Eighteen came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MP Elizabeth May. After her Territorial Acknowledgement, a chance for each of us to introduce ourselves, and some kind words about ASK Salt Spring, Elizabeth told us about her delight with her baby granddaughter, Lily, born October 2024. Already a loving grandmother to 11 step-grandchildren, she has been totally blown away by the overwhelming love she has for little Lily.
She spoke, also, of her recent visit to a secondary school in Ottawa. Aware of a general feeling of sadness and overwhelm among our youth, she discovered a way to convey a message of hope to these students: She shared the story of how Lily frequently wakes up by stretching one arm straight up, hand in a fist. Elizabeth encouraged her young audience to mimic this move, stretching and chanting ”The Babies United Will Never Be Defeated!” Despite troubling times, this chant rang through the young audience – and on Friday, at our SIMS classroom – giving much-needed energy to counter the pervasive world worries. Things can be bad, but a small gesture like this one, taken in community, can help us all to feel better, revitalizing our sense of hope and power. Before beginning questions, a participant added her appreciation of Elizabeth’s refusal to despair, lauding her “can do” attitude.
Elizabeth’s first question concerned the likelihood of getting federal money to complete our Salish Sea Trail. (For more information on this project, you may want to read: https://asksaltspring.com/2026/05/08/when-will-we-get-our-salish-sea-trail/). We learned that the participant asking about federal funding had spent 40 years trying to get this trail completed. Recently, he and his wife had donated $25,000 to Islands Pathways to fund the survey of Vesuvius Bay Road, the segment expected to be completed first. He reminded us of that familiar quote. “If you build it, they will come,” asking Elizabeth how we can get federal money to help build this important trail.
Elizabeth emphasized the importance of this trail to so many locals and visitors, promising that she will do what she can to secure support for the years-long initiative. However, despite this understanding, she is not hopeful that our current government shares her view of the importance of either active transportation or the environment. It will be an uphill battle.
As one example, Elizabeth is deeply concerned as our emission of greenhouse gasses continue to climb, a worrisome trend and a stark contrast to European successes. From “Ax the (Carbon) Tax” to a pipeline deal with Alberta, in Elizabeth’s opinion, our government has made decision after decision that further gut active transportation and environmental initiatives, including pausing of home energy retrofit and electric vehicle rebates. While some of these incentive programs may be reinstated Elizabeth, is mystified by some of Prime Minister Carney’s choices.
Elizabeth met with Prime Minister Carney near the end of last year and tried to get him to support public transportation as a way to keep Canadians safe. Supported by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report) as essential to safe transport, Elizabeth was bemused that Carney did not seem to understand this connection between public transportation and safety for our most vulnerable. Without this transport, too many, especially in rural areas, must depend on sometimes-dangerous hitchhiking to get to their destination.
Instead, Elizabeth told us that 71% of our new government spending is allocated to defense and preparation for war. While she recognizes that a driving force for Canadian initiatives is threat from the United States, she is saddened that local needs appear to be forgotten. With a federal emphasis on nuclear power, mining, a northern pipeline, and fast-tracking projects deemed important, she sees important local and environmental issues being ignored.
She is deeply worried about the recently passed Bill C-5 (https://www.parl.ca/documentviewer/en/45-1/bill/C-5/first-reading), particularly that this bill will circumvent essential First Nations consultations and environmental assessments. Elizabeth is watching to see how many corporations will take this fast-track approach. While supported by legislation, she suspects that corporations may not want to be the first, concerned about allegations that they are breaking other laws by using this expedited process.
Elizabeth also spoke with great sadness and mystification of a detail of the passing of the November 4, 2025, budget. Elizabeth and Steven Guilbeault, former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, had worked hard to include a statement in this budget that would make enhanced oil recovery ineligible for Investment Tax credits (a subsidy). When the government’s agreement with Alberta regarding a new bitumen pipeline was released on November 27, 2025, the Prime Minister broke commitments he had made directly to Elizabeth and broke his own budget by making enhanced oil recovery eligible for this Investment Tax credit. Guilbeault resigned from Carney’s Cabinet in protest.
When asked what she would do differently, Elizabeth reminded us that she had been talking and writing about our need for economic sovereignty for more than three decades. She strongly believes that we must take control of our own resources. Instead of selling raw materials to huge multi-national corporations, we should be exporting value-added products, increasing their value as well as Canadian jobs. She compared Canada’s huge export of raw lumber with Sweden’s lucrative export of furniture. Likening Canada to a colony treated as a source of valuable materials, she would like us to take control of our resource wealth by multiplying its value (and Canadian jobs) by exporting products rather than raw materials.
Did you know that the only strategic reserve Canada maintains is maple syrup? As part of asserting its sovereignty, Elizabeth also wants Canada to develop strategic reserves of certain raw materials to process and sell at the optimal time. She would like to see us build up a reserve of potash (needed in corn-growing states for fertilizer) as well as aluminum, currently being sold to the US for about $15 billion a year. Shouldn’t Canada keep them in reserve, ready to use or sell at the highest profit?
Elizabeth sees a pipeline as a classic example of Canada’s role as a colony offering raw resources to the corporations who reap the profits by creating products from these valuable resources. While Prime Minister Carney has stated that this pipeline is “Essential for national unity,” she wonders if there are less destructive ways to keep Alberta in Canada.
Elizabeth was encouraged by the recent court ruling that Alberta cannot hold a referendum to separate from Canada (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clypn8py4zwo), due to the impact this separation would have upon Indigenous treaties that were signed before Alberta was a province. She is worried that, were there a referendum, foreign influences may influence the outcome, like the much-studied Brexit decision. In Elizabeth’s opinion, First Nations are the glue that holds Canada together, and she has called on Prime Minister Carney to embrace the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – UNDRIP (https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf).
Suspecting that some of the new directions and decisions of our government use a sledgehammer when a scalpel would do, Elizabeth is concerned and baffled. Acknowledging that the Prime Minister was brilliant in his Davos 2026 speech (https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/), encouraging unity of “middle powers,” Elizabeth would have preferred a call for unity and collaboration among democratic nations that respect human rights and the climate.
Elizabeth sees hope that Canada will step into the global leadership vacuum and remains committed to holding Canada to this aspiration. She encourages more cooperation with Brazil and the Scandinavian countries, as well as continued – and enhanced – support for Cuba and Greenland, two nations with which Canada has a long history of cooperation.
As our time together was too quickly over and Elizabeth had to dash off for an interview on CHIR.fm, ASK Salt Spring Answered, we applauded and many of us hugged Elizabeth, deeply appreciating her for her wisdom, courage, tenacity, and good cheer in deeply troubling times. (Thanks, Elizabeth!)
Just in case you are interested. . . .This report has been written by Gayle Baker, founder of ASK Salt Spring, currently also a Salt Spring Local Community Commissioner. It has been reviewed by Elizabeth and her Team.