Provincial Green Party leader visits Peterborough

Mike Schreiner presents himself as a candidate to become premier.

Not as unpopular as Kathleen Wynne or as controversial as Doug Ford, Schreiner says if elected he would make the green energy industry explode in places like Peterborough.

The provincial Green Party leader was in the city on Saturday on a tour across Ontario leading up to a June provincial election.

Last month the Progressive Conservative Party narrowly elected former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford to lead the party into the election.

So far polls have Ford in the lead but Schreiner says people don’t have to settle for the PCs, which he said have proven unable to lead after a chaotic leadership race.

“What people are telling me is they’re tired of the established party,” Schreiner said.

In the 2014 provincial election Schreiner’s party won no seats, though he still presents a face of optimism.

Schreiner says in place of the “red” or “blue” parties, the

Green Party will replace waning industrial jobs with green sector jobs.

He says his party is “wanting to take Ontario in the direction people want to go” and will “invest in 21st century jobs.”

Gianne Broughton, the Green candidate in Peterborough-Kawartha up against incumbent Liberal MPP Jeff Leal, says green jobs are the way of the future for Ontario.

“We really need to move on clean energy,” she said, adding jobs in that sector can employ six to one over standard energy.