Former Kitchener Centre MP Mike Morrice is running to become the next leader of the Green Party of Canada, placing one of Waterloo Region’s most recognizable political figures at the centre of a contest that could determine whether the federal Greens rebuild as a national party or remain concentrated in a handful of local strongholds.
Morrice is one of two candidates approved to enter the leadership process. His opponent is Nira Dookeran, an educator, community organizer and longtime Green campaigner from Ottawa. Although both have passed the party’s initial review, neither will be officially placed on the final ballot until meeting additional fundraising and membership requirements by Sept. 30.
The winner will replace Elizabeth May, who announced in August 2025 that she would not lead the party into another federal election. May plans to remain leader until the result is announced Nov. 14.
Morrice enters the race with a higher national profile, previous parliamentary experience and an established local fundraising and volunteer network. But the position he is seeking comes with significant risks. The next leader will inherit a party with only one MP, weak national vote totals, limited organizational capacity outside select ridings and unresolved questions about where the Greens fit between the Liberals and the NDP.
Morrice is also no longer in Parliament. If he wins, he would have to lead the party from outside the House of Commons while simultaneously preparing to recapture Kitchener Centre.
From Waterloo Region climate organizer to Parliament
Morrice’s political identity was established well before he joined the Green Party.
After studying business and computer electronics at Wilfrid Laurier University, he founded Sustainable Waterloo Region, a nonprofit that worked with local employers to measure and reduce their environmental impact. He later helped establish Green Economy Canada, which expanded that community-based model into other parts of the country.
He was also involved in the development of Waterloo Region’s first community climate action plan and the early planning for evolv1, a Waterloo office building designed to produce more energy than it consumes.
That history is politically important because Morrice has generally presented climate action as a problem of implementation and community organization—not only as an ideological cause. His background allowed him to speak to businesses about reducing emissions while also appealing to progressive voters concerned about inequality, housing and poverty.
Morrice first ran federally in Kitchener Centre in 2019, finishing second. He won the riding in 2021 with a campaign that relied heavily on local volunteers, becoming the first federal Green MP elected in Ontario.
His victory also challenged a longstanding assumption about the federal Greens: that they could win only in British Columbia or in ridings directly connected to May’s personal organization.
Morrice represented Kitchener Centre from 2021 until 2025. In the April 2025 election, Conservative Kelly DeRidder defeated him by 375 votes. Official results show DeRidder received 20,234 votes, or 34.2 per cent, while Morrice received 19,859, or 33.6 per cent. Elections Canada publishes the final Kitchener Centre results.
The result was a defeat, but not an organizational collapse. Morrice received more votes in 2025 than he had during his successful 2021 campaign. What changed was the wider contest: Conservative and Liberal support increased as the national election became heavily polarized around Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre and the threat posed by the United States.
Morrice has already been nominated as the Green candidate in Kitchener Centre for the next federal election. The party says the riding association increased its number of monthly donors twentyfold after his defeat. The Greens confirmed his next candidacy in September 2025.
What Morrice accomplished in Parliament
Morrice’s leadership case rests heavily on the claim that even a small number of Green MPs can produce tangible results when they work across party lines.
His most substantial parliamentary work involved the Canada Disability Benefit. Morrice pressed the government to pass the legislation more quickly and secured support for five amendments to the original bill. Those changes dealt with matters including consultation, reporting and the treatment of the benefit by private insurance providers. The Green Party documented the amendments when they passed committee in 2022.
The final benefit has been criticized by disability organizations for providing too little money and reaching too few people. That limitation matters when evaluating claims about Morrice’s role: he helped strengthen the legislation, but he did not control the regulations or the amount Ottawa ultimately chose to pay.
His work nevertheless demonstrated an ability to influence legislation without belonging to a large caucus or holding the balance of power.
Morrice also advocated for tens of millions of dollars in federal affordable-housing investments in Waterloo Region, helped obtain renewed funding for Sanguen Health Centre’s mobile health program and promoted a federal definition of affordable housing based on household income rather than prevailing market rent.
On housing, he introduced a motion calling for the removal of preferential tax treatment received by large corporate housing investors, including real estate investment trusts. His proposal would have directed the resulting federal revenue toward non-market affordable housing. Morrice’s office cited Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates suggesting the measure could raise approximately $670 million. His Kitchener Centre campaign summarizes the proposal and his other local initiatives.
He also introduced proposals for a citizens’ assembly on electoral reform and a windfall tax on excess fossil-fuel profits. Revenue from the proposed 15-per-cent tax would have been directed toward climate programs and affordability measures.
Those initiatives did not become government policy. They do, however, establish the policy direction Morrice is now carrying into the leadership race: stronger taxation of concentrated corporate wealth, more public and non-market housing, expanded income supports, electoral reform and climate policy designed to reduce household costs.
What Morrice is proposing as leader
Morrice’s initial leadership platform is more a statement of direction than a fully costed election program.
His campaign says it will focus on five broad areas: government, climate, the economy, democracy and Canada’s international role. It promises a “thriving, clean economy and a just society,” an economy that works for the “99 per cent,” decisive climate action and stronger democratic institutions. The campaign’s published priorities are available on Morrice’s leadership website.
The most notable change is rhetorical. Morrice is not presenting the Greens solely as an environmental party. He says he wants to build a movement capable of fighting for regular Canadians and confronting the “billionaire class.”
That language positions him noticeably to the economic left and suggests he wants the Greens to compete directly on affordability and wealth inequality. It also reflects a strategic conclusion: climate change alone has not been enough to sustain a national Green vote, particularly when voters perceive environmental policy as an additional household expense.
Morrice’s parliamentary record provides some indication of how he would connect those issues.
His windfall-tax proposal argued that fossil-fuel companies earning exceptional profits should finance home retrofits and other measures that reduce energy costs. His housing motion linked corporate tax policy to the supply of affordable homes. His disability advocacy treated income security as a question of legislated poverty rather than discretionary government assistance.
The common thread is that climate policy and affordability should reinforce each other. Under that model, governments would tax excess or environmentally damaging profits, invest the revenue in housing and energy efficiency, and direct more support to lower-income households.
The challenge will be moving from broad principles to difficult policy choices. A leadership campaign can promise a clean economy and greater affordability simultaneously. A federal election platform must explain how quickly emissions would be reduced, what industries would be affected, how programs would be financed and what would happen to workers and communities dependent on fossil-fuel production.
Morrice will also have to differentiate the Greens from other progressive parties. If Green policy begins to resemble an NDP program with a stronger climate component, voters may ask why two separate parties are required. If the Greens move closer to the political centre, they risk being overshadowed by the Liberals.
His answer appears to be organizational as much as ideological: Greens would offer MPs greater independence, pursue electoral reform and build campaigns around trusted local candidates rather than depending entirely on a national leader.
The other candidate: Nira Dookeran
Dookeran enters the race with less national recognition but extensive experience inside the Green movement.
She is an educator and community organizer who has run as a Green candidate several times at the federal and provincial levels. She has also managed campaigns, served with electoral district associations and worked on building local Green organizations.
Her candidacy offers party members a different kind of leadership argument. Morrice can point to his time in Parliament and his ability to win a competitive Ontario riding. Dookeran can argue that rebuilding must begin with internal organization, grassroots members and riding associations that often receive little national attention between elections.
That distinction could become central to the campaign. The Greens do not merely need a recognizable spokesperson; they need candidates, fundraising systems, membership growth, French-language capacity and functioning organizations across the country.
At the same time, Dookeran faces a considerable name-recognition disadvantage. Morrice is a former MP, a recent deputy leader and an already nominated candidate with an established fundraising base. Unless Dookeran can recruit new members in substantial numbers, Morrice begins the race as the apparent favourite.
The party has officially listed only Morrice and Dookeran as approved candidates. Both appear on the Green Party’s leadership page.
How the leadership election works
Approval as a candidate does not automatically guarantee a place on the ballot.
By Sept. 30, each campaign must recruit at least 200 new party members, including 50 Young Greens, and raise $15,000. The party will announce the candidates who have met those requirements on Oct. 1.
People wishing to vote must become Green Party members by Oct. 14. Voting will take place by ranked ballot from Nov. 2 through Nov. 13, with the result announced Nov. 14.
Candidates must demonstrate proficiency in English and French. The party also allowed individual candidates and two-person co-leadership teams to apply for the first time, although both approved entries in this contest are individuals. The party’s official rules and schedule explain the requirements.
The relatively modest membership threshold is also an organizing test. In a small party, recruiting several hundred members can materially change the electorate. The contest may therefore be determined less by national polling than by which campaign can motivate supporters to formally join before the deadline.
A party at its weakest national point in decades
The most important fact about the leadership contest is the condition of the party the winner will inherit.
The Greens received approximately 1.2 per cent of the national vote in 2025, their lowest share since 2000. They elected only May in Saanich–Gulf Islands, reducing the caucus from two MPs to one.
The party’s national decline was partly caused by the intensely polarized Liberal-Conservative election. But it also reflected longer-term problems: leadership conflict, limited fundraising, inconsistent candidate recruitment and an inability to transform rising concern about fires, floods and extreme weather into stable Green support.
The party has often functioned as a collection of strong local campaigns rather than a fully competitive national organization. May built a durable base on Vancouver Island. Morrice created another in Kitchener Centre. Former MP Paul Manly did the same in Nanaimo–Ladysmith.
That model can win isolated seats. It has not yet produced sustained national growth.
This is where Morrice’s local history becomes both his greatest asset and the biggest test of his leadership. Sustainable Waterloo Region grew by persuading businesses and institutions to participate in a measurable local program. His Kitchener campaigns grew through volunteers, neighbourhood organizing and a reputation for constituency work.
His leadership campaign proposes creating a “pathway to success for every riding” and improving party governance and election readiness. That is an implicit acknowledgment that policy alone is not the Greens’ primary weakness. The party requires infrastructure capable of identifying promising ridings, supporting candidates and remaining active between elections.
A realistic Green strategy would probably not begin by trying to win everywhere. It would identify a limited group of communities where environmental politics, local organization and a credible candidate overlap, then concentrate resources there.
Morrice proved that strategy can work in Kitchener. Whether it can be repeated across the country is another question.
The Kitchener Centre problem
If Morrice becomes leader, the Greens will initially have a leader outside Parliament and one sitting MP—May—in British Columbia.
That arrangement would limit Morrice’s visibility during question period and major legislative debates. May could represent the party inside the Commons, but the division of public roles would require careful management.
There is no automatic mechanism for Morrice to return to Parliament before the next general election. A sitting MP would have to vacate a suitable seat and a by-election would have to be called, or Morrice would have to wait and run again in Kitchener Centre.
His decision to remain nominated in Kitchener suggests he intends to rebuild locally rather than seek a safer constituency elsewhere. That carries electoral risk, but it also supports his argument that Green politics should be grounded in communities rather than treating ridings as interchangeable vehicles for party leaders.
Kitchener Centre remains winnable for him. His 2025 loss amounted to less than one percentage point, and his personal vote held up despite the Green collapse nationally.
Leadership could help by increasing his profile and fundraising. It could also hurt by requiring him to spend more time travelling nationally and defending party policies unrelated to local concerns.
What a Morrice victory would mean
A Morrice win would mark a geographic and generational transition for the federal Greens.
Since 2006, the party has been defined overwhelmingly by May and its strongest federal base has been on Vancouver Island. Morrice would shift the party’s centre of gravity toward Ontario and the urban communities surrounding the Toronto-Waterloo technology corridor.
It would also signal an effort to redefine Green politics around inequality as well as climate. His references to the billionaire class, corporate housing ownership and excess profits suggest a party more willing to confront economic concentration directly.
But changing the leader cannot by itself solve the party’s structural problem.
Morrice would have to rebuild trust after years of internal conflict, recruit credible candidates, improve French-language outreach, raise significantly more money and demonstrate that the Greens offer something neither the Liberals nor the NDP can provide.
He would also need to answer an uncomfortable strategic question: Is the Green Party trying to become a broad national party capable of governing, or a smaller force that elects a few highly independent MPs and pressures larger parties to act?
Morrice’s record suggests he believes a small caucus can exercise influence disproportionate to its size. His campaign suggests he wants something larger—a national movement combining climate action, economic populism and local organization.
The leadership race will determine whether Green members accept that direction. The elections that follow will determine whether voters outside Kitchener believe it can work.