Elizabeth May

April 21, 2023

On Friday, March 24^th, 2023, on or about the hour of 11:55 a.m., I, Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, brazenly handed the president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden, a rectangular object the size of a premium chocolate bar. It was not an explosive device — except in the sense of exploding on Twitter as an act variously described as tacky, inappropriate, adorable, patriotic, excellent, fabulous and weird. It was not a climate change manifesto — I actually think Joe Biden has done a lot of good for the planet under difficult political circumstances and told him as much to his face that day in the parliamentary receiving line before his speech in the House of Commons.

The rectangular object the size of a premium chocolate bar that I handed Joe Biden was, in fact, a premium chocolate bar. I did not hand it to him because he looked peckish or I thought he could use a sugar boost before his speech. It was not an attempt to provoke the Secret Service, which is why I wasn’t immediately tackled by G-men and wrestled to the ground. I handed it to him because it wasn’t just any chocolate bar. It was a “Peace by Chocolate” chocolate bar, bearing the word PEACE. It was an act of bilateral diplomacy whose subversion of protocol and guerilla propaganda purpose in amplifying a shared value was almost as material to my motive as was the priceless promotional opportunity for a great Canadian company.

For those of you who may not have heard, Peace by Chocolate is the company started by the Hadhad family in early 2016 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The family  patriarch, Essam, had headed the prosperous Hadhad family chocolate business in Damascus, Syria, until, in 2012, the factory was bombed. Essam, his wife Shazaz, their son, Tareq, a medical student, and other family members ultimately joined the nearly 45, 000 Syrian refugees who have made their home in Canada since 2015.

The story of how Peace by Chocolate expanded from its headquarters in an A-frame shed in Antigonish to a flagship storefront in Halifax and a global chocolate-shipping enterprise isn’t just about the extraordinary resilience and entrepreneurial spirit of a family that had lost everything. It’s also about how a family that found sanctuary in Canada has taught us so much about what it means to be Canadian. The Peace by Chocolate brand leverages the universal love of chocolate to scale-up universal love — including with Peace bars, LGBTQ bars, Indigenous rights bars, racial harmony, mental health bars and other products that represent and raise funds for human rights causes. Meanwhile, Tareq Hadhad has become a national figure of inspirational TED Talks and unfailingly uplifting social content. His family’s story has been dramatized in the feature film Peace by Chocolate, which you should definitely see.

So, that’s why I handed Joe Biden a chocolate bar. I knew that once he got it, he’d get it.

Interestingly, given the Irish heritage the two share, I have former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to thank for my Peace by Chocolate moment. More than a year ago, I accepted an invitation to be a lecturer in residence at the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. Francis Xavier University. This March, after my two days of lectures and on the Friday morning of St. Patrick’s Day, before heading home, I stopped by the new Peace by Chocolate store on Main Street in Antigonish, right next to what was my 2008 campaign office when I ran against Peter MacKay in Central Nova.

So, that’s why I handed Joe Biden a chocolate bar. I knew that once he got it, he’d get it.

My only goal at the time was to stock up on chocolate bunnies and eggs for Easter morning. As I was buying out the store, I noticed a great photo of Justin Trudeau with then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her hand grasping a bar emblazoned “PEACE.” A lightbulb when on, and I knew in that moment that I’d pick up the Peace by Chocolate bilateral baton. I told the young women in the shop that I’d be seeing Joe Biden soon and was buying a few bars for him. They clearly didn’t take me seriously (Antigonish is full of interesting characters), because when I gave the chocolate bar to Joe Biden, Tareq Hadhad, whom I’d never met, hadn’t been tipped off to this stealth operation.

When I met President Biden, I thanked him for cancelling the Keystone pipeline and for putting John Kerry in the role of special presidential envoy for climate. Biden shook my hand more warmly, leaned in and said “He’s a good man.” I said, “I think he may be a saint.” And then I pulled from my pocket that beautiful Peace by Chocolate bar with the bright yellow wrapper emblazoned with the word PEACE and handed it to him. Yes, I did it to make a statement – about refugees, about love, about compassion.

When the president finished signing the official visitor’s book for dignitaries, I thought Prime Minister Trudeau had the chocolate bar so I teased, “Mr. President, don’t let our prime minister keep your chocolate. He does that” (or some such cheek). Biden stopped in his tracks. “Where is my chocolate bar?” Trudeau did not have it, both men retraced their steps to look for it and one of the Senate clerks retrieved it from where he had put it after Trudeau handed it off to him.

At which point Peace by Chocolate – not yours truly – all-but stole the show. The Prime Minister started explaining to President Biden that this chocolate was the work of a Syrian refugee family, now a major employer in Antigonish. The boom mics swarmed, the cameras clicked and the international chocolate bar incident went viral.

That night, exhausted, as the state dinner wound down, I was heading for the coat check. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser (MP for Central Nova) stopped me and asked, “Did Tareq find you?” We turned on our heels and waded back into the crowd. As in a scene from an environmental activist/chocolate activist rom-com, Tareq and I spotted each other and pretty much both exclaimed, “My hero!” before moving in for a major hug.

As one of two Green Party members of Canada’s House of Commons, my political victories tend to be of the rhetorical and incremental variety. In a career of aspirational goals met with, let’s face it, a lot of disappointing outcomes on the policy front, all I wanted this time was a picture of the President of the United States holding a Peace by Chocolate bar — to tell the world a great Canadian story, and to hang on the wall of a store in Antigonish. Mission accomplished.

Contributing Writer Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, is Leader of the Greene Party of Canada.