Earlier, we noted former Sierra Club of Canada executive director Elizabeth May told The Ottawa Citizen last year that the main reason she hasn't run for Parliament "has always been concern for my daughter. In the last election, I was asked by the NDP and the Liberals and I was thinking it over, but the election would be right during the time she was doing final exams...If I was a man, and I was married, and there was a wife to take care of the kids and the house, I probably would have run by now." But "I don't have savings, I work for a very low income, and I'm a single mom of a daughter. To take a chance, to quit my job, to run for politics, if you win, it's going to be even harder to be a single mom, and do a good job at being a mom. And on the other hand if you lose...(there's) the potential to be both unemployed and broke, and condemned forever to the label of partisan, to any party." Within months of that story being published, Ms. May became a federal Green leadership aspirant. So what happened to concerns about her daughter's well-being?

In an interview on Public Eye Radio, Ms. May explained "To tell you the truth Sean, my daughter read that interview and she said, "Mommy what were you thinking? Are you telling me you're really not running for Parliament because you think it would be a danger (to me)." She was extremely forceful in her views. And I said, "But the election campaign last year would have been right in the middle of the exams. Your grade eight exams." And she said, "Mommy, I can do my grade eight exams without you at home." Now frankly, I don't believe I'm that dispensable to my daughter's exams or anything in her life. But she was very, very concerned that I should run for leadership of the Green Party."

During the interview, Ms. May also said she would lead the party to an electoral breakthrough by making sure the Greens were represented during the televised leadership debates. But why would she succeed in securing that representation when all her predecessors have failed? Is it because of her profile as an environmentalist?

Responded, Ms. May "I think - and I can never guarantee any outcome in the future of my life, let alone the political life of Canada - but I'm quite confident that if I was a TV producer and I was about to put four guys in suits in front of the Canadian public I'd throw in a mouthy woman. I think it'd make more interesting television." So it's your gender that will make the difference, we inquired? "Gender and I'm a good debater. I know my issues. And I will go after those guys when they're not telling the truth."