Green Party leader visits LFK riding

Jeff Green | Mar 28, 2018

Green Party Provincial Leader Mike Schreiner helped launch the campaign of Lanark Frontenac Kingston candidate Anita Payne at a meet and greet stopover in Perth on Monday morning.

Shreiner, who has been the party leader since 2009, is the Green Party candidate in his hometown of Guelph, where he works in the food business. He also spends some time at Queen’s Park, bringing Green perspective to policy decisions even though the party has yet to elect its first MPP. The Greens received 4.84% of the popular vote in the most recent election (2014) an increase over their 2.92% vote share in 2011.

According to the party website, since Schreiner took on the leadership, the party “has experienced substantial growth in its voters, fundraising, staff, volunteers and media exposure.”

The Green Party 2018 Green Vision statement focuses on a fairer wage and tax system, more resources towards illness prevention, and a directed carbon tax.

In addition to that, Schreiner talked about how the Liberal Party and leader Kathleen Wynne, “have developed a habit of taking our ideas and implementing them very, very, badly”.

Instead of the pilot approach to the Basic Income Guarantee under the Liberals, Schreiner said that the Greens advocate for a “universal basic income guarantee so that nobody should drop below the low income cut off level.”

He also said that the Greens are the only party that is committed to phasing out nuclear energy.

“We need a political party at Queen’s Park that is willing to stand up to the nuclear lobby. The Greens have the courage to do that. We say no to tripling hydro prices to finance the rebuilding of the Darlington Nuclear Plant,” he said.

When asked after the public session how the Greens would secure Ontario’s energy future without the $12.8 billion retrofit of the plant, Schreiner said the Greens would leave the nuclear power plants in place for now, but would halt all refurbishment plans. Instead they would invest in the necessary infrastructure to be able to purchase water generated power from Quebec while committing Ontario to renewable energy sources.

“Ontario Power Generation originally put in an application to raise prices by 180% over ten years to finance the project. They later lowered that number, but it is clear the Darlington project will result in increased prices.

“All over the world the technology for renewable energy is advancing and the price is dropping. Ontario is opting for massive investments in nuclear instead. For example, in Colorado, the government put out a contract for the supply of power, with no strings attached, and it was a renewable energy company that won the contract, purely on the basis of price. Ontario is committing to nuclear plants that will end their useful life eventually, leaving no value, at a crippling cost, and there is no plan for how to handle nuclear waste other than burying it.”

Schreiner recognises that the Green Party has limited prospects for seats in this coming election, but he said that voters who like the party’s vision statement should consider voting for them rather than choosing a party they don’t really support just to try and keep a party that they oppose strongly from winning a seat.

“If you don’t vote for the government you want, you are never going to get the government you want. We are asking people to vote for what they want, out of hope not fear.”

Schreiner represents the party’s best chance to elect its first ever MPP. In the previous election he finished third with almost 20% of the vote, pretty close to the 2nd place Progressive Conservative candidate, but far behind the Liberal Liz Sandals. But Sandals is not running for re-election, and the Liberal party brand has suffered since 2014. Will disaffected Liberal voters go to the Greens instead of to the NDP or PC parties?

Schreiner thinks they will.

"We're going to win Guelph. I'm going to win in Guelph,” he said at his nomination meeting last summer.

As for the Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding, he said “we have a wonderful, committed candidate in Anita, who knows the riding well. People think of this as a Conservative riding, but we have a lot of strong supporters here, and we will be heard.”