Mike Schreiner made history on Thursday night, becoming the first Green Party candidate to win a seat in an Ontario election.
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The Green Party earned official party status in 1983 with Schreiner taking over as leader in 2009.
“We started out obviously a couple decades ago as a very small party running very few candidates. Now we’re running a full slate of candidates, a gender-balanced slate of candidates,” Schreiner told Global News during the campaign.
Raised on a farm in Kansas, Schreiner moved to Canada in 1994, when his wife took a job at the University of Toronto.
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A few years ago, he made the move from Toronto to Guelph, where he has been working for decades. The city was the ultimate spot to go Green, with clean-tech startups and a city council focused on renewable energy and protecting its water.
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The city is ripe for a Green representative, Schreiner told The Canadian Press before the election.
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The third time proved to be the charm for Schreiner as this was his third attempt to win the Guelph seat.
In the last election, Schreiner finished third but secured a healthy 19.29 per cent of the vote, ahead of the NDP.