Партия зеленых Онтарио: история и развитие

Canadian political party in Ontario

The Green Party of Ontario (GPO; ) is a political party in Ontario, Canada. The party is led by Mike Schreiner. In 2018, Schreiner was elected as the party's first member of the Ontario Legislative Assembly. In the past, the party did see significant gains in the 2007 provincial election, earning 8% of the popular vote with some candidates placing second and third in their ridings. A milestone was reached in the 2018 provincial election, when Schreiner was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the riding of Guelph. Elections Ontario records that in the 1999 provincial election, the GPO fielded 58 candidates, and became the fourth largest party in the province. In 2003, the party fielded its first nearly full slate, 102 out of 103 candidates, and received 2.8% of the vote. In 2007, in what many consider the breakthrough election for the GPO, the party fielded a full slate of 107 candidates, receiving over 8.0% and nearly 355,000 votes. The GPO had gained the most in the 2007 election and was one of only two parties that gained a significant amount of support. The rise in its political fortunes coincided with the national rise in support for the Green Party of Canada during the same period. Subsequently, the party's popularity declined in the 2011 and 2014 elections during tightly contested races between the Progressive Conservatives and ruling Liberals. Their popularity and vote share have increased since, and in the 2022 election, the party received 5.96% of the vote.

The late 1960s is widely seen as the start of the global ecological movement, however it wasn't until the 1970s that this movement began to gain political and economic legitimacy, with advances such as the founding of the world's first green party (New Zealand's Values Party), and the entry of the West German Greens (Die Grünen) into that country's legislature. The tiny, short lived Small Party, named after E. F. Schumacher's book Small Is Beautiful, formed in the Maritimes in the mid to late 1970s, and was the first party in the Western Hemisphere related to the green movement. This party was founded by Elizabeth May, now the leader of the Green Party of Canada. By the early 1980s, the idea of organized Green politics began to gain in international popularity, and in 1983 the Green Party of Ontario was registered with Elections Ontario. Shortly after the GPO was registered it contested its first election, fielding nine candidates who collected a combined 5,300 votes or 0.14%. In the 1987 election the party again ran nine candidates who fared worse, collecting 3,400 votes or 0.09%. In 1990, to the surprise of many, the GPO captured a much higher result, with 40 candidates capturing 30,400 votes or 0.75%.

It wasn't until 1993, however, that the party began to properly organize itself, electing Frank de Jong as its first official leader. The GPO and their newly selected leader ran in their first election as an organized party in the 1995 provincial election. However, even with a new leader and just three candidates less than 1990, the party lost more than half their support, falling to just 14,100 or 0.34%. De Jong led the party through three election campaigns, gradually building party support from less than one percent in the early 1990s to just over 8% in the 2007 provincial election. In the 1999 provincial election, the party ran 57 candidates and collected 0.70% or 30,800 votes. With 17 more candidates, the party fell 0.05% short of their 1990 result; however, this was a large increase compared to the previous election (1995). In addition, increased organization resulted in the addition of a Deputy Leader and a Shadow Cabinet. The first Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Ontario was Judy Greenwood Speers. She served the party in this role from 1999 to 2002. Ms Greenwood Speers was also the party's first Issue Advocate, continuously serving as the Advocate for Health and Long Term Care, and in the Senior's Secretariat from 1999 to today. The 2003 provincial election was what many consider to be the first breakthrough for the Greens. Running 102 out of a possible 103 candidates the GPO was able to capture 126,700 votes, or 2.82%. The GPO placed ahead of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) in two ridings, and took fourth place in 92 others. Just eight candidates fared worse than fourth place. De Jong announced his resignation as leader on 16 May 2009, at the Green Party of Ontario Annual General Meeting. A leadership and policy convention was held 13–15 November 2009 in London, Ontario.

Throughout 2006, there was a move toward major constitutional changes in the party, led by Executive Council Member at Large (former GPO President) Ron Yurick. During the May Annual Policy Conference in Toronto, and the September 2006 AGM in Lion's Head, Ontario, sweeping changes were approved to the party's governance structures. It was described as "the culmination of hundreds of hours of work that evolved out of a directive passed at the 2004 (AGM) in Cambridge. Included in the changes were the formation of a much larger Provincial Executive, which included two gender paritied representatives from each of six regions, gender paritied Deputy Leaders, and the creation of multiple functionary roles (a quasi civil service) separated from the Provincial Executive. At the Party's 2006 Annual General Meeting (AGM), the Party adopted further changes to the existing Constitution that, amongst other things, reduced the size of the Provincial Council and renamed it the Provincial Executive. One of the first acts of the new Provincial Executive was to strike a hiring committee to bring on a full time campaign manager in response to mounting internal pressures to ensure the party was ready for the October 2007 provincial election. In the run up to the 2007 provincial election, the Greens' support climbed into the double digits for the first time in party history. Although the party did not elect a member to the provincial legislature, they did increase their share of the popular vote to 8.1% (a gain of 5.3% from the 2003 election), placed second in one riding (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, with 33.1% compared to the PC incumbent winner's 46.7%), and took third place in a number of other ridings, ahead of candidates from previously elected parties. Shane Jolley, the Green candidate for Bruce Grey Owen Sound, earned more votes than any Green candidate in Canadian history at that time. The party had its 2007 AGM at an Easter Seals camp near Perth on 23 November to the 25. It was the largest AGM in GPO history at that time with over 120 delegates and over 400 proxy votes. The GPO adopted changes to the constitution, many involving the provincial executive. A few directives to the executive also discussed at the AGM included party bilingualism and fundraising. The party voted in the new executive including a new president Lawson Hunter, while former president Ron Yurick was voted in as Northern male rep. Over 70% of the voting membership had also voted to re elect party leader Frank de Jong for another two years. De Jong resigned as leader in 2009 and was replaced by Toronto entrepreneur Mike Schreiner who was the sole candidate in the party's leadership race. The Greens won no seats in the 2011 and 2014 provincial elections, though Schreiner received 19% of the vote in Guelph in 2014.

ElectionLeader# of seats Change +/−# of votes% of popular voteStandingLegislative roleGovernment1985N/ANew Party5,3450.14%New PartyProgressive Conservative minority defeated in no confidence vote, replaced by Liberal minority19873,3980.1%Liberal majority199030,0970.75%NDP majority1995Frank de Jong14,1080.34%Progressive Conservative majority199930,7490.79%2003126,6512.82%Liberal majority2007354,8978.02% Liberal majority2011Mike Schreiner126,5672.94%Liberal minority2014233,2694.84%Liberal majority2018 1264,0944.64% 4th Progressive Conservative majority2022276,7045.98% 4thProgressive Conservative majority