Annamie Paul

Paul started her involvement with politics early, working as a page in the Ontario Legislature at age 12, and later as a page at the Canadian Senate, and as an Ontario Legislature intern for the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals in 1996.[8][9] She attended high school at Toronto's Runnymede Collegiate Institute and holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Ottawa and a Master in Public Affairs from Princeton University.[10][8][11] She was called to the bar in Ontario in 1998.[12]

She was the founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Political Leadership from 2001 to 2005 and has worked in civic engagement and international affairs positions, including in political affairs in Canada's Mission to the European Union and in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.[13][14][2][15] She is co-founder of the Barcelona International Public Policy Hub (BIPP HUB).[16] She speaks English, French, Catalan and Spanish.[15]

Paul is the older sister of Canadian actress Ngozi Paul, twin sister to Luther, and is married to international human rights lawyer Mark Freeman.[12] Her mother is from Nevis and her father from Dominica.[17] Paul converted to Judaism in 2000, the faith of her husband.[18]

In 2001, Paul started the Canadian Centre for Political Leadership (CCPL),[19] whose work was supported by a fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation[20] and support from the Maytree Foundation. The CCPL was an organization focused on helping women, Indigenous persons, and people of colour to pursue public offices.[21][22] Through the CCPL, Paul ran training sessions across Canada,[23] as well as conferences devoted to participation in elected roles and board appointments.[24][25] Participants in the CCPL's programs went on to achieve those objectives, being appointed and elected to boards and political staff positions.[26]

In 2017, Paul co-founded the Barcelona International Public Policy Hub (BIPP HUB), a social enterprise co-work space designed to be a catalyst for international NGOs working on global challenges.[27][28][29] Aside from providing support, the hub also hosts individual projects including democraciaAbierta, the Spanish language branch of OpenDemocracy,[30] Verificat, a Catalan language news fact-checking service, and the Climate Infrastructure Project.[31]

In 2019, Paul co-created the 1834 Fellowship to train young Black Canadian policy leaders, a project of Operation Black Vote Canada.[32]

Paul interned for Liberal MPP Dominic Agostino in 1996, who served as Gerard Kennedy's leadership campaign co-chair. She stated she interned for him to see what a leadership campaign looked like.[33]

Paul with Green Party supporters, several weeks prior to the 2019 Canadian federal election

Paul moved back to Canada and won the Green nomination for Toronto Centre in July 2019. She stood in the 2019 federal election as the Green Party candidate in Toronto Centre, where she lost to then-Finance Minister Bill Morneau.[34][35][36] Soon after her nomination, she was appointed to the Green Party's Shadow Cabinet as International Affairs Critic by Elizabeth May, a position she held until February 2020, when she stepped down to enter the leadership race.[37][2]

In March 2020, she was the first candidate registered to run in the race to be the 9th leader of the Green Party of Canada.[38] She called the leadership race, the first one since 2006, an "opportunity for renewal" for the party.[34] On September 24, 2020, Paul announced that she had received permission from the Green Party to apply to be a candidate in the October 2020 federal by-election in Toronto Centre.[4]

On October 3, 2020, Paul was elected leader of the Green Party of Canada, becoming the first Black Canadian and first Jewish woman to be elected leader of a major political party in Canada.[2][39][40][41] She won 54.53% of votes on the final round of voting, defeating runner-up Dimitri Lascaris and 6 other candidates.

On October 26, Paul placed second in the Toronto Centre by-election, increasing her proportion of the vote by just over 25% from the 2019 race.[42] Paul has decided to run in Guelph or a Toronto area electoral district in the next federal election.[6][7]

She is an Action Canada Fellow,[9][43] Echoing Green Fellow,[12] member of the University of Ottawa Common Law Honour Society,[44] alumna of the Government of Canada Recruitment of Policy Leaders Program,[45] and a recipient of the Harry Jerome Award.[46]