Elizabeth May is a remarkably cheerful ex-leader of the Green Party of Canada.

Walking down the Sparks St. mall in Ottawa on Monday after announcing her resignation, effective immediately, May didn’t have to think for a second when asked what she will miss about the job she’s leaving.

“Oh, nothing,” she said breezily.

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There wasn’t an ounce of bitterness in the reply. May explained that she’s still going to be doing all the things she has loved doing for the past 13 years — fighting for the planet, trying to raise the tone of politics in the House of Commons — so there’s nothing to miss.

But this is a moment in Canadian political history nonetheless: the longest-serving woman leader of a major federal party, the first Green member of Parliament, making way for a new leader who May hopes can build on what she began.

It’s a moment that’s been in the works for three years, even if the precise timing was only chosen this past weekend, when May sat down with party officials in an Ottawa hotel boardroom to plot out her exit strategy.

In 2016, May promised her daughter, Cate May-Burton, that she would get succession plans in place. Failing to find anyone interested in replacing her before the most recent election, she vowed again to her daughter that this past campaign would be her last.

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“I think she was just concerned that she didn’t want to lose all the time she might have with me if I didn’t kill myself with work,” said May, who turned 65 earlier this year.

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It wasn’t only her daughter who wanted more time with her. May was asked at her news conference on Monday about the symbolism of her departure — the only woman leader of a major federal party, abandoning an achievement still elusive in 2019 to many non-white, non-male politicians.

The now-former Green leader said she hoped for a huge, diverse field of candidates to succeed her, but hastened to add, “I have nothing against white men, even old white men. I just married one.” May then turned around and planted a kiss on her new husband, John Kidder.

Kidder, for what it’s worth, told me later that he’d be leaning toward the idea of his wife leaving the leader’s job only when her successor was chosen next October, but he joked that he got his vote in too late to make a difference.

The May-Kidder marriage earlier this year came when everything was looking rosy for the Greens: the party was soaring in the polls, gaining new strength in provincial legislatures and poised to make a federal breakthrough in the fall election.

The three seats the Greens won on Oct. 21 are better than the one — May’s — that they won in 2015, but it’s not the balance of power in a minority Parliament that she wanted. At several points during Monday’s news conference, May hinted at her frustration with how the campaign unfolded, including what she called “dirty tricks” from rivals, and what she saw as an inability or unwillingness by the media to handle a serious election conversation about climate change.

May wants to be remembered as a political leader who spoke the truth, even when it was uncomfortable or, to borrow Al Gore’s famous warning, inconvenient.

“I've always kept my word and I’ve never lied, and I think that's important,” she said at the news conference when the talk turned to legacy and how she’ll be remembered.

She’s right. It is important, especially in an era where most of her political counterparts are addicted to talking points and saying as little as possible. It’s also bad news for anyone still in the business of denying climate change, because May isn’t mincing words about what’s at stake in this new Parliament.

“I know these statistics and these numbers are not great communication tools,” she said, “but if we want to hang onto human civilization, massive changes, transformative changes need to be made in our economy globally — and soon.”

How soon? By 2023, just four years from now, she insisted, before “it’s too late to make those changes.”

May’s reputation as a straight talker is why no one was surprised when she announced her resignation on Monday — she’s been telegraphing her desire to leave for some time now, unlike most politicians, who play coy right up until the end.

Still, it was impossible not to feel that her legacy will be eternally wrapped up in a mystery. May embodies so much of what Canadians have said they wanted in politics — more women, more truth telling, more urgency about climate change — yet in 13 years, she couldn’t quite punch through the culture of politics to become a real force for change. The Green leader represented all that was disruptive to the political order, but she didn’t quite disrupt the last election campaign.

But then again, May keeps saying she isn’t finished yet. She will be missed as leader, but she’s far from winding things down enough for us to miss her in politics.