MINDEMOYA—It was a respectable turnout at the Mindemoya Curling Club, especially considering it was one of the first warm early summer evenings of the season, as Green Party of Ontario supporters came out to meet the party’s leader Mike Schreiner during the Algoma-Manitoulin Green Party riding association AGM.
Mr. Schreiner proved to be a personable and engaging speaker, couching an obvious passion for the environment with a reasoned and warm presentation that deftly laid to rest any preconceived notion of zealotry. After listening to him speak, it would be difficult to paint a picture of the Green Party leader as a radical environmental warrior chaining himself to a tree while chanting anti-corporate slogans—not that there was any mistaking his passion for the cause, he just sounds so… reasonable.
Mr. Schreiner was introduced to the meeting by Algoma-Manitoulin Green Party CFO Sarah Hutchinson, herself a former federal Green Party candidate.
The Green Party leader had spent a good portion of the day travelling the Island and had stopped just before the meeting to listen to US president Donald Trump announce his intention to pull America out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and, as befits these days of social media, create a short video with his response in which he called on the country and Ontario to stand firm in their commitments to tackle climate change and to defend the country and the earth from the impact of humanity’s carbon footprint.
“Canada should go forward,” he said.
Mr. Schreiner acknowledged the two former Green Party candidates in the room, Ms. Hutchinson and former provincial candidate Justin Tilson of Honora Bay. “It is not always easy being a candidate,” he said. “Thank you for doing that.”
The Green leader referred to his current visits to the North as his “Listen Tour” and his visit to the riding AGM as an opportunity to learn more about “what you want us to do at Queen’s Park.”
For a party without a seat in the legislature, Mr. Schreiner noted that the Green Party of Ontario has proven to be an effective lobby for the environment, claiming victory in the fight to ban neonicotinoid-based insecticides in the province and in changing regulations to encourage the establishment of small craft breweries. “Thousands of Green Party members sent letters to put pressure on the government,” he said. “Now we are the first jurisdiction in North America to reduce neonicotinoids by 80 percent.”
As to the beer front, Mr. Schreiner noted that he had been the recipient of a “16-page letter offering to sue me if I called the Beer Store a foreign-owed monopoly again.”
In what has become something of a departure for political leaders in the 21st Century, the Green Party leader actually gave credit to the current provincial government. “They actually listened to us,” he said. “Without a seat, we sat down with the premier.” He was promoting a concept he referred to as “vote to play” as opposed to “pay to play.”
Mr. Schreiner said he sought a role as an honest broker in the discussions on electoral finance reform, but although he was able to forge a general consensus on the issues and solutions, he found an insurmountable barrier in getting the three parties to admit it in public. “They couldn’t bear to be seen to be agreeing with the government on anything,” he said.
Mr. Schreiner went on to thank those in attendance who took time out of their day to come forward to be part of the political process. “Thank you,” he said. “People who are willing to engage around issues they care about. It is important to work together to promote honesty, integrity and policies that work for people,” he said. “The kind of policies I want to bring to Queen’s Park. That’s what I want to do for Ontario.”
Some of those policies outlined by Mr. Schreiner included “fighting carbon by putting money in your pocket, basic income guarantees and bringing school boards together.”
Mr. Schreiner took sharp aim at the province’s electricity system, noting that the current plan being touted by the province is unaffordable, putting the cost forward as a band aid, rather than dealing with the core of the issues.
Nuclear power was a major target, and Mr. Schreiner made a good argument against the current plan to refurbish Darlington and other reactors. Not only are those plans far too expensive, they have to be seen as an attempt to stave off the even more expensive costs of decommissioning those reactors.
After his address, Mr. Schreiner fielded a number of questions from the audience, providing detailed and in-depth replies to complex issues brought forward. Included in those interactive conversations were subjects including the “low hanging fruit” of electricity conservation programs, the desirability of purchasing hydro-electric power from neighbouring producers such as Quebec, a more efficient and well thought out transit program focussed on a user pay approach and, of course, climate change.
The Green Party of Ontario’s policies and platforms can be found at gpo.ca.
