Background

At 15, Jonathan (who also goes by JP) watched Hotel Rwanda. Determined to take action against genocide, he began advocating in Quebec schools and beyond, urging Canada to do more to prevent human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. When ethnic cleansing escalated in Sudan’s Darfur region, he knew that was where he needed to go. He was 17.

Crossing into Darfur at night from Chad alongside Sudanese rebels, JP co-produced a CBC documentary that marked the beginning of his career in conflict reporting. He went on to cover maritime geopolitics and the shifting global order in the Middle East. Between 2010 and 2012, he reported from Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Israel.

In 2011, he traveled to Cairo to cover the Tahrir Square uprising. Injured and detained, he was expelled from the country. Just months later, he returned to the region to report from the frontlines of the Libyan revolution.

In 2015, JP joined Amnesty International to document human rights abuses in the Central African Republic. Prior to that, he had spent two years training local journalists there and in South Sudan, negotiating with rebels to establish a radio station in a war-torn town, and mourning friends lost along the way.

After a year with Amnesty, JP moved to Human Rights Watch, where he investigated war crimes and egregious human rights violations across Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and most recently, Ukraine.

If it isn’t clear by now, JP thrives on adventure. Whether scaling mountain peaks, crossing rivers, or entering conflict zones to expose human rights violations, he’s always up for the challenge. But even he sometimes craves calm.

That’s why, after two intense years in the Central African Republic, he moved to Svalbard in the Norwegian High Arctic. For 2.5 years, he called the remote archipelago home, shuttling between war zones and the icy solitude of the North. He befriended many of the 2,500 residents—but none of the local polar bears.

With war comes loss. In 2014, JP lost two close friends. Camille Lepage, a young French photojournalist, was killed while they both worked in the Central African Republic. JP accompanied her body back to France and met with her family. Just three months later, Jim Foley, a fellow journalist he travelled to Tripoli, Libya, with, was brutally murdered by the Islamic State in Syria. Determined to channel his grief into something meaningful, JP wrote Toi Aussi Mon Fils, a novel about a French journalist and his son’s search for him across time and space. It was published in 2017.

Following a research trip to Ukraine to investigate Russian war crimes during the first 10 days of the war, JP entered politics in 2022, running alongside Elizabeth May to become co-leader of the Green Party. Since then, he has traveled across the country, listening to Canadians and understanding their priorities. From coast to coast to coast, he has engaged with communities, frontline workers, and activists to shape a political movement that puts people and the planet first.