Sources told CBC News last month that Paul and the party were negotiating compensation for legal costs she incurred fighting a bid to remove her as leader last summer.

Some members of the Greens' federal council tried to trigger a leadership review in July after Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin crossed the floor to the Liberals.

Atwin joined the Liberal benches shortly after criticizing Paul's response to violence in the Middle East as "totally inadequate" and going on to accuse Israel of pursuing a policy of apartheid.

Paul had issued a statement in May calling for a de-escalation and return to dialogue.

Paul's then-political adviser, Noah Zatzman, took to Facebook to accuse politicians, including some unspecified Green MPs, of discrimination and antisemitism.

"We will work to defeat you and bring in progressive climate champions who are antifa and pro LGBT and pro indigenous sovereignty and Zionists!!!!!" he said in a May social media post.

Paul did not comply with a demand from the party's federal council that she publicly repudiate Zatzman's remarks.

Paul told reporters after the election that unnamed senior party members "took great pleasure in attacking me" and suggested that was the reason the party performed poorly. She also said the national council held back financial resources she needed.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when you head into an election without funding for your campaign; when you head into an election without the staff to staff your campaign; when you head into an election without a national campaign manager; when you head into an election being again under the threat of a court process from your party; it's going to be very hard to convince people to vote for your party," Paul said.

Her exit will clear the way for the Green Party to choose an interim leader and plan a new leadership race.

Green Party of Canada members have started voting on whether to remove Annamie Paul as party leader — roughly a month after Paul herself announced her resignation.

"Yes, the leadership review is underway," Green Party communications director John Chenery said in an email to CBC.

Voting on Paul's leadership review began yesterday and will end on Nov. 25, the day before the party's next scheduled virtual general meeting. It's the second attempt to eject Paul from the leadership since the summer.

The Green Party of Canada is moving ahead with the leadership vote despite Paul announcing on Sept. 27 that she would be stepping down. The Toronto Starfirst confirmed party president Lorraine Rekmans launched the leadership review days after the federal election.

Paul personally failed to secure a seat in that election and the Green Party saw its share of the national vote diminish. Such leadership reviews are considered routine and follow an election loss, but the speed with which the party moved to launch the review reportedly caught some of Paul's supporters off-guard.

Paul's departure delayed

According to an email obtained by CBC, Paul first learned of the leadership review on Sept. 26. One day later, Paul announced her resignation — a move that should have made the leadership review moot.

But Paul's departure is moving slower than many in the party expected. She was supposed to leave earlier this month, following exit negotiations with the party.

Paul and the party are negotiating compensation for the legal fees she incurred taking the party's top brass to arbitration to block their last attempt to remove her from the leadership. In July, some on the Greens' federal council attempted to trigger an early leadership review after one of the party's MPs, Jenica Atwin, crossed the floor to the Liberals.

The arbitrator ruled in Paul's favour, telling federal party council members they could not proceed. Unsatisfied with the ruling, the party executive filed a notice of application for leave to appeal in the Ontario Superior Court that argued the arbitrator erred.

One person connected to the party, but not authorized to speak publicly, told CBC News that court application has been withdrawn. The Ontario Superior Court indicates it is still an active case.

It's not known how much compensation Paul is seeking. Green Party sources tell CBC that while the party isn't opposed to paying for Paul's legal fees, it's struggling with fundraising. Last week, the party laid off 11 staffers.

"We have been running large monthly deficits since February of this year, and our financial situation is not sustainable," says an internal party memo from the party's financial arm, the Green Fund.

"These layoffs are vitally important to avoiding insolvency and putting our party on secure financial footing heading into the next election — keeping in mind the minority nature of our current government."

Annamie Paul's resignation as leader of the Green Party of Canada — which was expected to take effect this week — still isn't complete because her lawyer is negotiating with party lawyers to settle a legal conflict, sources tell CBC News.

Paul told a press conference in Toronto in late September that she was calling it quits after a poor election performance and weeks of infighting within the party over her leadership.

But more than two weeks later, Paul's resignation still has not been finalized and she remains party leader, Green spokesperson John Chenery told CBC News.

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation — who were not authorized to speak publicly — told CBC News that two factors are delaying Paul's departure.

First, both sides are negotiating compensation for legal costs Paul incurred fighting a bid to remove her as leader before the September general election.

The second unresolved issue has to do with a pre-election legal conflict between Paul and the party. Paul took her party to arbitration in July to challenge a bid by some within the party to remove her as leader.

The arbitrator ruled in her favour. Then the lawyers for the Greens filed notice of an application for leave to appeal in the Ontario Superior Court that argued the arbitrator erred in his judgment.

Chenery declined to comment on the negotiations and Paul has not replied to CBC's request for comment.

Green Party sources told CBC News the leave to appeal application is moot and shouldn't delay exit negotiations. The sources said that the application will be withdrawn at some point — but not immediately, because the party is wary of incurring unnecessary legal fees.

The Green Party Fund has said the party is facing dire financial issues after monthly costs outpaced gross income by $105,000 in May and $103,000 in June. The party reported it spent about $100,000 on legal fees in July alone during arbitration proceedings.

Last week, the Ontario Green Party issued a statement rebuking its federal sibling over its rocky relationship with Paul.

"We are deeply disappointed by Annamie Paul's painful experience as leader of the Green Party of Canada," says the statement from the Ontario Greens.

"Annamie's election as the first Black Jewish woman to lead a major Canadian political party was a historic milestone, with great potential to draw more under-represented Canadians into public service. Unfortunately, what happened may do the contrary."

Leadership tainted by infighting, policy disputes

Paul, a relative moderate in Green circles, came to the leadership promising aggressive action on climate change and policies to address systemic discrimination.

But Paul was hampered by party infighting and a dispute over the party's policy on Israeli and Palestinian issues.

During the last Middle East crisis in May, Paul called for de-escalation and a return to dialogue. That response was seen as insufficiently critical of Israel by some in the party — including one of its then MPs, Jenica Atwin, who later crossed the floor to join the Liberals.

Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin, elected as a Green, crossed over to the Liberals after a conflict with leader Annamie Paul over Middle East policy. (Jon Collicott/CBC)

Sean Yo, who ran the campaign that elected Ontario's first provincial Green MPP, Mike Schreiner, called for an end to the legal action over Paul's leadership.

"From my perspective, this is moot," said Yo, Paul's former byelection campaign director. "We'd be all really better off getting on with the really important task of coming together and deciding how we are going to move forward as a party."

Daniel Green, a former federal councillor and a vocal critic of Paul, confirms that he's heard negotiations are underway. Green said he hopes both sides come to a resolution and added he hopes Paul receives compensation for her legal fees.

"Yes, I do believe Annamie should get some compensation of her legal fees," he said. "The question is how much and how much can the party afford. I mean, you can't squeeze blood from a stone."

Louise Comeau was elected to the role in August, in the midst of internal turmoil over the future of leader Annamie Paul.

She says she went in knowing the party was in a crisis but believed she could make a difference.

"I didn't anticipate the one thing that really brought this to a head for me: my inability to actually make the professional contribution that I wanted to make," she told CBC Radio's Shift New Brunswick.

Annamie Paul announced she was stepping down as the Green Party’s leader on Sept. 27 in Toronto. Comeau said the turmoil around Paul's leadership made being a member of the national council stressful. (Sam Nar/CBC)

Comeau said Paul had "engineered a tone and a set-up" on the federal council, the party's governing body, that made it difficult for members to perform their oversight role.

"I felt I just was unable to bring the kind of thoughtfulness I had hoped to bring to the decision-making processes of council."

That included going two months without any briefing on the party's legal and financial status, she said.

In a Twitter exchange with another Green supporter this week, Comeau wrote that she was resigning "because the stress was unbearable. I have more important work to do than waste time with this kind of baloney."

She added: "Play your games. The rest of us will try and keep the planet from burning."

Comeau is a climate change researcher at the University of New Brunswick and she says another challenge she faced was trying to speak independently about climate policy when it was at odds with the party's partisan interest.

The weekend before the federal election in September, she tweeted a link to a newspaper column that argued the federal Liberals had a better climate change plan than the Conservatives.

"I was simply commenting on the accuracy of the evaluation, which I agreed with," she said. But "I was personally attacked by many Greens for having stated my professional opinion." 

She calls that an "infringement" on her professional independence.

"I am bigger than that because I think climate change is bigger than that," she says. "If I had to make a choice, climate change absolutely comes first." 

An assistant to Annamie Paul, Victoria Galea, said Paul would not comment on Comeau's remarks and has not been doing interviews since "starting the process" of resigning as leader on Sept. 27.

The Green popular vote dropped from 6.5 per cent in the 2019 election to 2.3  per cent last month. The party lost one of its three seats in the vote, and had seen Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin defect to the Liberals in June. 

The Greens gained one Ontario seat in the election and now has two MPs.

Comeau says even Paul's departure is contentious. She referred to the Sept. 27 announcement as "what we thought was the resignation of the leader" but says it hasn't officially happened yet.

She says Paul told her during a meeting that  "until we negotiate her release, she enjoys all the rights and privileges of being a leader."

Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin announced in June that she was leaving the federal Green Party to sit as a Liberal. She successfully campaigned to win the seat for the Liberals in the September election. (Guy LeBlanc/Radio-Canada)

Galea said because the party council is in a legal dispute with Paul over attempts to review her leadership before the election, Paul won't formally step down without a resolution of that dispute and some financial loose ends connected to it.

"She can't resign until they drop their court case against her."  

Comeau also said council members who questioned Paul's decisions and approach were confronted by what she calls "identity politics."

Paul is the first Black woman to lead a major national political party, and Comeau says when council members like her pushed for "values like honesty, integrity, fair dealing and leadership," they faced a backlash.

Felt vulnerable

"It was almost as if they were used as weapons. If you challenged at all and said 'No, this is too much, you can't do that' or 'That is not actually accurate,' then we were into these accusations. People were feeling quite vulnerable to that," she says.

"Not everything is about identity politics. Sometimes it's just about good character." 

In June, Paul said allegations against her by the previous federal council "were so racist, so sexist, that they were immediately disavowed by both our MPs as offensive and inflammatory."

Galea says that Paul has never made similar accusations against the new council members elected in August. "She's never said that and it's never been implied." 

"I knew I'd get more criticism by saying something about what's going on than by staying quiet," said May, who was re-elected in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands in the Sept. 20 federal election.

"I feel awful about it. I know this puts me in a bad situation but it's important for Canadians to know that there is a Green Party. It's important for people to know the Green Party exists. We're not going away. We will rebuild."

The Greens, which ran just 252 candidates across Canada's 338 ridings, dropped from 6.5 per cent of the national vote in 2019 to 2.3 per cent of the national vote in the 2021 election. May and one other MP — Mike Morrice from Kitchener Centre — are the only two representatives of the party in Parliament, compared to the three seats it had prior to the election.

May says Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, who announced on Sept. 27 she was stepping down as the leader, hasn't actually officially resigned and still controls party communications.

"Someone needed to explain that the reason they weren't hearing from the Green Party is that the communications are controlled by Annamie Paul," May told CBC News.

May says she had been asked to refrain from speaking about internal party politics, but decided she had to speak out after Lorraine Rekmans, the president of the party's federal council and a member of the Serpent River First Nation, was unable to send out a statement through the party for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation last Thursday.

Annamie Paul announced Sept. 27 she was stepping down as Green Party leader. (Sam Nar/CBC)

"She wanted to make a statement on the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation and the communications staff informed her, 'We only take instruction from Annamie Paul and you will not be making a statement,'" said May.

However, Victoria Galea, Paul's executive assistant, told CBC News that Rekmans was able to send a letter directed to Green Party members on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Galea said a separate statement from the party on the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation was also posted on the Green Party website last Thursday.

CBC reached out to Rekmans for further clarification. Rekmans said she was unable to respond at this time.

Disappointing election result

On Sept. 20, Paul came in fourth place, her third defeat, in the riding of Toronto Centre. Galea said the Green Party leader had been set up to fail and placed a lot of the blame on May's lack of support.

"Every single day, the party has set her up for failure, and that includes the former leader of the party,"Galea told CBC News. 

May denied that she hadn't supported Paul. She said that she had even offered Paul her seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands. 

"I was heavily criticized for not offering it, but I had, in fact, offered it to Annamie. At the time, she said she was not interested in trading seats," May said. 

She said she fundraised for Paul, and the party had more than adequate resources for a national tour. 

"The fact [is] that Annamie Paul as new leader was granted far more resources, far more authority than I ever had," May said.

Galea disputes May's account, including the offer of a seat. 

"The party ultimately provided Mme. Paul with no support, with zero staff, no budget, no National Campaign Manager, and zero dollars sent to Toronto Centre to help with her campaign," she said in an email to CBC News.

May says her focus now is on supporting whoever ends up becoming the next leader of the party and she will not be considering a return to the position. 

"We have a lot of very talented people in the Green Party," she said. "If people turn to me, it'll look like, 'Oh, they had nobody but that poor old lady. And there she goes again.' So I think I want to focus where my energies feel most beneficial."

Morrice is one of two Green MPs elected in last week's federal election. The other is former Green leader Elizabeth May in Saanich–Gulf Islands in B.C.

Morrice, who will represent the Ontario riding of Kitchener Centre, was attending orientation sessions for new MPs in Ottawa when he heard of Paul's announcement.

"I respect her decision," he said in an interview Monday afternoon. "There was a leadership review process that the party has in their constitution and I respect that Annamie has chosen to resign in advance of that."

Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner released a statement saying Paul "is an important voice in Canadian politics."

"I was proud to campaign with her," he added.

In June, Paul accused a "small group" within the Green's governing body of trying to push her out. 

Paul said the allegations made against her during a meeting that month "were so racist, so sexist, that they were immediately disavowed by both our MPs as offensive and inflammatory."

WATCH | Annamie Paul talk to CBC The National about allegations of racism, sexism in politics:

Schreiner said she had a strong performance in the leaders' debate during the election campaign, and her unique challenges as leader means "many people will be asking some important questions today."

"I'm sad that systemic barriers exist in all parts of our society, including political parties," he added.

"As leader of the Ontario Greens, I cannot speak for the federal party, but I do recognize that the party I lead has more work to do to combat systemic racism. I am committed to doing the hard work to build a party that is diverse, inclusive and welcoming."

Paul faced leadership review

Paul said on Monday that on election day, the only email she received from party officials was one calling an emergency meeting to launch a leadership review.

On Saturday night, there was an announcement sent to all members of the party saying a leadership review had been launched, she said.

"I just asked myself if this is something that I wanted to continue, whether I was willing to continue to put up with the attacks I knew would be coming, whether to continue to have to fight and struggle just to fulfil my democratically elected role as leader of this party, and I just don't have the heart for it," she said.

Paul said she broke a glass ceiling by becoming leader of the Green Party of Canada, but "what I didn't realize at the time was that I was breaking a glass ceiling that was going to fall on my head, and leave a lot of shards of glass that I was going to have to crawl over throughout my time as a leader."

Morrice 'open minded' about future

Morrice said he disagreed with calls earlier this year for Paul to step down or be removed as leader, and agreed with Schreiner that she faced barriers and systemic racism where others do not.

Looking ahead, Morrice said, new people joined the party's federal council in August, and he's optimistic there will be a chance for them to speak up and unify the party. He said he'd like to see the council focus on priorities like the climate crisis, addressing the lack of affordable housing and providing mental health services to people.

"They need to ensure that the newer voices on the council do more to support whoever it might be that steps into that role," he said.

When asked if he might consider running for the Green leadership, Morrice said he's "open minded," but his focus is on his new role as a member of Parliament.

"My focus needs to stay there, on our community, on the priorities from right across Kitchener Centre," he said. "That work is just beginning and that really is my focus."

Another then-Green MP, Paul Manly, said the planned removal of some Palestinian families from East Jerusalem amounted to "ethnic cleansing."

An Israeli court has since ruled that Palestinians living in the contested neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah can stay in their homes, with some conditions.

The caucus pushback led one of Paul's advisers, Noah Zatzman, to accuse politicians, including some unspecified Green MPs, of discrimination and antisemitism.

"We will work to defeat you and bring in progressive climate champions who are antifa and pro LGBT and pro indigenous sovereignty and Zionists!!!!!" he said in a May social media post.

Green Party Leader Annamie Paul walks away with her son, Malachai, after conceding defeat in her riding of Toronto Centre on election night in Toronto, on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)

Paul did little to distance herself from Zatzman, which angered some members who saw the leader's inaction as a sign that she endorsed her adviser's call to replace two incumbent Green MPs. The Zatzman post and Paul's reaction prompted Atwin's floor-crossing — a devastating blow to a party that had only three MPs.

Paul then faced several calls for a leadership review. At one point, party executives even tried to rescind her membership — an extraordinary move only weeks out from a widely expected election call.

Paul blamed the party's poor showing on unnamed senior party members who, she said Monday, "took great pleasure in attacking me." She said the party's national council stymied any chance of her doing well in the election because it held back some of the resources needed to run a winning campaign.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when you head into an election without funding for your campaign, when you head into an election without the staff to staff your campaign, when you head into an election without a national campaign manager, when you head into an election being again under the threat of a court process from your party, it's going to be very hard to convince people to vote for your party," Paul said.

'It has been the worst period in my life'

Paul said she had thought of quitting before all the votes had been cast because her time as leader has been such a miserable experience.

"What people need to realize is that when I was elected and put in this role, I was breaking a glass ceiling. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was breaking a glass ceiling that was going to fall on my head and leave a lot of shards of glass that I was going to have to crawl over throughout my time as a leader," she said.

"This was not easy. It has been extremely painful. It has been the worst period in my life, in many respects."

Paul spent nearly all of the recent campaign in the riding of Toronto Centre, where she was running for a third time.

Paul justified the limited itinerary by saying some Green candidates didn't want her in their ridings during the election. She ultimately finished a disappointing fourth place in her bid to become an MP.

Under Paul's leadership, the party's vote dropped from a high-water mark of 1.1 million votes and 6.5 per cent of the national vote in 2019 to less than 400,000 votes and 2.3 per cent of the vote share in the most recent contest.

'Set up for failure'

In an interview with CBC News, Victoria Galea, Paul's executive assistant, said the leader was "absolutely pummeled" by the national council and other party brass during her time at the top.

"She was not set up for success in this election. She was absolutely set up for failure," she said, adding that Paul was "not given a single penny for the Toronto Centre campaign, which is wildly unprecedented."

Galea said some of the party's national council members are holdovers from May's time at the helm — and they're still loyal to the former leader.

"Every previous leader has a responsibility to a new leader, to allow them to grow in their new roles and allow them to have a smooth transition," she said, adding May bears some responsibility for the internal disputes.

"Every single day the party has set her up for failure, and that includes the former leader of the party."

Green Party Leader Annamie Paul holds a news conference alongside former Green leader Elizabeth May in Ottawa on Monday, Oct. 5, 2020. May led the party for more than 13 years. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Lori Turnbull is an associate professor of political science and the director of the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University. She said it was always going to be difficult for May's successor to put her stamp on a party still so closely tied to the woman who led it for more than 13 years.

"For so long, it was really Elizabeth May's party and her brand was the party. People built trust in it largely because of how she performed. She was the face of the thing," Turnbull told CBC News.

"They're a small party. It's really difficult to try and manage a transition when you don't have the machinery, the institutional memory, the money and all the rest of it."

As for who the Greens should pick as their next leader, Turnbull said it would be a good idea to pick someone who has a seat in the Commons. While the party under-performed nationally, Green candidate Mike Morrice won his race in the Ontario riding of Kitchener Centre.

"There is some forward momentum to build on," Turnbull said.