, “Co-Leadership and the Green Party: A New Zealand Case Study,” Political Science 58, no. 1 (2006): 45, https://doi.org/10.1177/003231870605800103.
8 In the management literature this complementarity is framed as the bridging of professional and managerial logics. For instance, a leadership dyad in a health organization could consist of a medical professional and an administrator to deal with the competing demands of health and finance. See Émilie Gibeau et al., “Bridging Competing Demands through Co-Leadership? Potential and Limitations,” Human Relations 73, no. 4 (2020): 465–66, https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719888145.
9 Hartshorn-Sanders, “Co-Leadership and the Green Party,” 48; Neil James Miller, “How Is Co-Leadership Enacted in the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand” (Thesis, Massey University, 2016), 46–48, https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/11094.Massey University, 2016
10 Thomas O’Brien, “Leaving the Minors: The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and the 2011 General Election,” Representation 49, no. 1 (2013): 75, https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2012.751047; Miller, “How Is Co-Leadership Enacted in the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand,” 67.\\uc0\\u8221{} 67.”
11 Hartshorn-Sanders, “Co-Leadership and the Green Party,” 44.
12 Fitzsimons said she had developed a transition plan with Rod Donald in which she would retire from co-leadership first, but she delayed her retirement because of Donald’s sudden passing in 2005. See “Green Party Stalwart to Leave Parliament,” Otago Daily Times Online News, January 28, 2010, https://www.odt.co.nz/news/politics/green-party-stalwart-leave-parliament.
13 Justin Ling, “Unfollow the Leader: The Case for Power Sharing in Political Parties,” The Globe & Mail, April 26, 2019, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-unfollow-the-leader-the-case-for-power-sharing-in-political-parties/.
14 As of 2011, the party is described by several commentators as leaving behind its “more amateur past” with a “highly professionalized and polished campaign.” Bryce Edwards and Nicola Lomax, “‘For a Richer New Zealand’: Environmentalism and the Green Party in the 2011 New Zealand General Election,” Environmental Politics 21, no. 6 (2012): 996–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2012.724219. A similar narrative can be found in O’Brien, “Leaving the Minors,” 75–78.
15 Fitzsimons quoted in Hartshorn-Sanders, “Co-Leadership and the Green Party,” 48–49.
16 Heinze and Weisskircher, “No Strong Leaders Needed?,” 264.
17 Donatella Campus · Niko Switek · Marco Valbruzzi, Collective Leadership and Divided Power in West Europe Parties, 115, 125–29.
18 Pascale Dufour. «Québec solidaire: au-delà du tiers parti…» In Réjean Pelletier (dir.) Les partis politiques québécois dans la tourmente. Mieux comprendre et évaluer leur rôle. Québec : Presses de l’Université Laval, 333-360.
19 Ibid., 333 (our translation)
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 351 (our translation)
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Québec solidaire, «Statuts provisoires. Tels qu’adoptés par le congrès», Montréal, 4 février 2006b, 16 pages. (our translation)
25 François Saillant,(2020) Brève histoire de la gauche au Québec, (Montréal: Écosociété, 2020), 229;, «Déclaration de principes», Montréal, 2006a, https://quebecsolidaire.net/propositions/nos-principes (our translation)
26 Saillant, Brève histoire de la gauche au Québec, Montréal: Écosociété, 352 (our translation).
27 David Thurton, “Green Party leadership candidates launch their campaigns.” CBC News. August 30. 2022. Accessed at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/green-party-elizabeth-may-1.6567083 on November 8, 2022
28 Jonathan Pedneault and Elizabeth May. Jonathan Pedneault and Elizabeth May Site, 2022. Accessed at https://elizabethmay.ca/ on November 20, 2022.
29 Ian Bailey, “May eyes return to Greens top job, but this time as a duo.” The Globe and Mail. August 31, 2022.
30 Sean Silcoff, “May pledges to turn down the heat in Green Party,” The Globe and Mail, November 21, 2022.
31 Anna Keenan and Chad Walcott. Keenan Walcott Leadership Site, 2022. Accessed at www.keenanwalcott.ca on November 8, 2022.
32 Althia Raj. “‘It was akin to couples therapy’ : Elizabeth May reveals the reasons behind her comeback – and why she’s sharing the spotlight.” Toronto Star. August 31, 2022.
33 Silcoff, “May pledges to turn down the heat in Green Party.”
34 On the main reasons for adopting co-leadership, see Campus, Switek, and Valbruzzi, Collective Leadership and Divided Power in West Europe Parties, 33-40.