Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner visits Festival City to help organize opposition to Bill 5

Mike Schreiner speaks to supporters on the lawn of the Falstaff Family Centre on July 17. The Ontario Green Party leader was invited by Mayor Martin Ritsma to tour Stratford and see what initiatives the city and its residents and businesses are undertaking.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

“I loved Stratford before I came, and I love it as I spent the day here,” Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner told reporters on the evening of July 17. “There are a lot of great things happening here.”

Schreiner was invited to the Festival City by Mayor Martin Ritsma that day, after having “good conversations” about productive partnerships between the provincial and local governments.

While in the Festival City, Schreiner visited Vicwest, a prominent employer devoted to being carbon neutral, some of the affordable housing projects in Stratford and some of the farmland on the edge of town, as housing and agriculture remain two key issues he and the Greens are concerned about.

After his tour, Schreiner joined supporters on the lawn of the Falstaff Family Centre to discuss a central concern of him and other Ontario residents: the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, more commonly known as Bill 5.

As he said, although the bill received royal assent on June 5, he believes there is still an opportunity for opposition.

“We’re seeing people across Ontario organizing opposition to Bill 5, and in the same way, Bill 23 passed to open the Greenbelt for development, and about a year later, the premier backtracked on that and had to introduce legislation to reverse (the decision) … We're seeing the same concerns with Bill 5, and we're seeing the same kind of opposition grow.”

After speaking with supporters as the sun set, Schreiner fielded questions and spoke about how to organize opposition and make a difference as individuals. As he reiterated to reporters after, Schreiner said that it’s about communication.

“People talking with neighbours. Why am I concerned about Bill 5? What steps am I going to take to kill this bill? Some of the other events like this we’ve been doing … sign campaigns, petition campaigns, letter writing campaigns, rallies, going into their churches, their workplaces, talking to their neighbours.

“I remain optimistic that we are building the kind of movement we need to build,” Schreiner went on to say, after being asked if he was confident that opposition will be fruitful. “And I also remind people that Doug Ford has never had more than 20 per cent of eligible voters vote conservative in any of the three elections he's won, partly because voter turnout has been low, and partly because he gets like 40 per cent of the people who actually come out to vote.

“So he's actually never had more than 20 per cent of Ontarians actually vote conservative. So that gives me hope that the other 80 per cent of eligible voters out there will come out and vote and will vote for a party like the Green Party. And so that's what keeps me going.”