Sometime next year, after an expected fall election has been waged, she expects to face a leadership review.
But Zatzman scoffs at the idea that he has placed Paul’s career in peril, and he maintains there is a serious problem of anti-Semitism inside the Greens.
Zatzman had never met Annamie Paul until July of last year, an introduction made through mutual family friends.
Between 2011 and 2015, Zatzman served as publicist for Bell Media’s Discovery channel.
Zatzman joined the effort to win Paul a seat in last October’s federal byelection in Toronto Centre.
Zatzman views his contribution to the October effort the “most important thing” he did for Paul.
“I ended up dropping all my clients,” he explained.
As Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched rockets into Israel and Israel waged air strikes on Gaza, the Green Party, on May 10, issued a statement calling for “an immediate de-escalation in the violence and a return to dialogue as a means to seeking a peaceful solution.” For some in the party, that did not go far enough in criticizing Israel’s policies and methods.
“There’s an old-school notion on Parliament Hill that only the 338 MPs and the prime minister’s chief of staff have the agency to say anything.
His great uncle Joseph Zatzman was the first Jewish mayor in Canada east of Montreal — in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia from 1964 to 1967.
Zatzman also clarified that he wasn’t calling for Manly’s and Atwin’s defeat during the federal election.
“He said that if in transforming the party to make it more mainstream we lose Jenica Atwin, along the way, oh well, big deal,” said May, the Green MP for the B.C.
This was a serious transgression for anyone in any leader’s office in any party in the history of any democracy that I can think of,” she said.
Zatzman said he considers May “a great friend of the Jewish community” and recalled how he was moved to tears nearly four years ago when he and now-former Supreme Court justice Rosalie Abella sat together in the Commons gallery and watched May deliver a highly emotional speech following the federal government’s official apology for Canada’s decision to turn away the MS St.
“We were friends,” said Zatzman, who told The Tyee that he “begged Jenica to retract” her tweet in text messages he sent to her now-former chief of staff, Shannon Carmont, over the course of two days.
In it, Goldenblatt noted that he is the son of Montreal Jews who immigrated to Israel in 1972 as Zionists.
“Jews can move freely while Palestinians have to face humiliation and endless delays at checkpoints.
Zatzman said the committee reached out to him seeking an explanation as to why he accused the MPs of anti-Semitism along with a request for “documentation” to prove his claim.
As he told The Tyee, the requests caused him to be incredulous.
The party reportedly is so cash-strapped that the federal council might pull back $250,000 allocated for her election campaign in the federal riding of Toronto Centre.
Elizabeth May, he said, was well aware of Atwin’s discontent.
May rejected that characterization.
All information submitted to The Tyee is only available to employees or sub-contractors who are bound by agreement with The Tyee to keep the information private.
Comments that violate guidelines risk being deleted, and violations may result in a temporary or permanent user ban.