BURNABY, B.C.—In the riding of Burnaby-North Seymour, ground zero in the fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline, Elizabeth May sat in an electric car sporting “off oil” vanity plates as she prepared for a short door-knocking session.

The Green party leader just finished filming a bit with comedian Mark Critch, of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes,” at a home a couple blocks away. With the Greens poised for their best election result ever, May hoped to get a few smiles from voters in the neighbourhood.

“Every campaign event we have held, every rally, everything, has had more people than we expected who are extremely enthusiastic,” May said. “But then you experience what it’s like day to day, you feel like, ‘When did the media decide they want to beat up on us?’”

As the Greens have seen a major fundraising boost and are neck-and-neck in the polls with the New Democrats, the party has also attracted more scrutiny.

Most recently, May was criticized for retweeting another person asking voters to stay focused on climate change — which “actually matters” — as the country struggled to regain its composure in the wake of photos of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in blackface and brownface.

May said that the afternoon the photos broke was chaotic and she didn’t mean to or remember retweeting it. She called systemic racism a serious problem, adding she felt a sense of “physical revulsion” upon seeing the photos. The retweet has since been removed.

Another incident earlier was in New Brunswick when initially 14 NDP candidates were reported to have defected to the Greens. The numbers turned out to be inflated and it was actually nine. Then during the first debate Sept. 12 NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh suggested the Greens differ from the NDP's stance of abortion rights for women after may told the CBC she couldn’t stop her members from reopening the debate. May said she’s had to reaffirm her pro-choice stance a “gazillion times” since the comments.

May said much of the criticism has come from the New Democrats, accusing the party of “stooping very low.” She said the hostility “shocked” her, after the Green Party chose not to run a candidate against Singh in the byelection that sent him to Ottawa.

“I have been unfailingly supportive of Jagmeet Singh’s role,” she said. “We’re the only party that stood down and didn’t run a candidate in Burnaby South based on the principle of leader’s courtesy.”

In Burnaby-North Seymour, the party is up against the NDP’s Svend Robinson, a former MP aiming for a comeback 14 years after leaving politics. May describes him as an old friend. She hopes people want to scrutinize party policies and abandon vitriol and partisanship.

May hopped out of the car, teaming up with Amita Kuttner, the Green candidate in the riding.

The pair headed to the first Burnaby abode, and a middle-aged woman in glasses answered the door. She’s against the Trans Mountain pipeline.

“I will kill it,” May said as soon as the woman finished her sentence.

“I was arrested in this riding with Kennedy Stewart in March last year,” May said, recounting her arrest for civil contempt while protesting the pipeline. “Because it may be a minority Parliament. Even though I’m unlikely to be prime minister, if they want our support for a single confidence vote, they’ll cancel it.”

It was four in the afternoon on a weekday, and few people were home. On that block only four people answered their door, and most weren’t interested in talking politics.

In the coming month the schedule will only become more gruelling for May as she zigzags all over Canada for shorter whistle-stop tours and door-knocking. But the experience on the ground is “off the charts” good, she said with an air of pride.

Despite the empty houses, pedestrian traffic garnered better results. During the brief campaign effort three people stopped for quick chats. One grabbed a photo with May because they have the same last name.

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The woman cracked a joke about their cousin “Theresa,” referring to the former British prime minister. May lets out a cry.

“The thing I don’t like about Theresa May is she made people not like the sound of ‘Prime Minister May’ before I even got a chance,” she said, chuckling.

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