The writ hasn't even been dropped for the upcoming provincial election, but the leader of the provincial Green Party is already making his pitch to be included in the televised leader debates.
Mike Schreiner appeared on LeDrew Live tonight and said the Green Party has earned the right to debate, even though they don't currently have any members sitting in the provincial legislature.
"I think the Green Party has some very unique positions that Ontario needs to hear and if we are going to have fair, open, inclusive debates in Ontario the Green Party needs to be at the table," Schreiner said. "In the last election 354,000 Ontarians voted for us and we had electoral results as high as 33 per cent, which is higher than any German green has received even though with their proportional representation system they've elected members."
In the 2007 Ontario provincial election the party was not included in the debates, but ended up collecting 8.01 per cent of the popular vote anyway.
For the 2011 election the greens, who will run candidates in all 107 provincial ridings, have launched Letmikespeak.ca to get their leader behind a podium. The site includes a petition visitors are encouraged to sign.
During his LeDrew Live appearance Schreiner, who is running in the riding of Simcoe-Grey, pointed to provincial Green Party leaders in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick who were included in their provinces televised debates.
"There is precedent for this," he said.
And if Schreiner is not invited to participate in the debate he told Stephen LeDrew little will change.
"We are going to continue to get our message out there," he said. "We have gotten great coverage at the local level and nothing beats knocking on doors and speaking to people directly."
