After spending 10 days in Ukraine at the start of Russia’s invasion, journalist, documentary filmmaker and author Jonathan Pedneault decided it was time to return to Canada and start making a contribution at home after years spent abroad; much of it in conflict zones. That decision turned into a run for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada alongside former leader Elizabeth May as hopeful co-leaders.
“I have mostly been documenting horrible events around the world, and decided to give back to this country, because we take too much for granted,” Pedneault says over a coffee in Ottawa. “We are all too complacent in our own politics and our own way of living, and we’re headed straight toward immense storms and, sadly enough, we are clearly not prepared. I think the Green Party is the one party that has consistently warned about these things, and now we need to make sure the party can continue to do this in a strengthened way.”
When it comes to what his experience as a gay man of colour he can bring to politics, Pedneault says that he has an awareness that society is built and operates around a number of prejudices.
“It’s changing now, perhaps positively, and I see more and more young people come out proudly in high school—not everywhere in the country—but we’re certainly seeing a normalization at least of diversity, which I think brings a lot of good,” Pedneault says. “But in order to survive as a gay teenager, one needs to build quite a bit of resilience and empathy, and I think that empathy is crucial in politics.”
Pedneault grew up on the south shore of Montreal with a single mother in fairly difficult economic circumstances, and a grandmother who struggled with mental health issues. He also grew up gay in a very Catholic family. He watched as his grandmother’s sisters went to Rwanda in the 1950s to teach, instilling in him the value of going abroad to give back, and the awareness that we are privileged in Canada.
“At age 15, I watched the film Hotel Rwanda, which was highly fictionalized in many ways, but it was also powerful, and I wondered how it was possible in 1994, the world could sit by and watch this happen and not do anything about it,” Pedneault says. “It made me quite angry. I started to give talks in my high school and other high schools, talking about genocide, talking about the Shoah and Rwanda, and [was] empowered by very strong teachers who were supportive.”
Pedneault says that when he was 17, he had the “crazy idea” to go to Darfur with documentary filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau, brother of current prime minister Justin Trudeau, for Radio-Canada. From there, the pair did a second documentary on maritime geopolitics, and were in Egypt and Libya at the time of the Arab Spring. They also ventured to Somalia to look into piracy and how a strong state could crumble. Pedneault was in Yemen shortly before the current conflict, and became a journalism instructor in the Central African Republic and in South Sudan for two years. From there, Pedneault took up positions with Amnesty International for a year, and Human Rights Watch for six years.
“I’ve always had the desire to do politics at some point,” Pedneault says. “It’s an extremely daunting perspective, especially these days. It’s highly demanding, your life is under scrutiny, and you lose the benefits of civilian life, so to speak, to engage in an extremely divisive and toxic world in many ways. It took a long time for me to come to this decision.”
While in Ukraine, Pedneault says that his former employer didn’t plan enough for the invasion in spite of the warning signs and appeals to have contingency plans.
“I ended up crossing into Ukraine at night from Poland with a colleague of mine in flak jackets, driving past sixty kilometres of cars that were parked to get out of the country, and my thoughts just wandered back to Canada,” Pedneault says. “Where is Canada? Justin [Trudeau] has been saying Canada’s back in the world, and to be quite honest, I haven’t seen that, and I’ve been out in the world. When it comes to Ukraine, clearly, we are faced with an unstable world at a time when we need unity to face global challenges such as climate change. If there is one immense threat we face, it is that.”
Pedneault says that in this regard, he is less optimistic than May, feeling that Canada is headed for significant warming, and that the country needs to invest now to protect communities. At the time of our conversation, he had just returned from the Magdalen Islands in Quebec in the wake of Hurricane Fiona, speaking to people about the damage they suffered as a result.
Pedneault decided to jump into the leadership race because the Green Party needs strong leadership after two years of internal struggle, and believes that his experience leading teams in conflict zones can help.
“It’s no secret that the Green Party is in a state of crisis, and has been for the last two years,” Pedneault says. “It’s an important voice in Canadian politics, it’s one that should be empowered and it’s one that—with the right conditions—would be able to win more seats. That work needs to start as soon as possible, and the best contribution I can make to Canadian politics is to make sure we have a strong Green Party that can run a good slate of candidates who can get elected.”
Initially, Pedneault had not intended to run as a co-leader, and sought out May’s advice for his run, which she was happy to provide. A few weeks later she approached him about running as co-leaders.
“I told her that I like the idea in principle, but you and I don’t know each other very well, and I’m not going to jump in a boat without us getting to know one another better,” Pedneault says. He went out to Vancouver Island and spent a week with her there, where they had a lot of discussions about policy, their pasts and how they handle crises.
“I got to know her better,” Pedneault says. “She really was a feminist trailblazer in many ways, taking her daughter with her to international conferences abroad, participating in the Montreal Protocol negotiations. She’s done amazing work for all women in this country, so she’s not just a climate activist, and she started at a young age as I did, but about Agent Orange, so our trajectories were quite similar in many ways.”
May says that she was impressed by Pedneault, and that she was hoping to find someone to be a co-leader, based on advice she had received from Green Parties around the world that it was a model that works in countries like Germany, New Zealand and Sweden.
“You really need to form a deep relationship of trust and respect, and be really a team, so I was hoping I might find someone who might fit the bill, and when Jonathan came to ask me for advice, after a couple of meetings, I popped the question,” May says. “What had impressed me was his depth of wisdom, sensitivity and kindness. He’s an amazingly good listener. For 32 years old, he’s just got such impressive judgment.”
May acknowledges that he brings more diversity than “one older white lady who’s straight,” and that he balances her out. “We clicked, and we trust each other. I can’t get over how brave he is. After all of the conflict regions he’s been in, I don’t know how he can be so deeply kind and loving toward humanity when he’s seen the worst of it.”
Pedneault says that the advantage of co-leadership will allow May to continue to advance the party’s work in the House of Commons, while he could do the work across the country to rebuild the party at the grassroots level. He says that while the process has been tiring, particularly as an introvert, he does enjoy the work because he gets a lot back from it.
When it comes to the current political climate around queer and trans people in public life, Pedneault notes that when he was 17, he went into Darfur on the back of a pickup truck driven by rebels—that he’s someone who understands risks, and how to navigate them.
“Resilience is something we will all need moving forward,” Pedneault says. “We will be faced with more challenges in our daily lives, whether it’s inflation, whether it’s the housing crisis, whether it’s climate change. Canadians need to be more resilient toward the coming storms, and our job as politicians is to build that resilience, and that starts by talking truthfully to Canadians.
“I don’t want to say that my queerness will define my political thought, and I’m one to believe that diversity is important, but diversity is not the apex,” Pedneault says. “We all bring different experiences, including straight white heteronormative people, and everyone’s voices should be listened to. But for all too long, the voices of people like me have not been listened to, so having the privilege of being hopefully a spokesperson for them is something that I look forward to, if I’m elected.”
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