Ontario is going Green, Canada may follow

As published in the Brandon Sun, October 13, 2007

The Green Party of Ontario (GPO) may not have won a seat in the 2007 Ontario provincial election, but after their impressive showing it would be difficult to deny that they are indeed becoming a political threat within Ontario and quite possibly across the entire country.

The Green Party's best showing was in the riding of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, where candidate Shane Jolley gave the incumbent Progressive Conservative candidate, Bill Murdoch, a run for his money. Shane finished second with 33.1 percent of the vote, garnering more than twice as many votes as the third-place Liberal candidate, Selwyn Hicks.

The Greens also made a strong showing in the riding of Guelph where candidate Ben Polley polled third with 19.5 percent of the vote, just behind second-place PC candidate Bob Senechal with 24.7 percent of the vote and ahead of NDP candidate Karan Mann-Bowers with 13.9 percent.

The GPO ran candidates in all 107 ridings and overall they garnered eight percent of the total popular vote. In 18 different ridings, the Greens finished in third place, placing ahead of both NDP and PC candidates. In an additional 10 ridings, the GPO was within two percent of finishing third.

Most political analysts argued that the Ontario election would offer few insights into the possible outcome of the looming federal election. The strong showing of the GPO, however, should be enough to make analysts pause and consider how the Green Party of Canada will fare when Canadians go back to the polls.

Perhaps they may even win a seat!

JRB