Ontario election 2022: Mike Schreiner’s push to get more Green Party MPPs at Queen’s Park

After making history in the 2018 Ontario election by becoming the first Green Party of Ontario MPP to be elected to the provincial legislature, Mike Schreiner is using this campaign to make the pitch to elect more Green MPPs.

“We need a parliament that’s going to meet the moment. We finally have a Green MPP at Queen’s Park who has punched well above his weight over the last four years and I need more Green MPPs,” Schreiner said during his closing statement at Monday’s leaders’ debate.

He went on to specifically highlight candidates Dianne Saxe, Ontario’s former environment commissioner who is running in the Toronto riding of University–Rosedale, and Matt Richter, who is running again in the riding of Parry Sound–Muskoka.

“I wished I’d been there (Queen’s Park) four years sooner so we were more prepared for the crisis bearing down on us, the climate crisis.”

RELATED: Ontario party leaders attack Ford on health, education in election debate

During the debate, the first television consortium debate to have the Green Party of Ontario included, it was Schreiner who gave Ford the sharpest questions of the evening.

Despite the strong performance, current polling suggested it will just be Schreiner returning to Queen’s Park for the Greens.

However, he has been spending a lot of time in Richter’s riding. Norm Miller, the longtime Ontario PC MPP, isn’t running in the 2022 election and there isn’t a Liberal candidate in the riding this time around after Barry Stanley was dropped over publishing a book containing scientifically baseless views on homosexuality. Richter came third in 2018 and got 20 per cent of the votes cast.

Even though the Green Party of Ontario has its major focus on the environment and climate change, Schreiner has been pushing that the party is more than just that issue.

CityNews has been reviewing all of the four major parties’ platforms. The Green Party of Ontario has put forward a lengthy list of platform ideas. Here are highlights of what the party is proposing on several key issues:

Economy, jobs and taxes

• Increase minimum wage to $16 in 2022, increase a dollar each year after with a top-up in cities with higher cost of living
• Increase number of protected sick days to 10 from three, provide financial support for small businesses to help
• Ban employers from requiring sicknotes
• Introduce gig workers’ bill of rights, ensure all workers (part-time, gig, temporary) have equal access to employment rights and benefits
• Ensure major infrastructure projects have local economic benefits
• Rent control guidelines for all commercial tenants, protect existing tenants during lease renewals with standardized leases
• Add one-per-cent climate surcharge to Ontario’s top 10 per cent of income earners, redirect $6 billion to low-income households as “climate bonus”
• Free college tuition for 60,000 people over four years to train or retrain in jobs that support green economy
• Create “hundreds of thousands” of new jobs through retrofitting 40 per cent of Ontario’s existing homes and businesses

Education and schools

• Cap class sizes in Grades 4 to 8 at 24, kindergarten at 26
• Drop EQAO testing
• Start a province-wide nutritious school lunch program
• Collection and reporting of race-based data at school to address racism
• Update curriculum to include “informed discussions” of anti-Black racism, discrimination, and LGBTQ2S+ prejudice
• Restore funding for, and develop a, mandatory curriculum on colonialism, residential schools, Indigenous histories and experiences
• Convert OSAP loans to grants for low- and middle-income students, eliminate interest charges on debt
• Index post-secondary institution operating grants to a national weighted average followed by annual inflationary increases

Environment and climate change

• Cut carbon pollution in half by 2030, net-zero emissions by 2045
• Eliminate fossil fuels from electricity generation, stop new fossil fuel infrastructure by 2025
• Double Ontario’s electricity supply by 2040 with clean energy sources, no new nuclear plants
• Give up to $10,000 for buying a fully electric vehicle and $1,000 for an e-bike or used electric vehicle, stop sales of new gas passenger vehicles, buses and medium duty trucks by 2030
• Boost number of electric vehicle charging stations, requiring stations to be installed at all new or resurfaced parking lots by 2023, change building code to ensure charging stations can be accommodated
• Stop fossil fuel use at new and renovated Ontario government buildings by 2025, all government buildings by 2030
• Protect at least 25 per cent of lands and water by 2025 and 2030
• Double size of the Greenbelt, strengthen Greenbelt Act and make new highways in it illegal
• Boost recycling standards, ban food waste from landfields
• Freeze all urban boundaries, permanently protect prime farmland
• Create five new provincial parks

Health care and COVID-19

• Increase annual hospital base operating funding year over year by a minimum of five per cent
• Work with federal government to implement universal dental care, pharmacare
• Increase nursing enrolments by 10 per cent a year for seven years, boost number of nurse practitioners by 50 per cent by 2030 (target 30,000 more nurses)
• Increase OHIP-covered care for rare diseases such as long-COVID, lyme disease, chronic pain disorders
• Expand family health teams, community health centres, midwifery services
• Repeal Bill 124
• Conduct independent public inquiry into Ontario government’s handling of COVID-19
• Build 55,000 long-term care beds by 2033 and at least 96,000 by 2041
• Increase long-term care base finding by 10 per cent
• Boost mental health spending to 10 per cent of Ontario’s health care budget to expand services
• Create three-digit, 24-7 mental health crisis response line to divert calls from 911 to “a more appropriate service”
• Build 60,000 supportive housing spaces for people who need addiction care with 6,000 of those units dedicated to people with complex care needs

Housing and affordability

• Phase-in basic income with first step of doubling ODSP and OW rates
• Build 182,000 permanently affordable community housing rental homes
• Build 1.5 million homes within existing urban boundaries over the next 10 years
• Mandate inclusionary zoning and require at least 20 per cent of units to be affordable in all projects “above a certain size”
• Allow single-family dwellings to be converted into multiple condo units
• Reinstate rent controls on all units, put in place vacancy control to limit increases between tenancies
• Implement multiple property specuation, anti-flipping (on quick turnarounds) taxes
• Work to reinstate goal to end homelessness with 10 years

Transportation and infrastructure

• Cancel Highway 413, Bradford Bypass and Highway 417 widening
• Create dedicated truck lanes on Highway 407 to reduce congestion, help with goods movement
• Cut all public transit (including GO Transit and Ontario Northland) fares in half for at least 3 months
• Restore 50-per-cent provincial funding for transit operations
• Electrify Ontario’s transit system and add 4,000 electric and fuel-cell buses by 2030
• Triple number of dedicated bus lanes by 2025
• Expand all-day, two-way GO service to every 15 minutes at peak and 30 minutes during off-peak hours and weekends
• Fully fund Northlander passenger train service
• Require bike storage and e-bike charging at all multi-unit buildings, surface parking lots, government buildings

Advance voting will occur until May 28 and the general election date is June 2.

To read the full Green Party of Ontario platform, click here.

Read more on the other three major party leaders and their platforms here:

• Ontario election 2022: Doug Ford and the PC Party’s plan for 4 more years
• Ontario election 2022: Andrea Horwath and the NDP’s pitch to oust Doug Ford and PCs
• Ontario election 2022: Steven Del Duca and the Liberals’ hopeful return to party status

With files from Cynthia Mulligan