OTTAWA – The Green Party of Canada has accepted the nomination of Dr. Courtney Howard as a contestant for the party’s leadership.
Voting will take place from September 26 to October 3, online and by mail-in ballot. The party will announce its new leader in October. The new leader will replace Elizabeth May (MP, Saanich-Gulf Islands) who stepped down in November last year after 13 years in the position.
Dr. Courtney Howard is an emergency physician in Yellowknife, N.W.T. and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. After a time working on a pediatric malnutrition project with Médecins Sans Frontières, she now serves a majority-Indigenous community in Canada’s arctic and subarctic.
Dr. Howard led policy work for the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, and has done research on menstrual cups, wildfires, eco-anxiety and eco-grief.
She is the first female president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). She co-chairs the Advocacy Committee of the WHO-Civil Society Working Group on climate change and health and sits on the board of the Canadian Medical Association.
Courtney and her partner, pediatrician Dr. Darcy Scott, live with their daughters Elodie and Vivi in Chief Drygeese Territory, traditional home of the Yellowknives Dene and traditional lands of the North Slave Metis.
All Green Party of Canada members in good standing are eligible to vote in the leadership election. For more information on contestants, contest rules and how and when to vote, go to:
When sharing information about Dr. Howard, please note that she identifies as female, and uses she/her pronouns.
# # #
For more information or to arrange an interview:
Rosie Emery
Press Secretary
613-562-4916 ext, 204