Last night the Green Party of Ontario took some important strides in the ridings of Leeds-Grenville (LG) and Ottawa West-Nepean (OWN).

In 2007 we were 3rd in LG with 7.18% of the vote.  We led the NDP by only 86 votes (we had 2,907, they had 2,821) with 40,462 or 54.9% of voters participating.  Last night we extended our 86 vote lead on the NDP to 700!  With a voter turn out that dropped down to 36.9% every party last votes.  However we lost the least number of votes or second least proportionally depending on how you want to look at it.

There was great news today for both of the Green Party of Ontario by-election campaigns in the form of a strong endorsement from Randall Denley in the Ottawa Citizen.

From our candidates to, our leader, to our party's policies Mr. Denley is very impressed.

On our competition:

"There are the Liberals, with their scandals and broken promises; the PCs, still trying to figure out who they are; and the NDP, for those who think we don’t have enough socialism and big government."

On our platform:

"...the Greens have policies that are much more in sync with real life than those of their competitors."

On Mike's involvement in the by-elections:

Mark MacKenzie is the GPO candidate in the Ottawa-West Nepean by-election.  I've known Mark for a while now as he's a prominent Green in the Ottawa area.  I like Mark's three election strategy he's taking in the riding.  There's this by-election, the next federal election and the 2011 provincial election in a short span of time.  Mark is planning on running in each of these and building off the canvassing efforts of the previous campaign.  Hopefully our results in OWN will show substantial growth over the next couple years.

There have been two Ontario by-elections since the 2007 general election.  In each of these by-elections the voter turn-out was far lower than it was in 2007.  In HKLB the turnout dropped by 34% or to put it another way only 66% of people who voted in the general bothered to vote in the by-election.  Even in a by-election with provincial implications only 39% of voters showed up at the polls.

We are now well into the November 9th by-elections.  Mark has felt that not enough attention on the main Green Party website is dedicated to the by-election or perhaps more importantly the by-election candidates.  A few other bloggers have questioned our readiness.  Many good points where brought up.  Hopefully the new banner on the website regarding the by-elections helps.  But what can each of us do to help with our candidates?

Sorry for the long post.

OK I'm getting grumpy with the GPO. First I just want to point out that vetting candidates is important. It really is, and while it can be unfair, it has to be done. Also everyone needs to understand that the people selecting and more importantly rejecting candidates do no take any joy from denying someone the opportunity to carry the Green banner.

However, with that said, if you are going to have a candidate selection committee the members should know a few things.

I mentioned ambitious goals in my last post and would know like to propose a few.

• Before 2011 we should set a goal of having 107 CAs.
• If we can accomplish that the next step would be to have 107 ACTIVE CAs.

I've read a few articles regarding the outcome of the Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock by-election and while I in no way want to diminish the job well done by Green Party of Ontario candidate Mike Schreiner I do think that it would be a mistake to suggest that the by-election results were a resounding success.

In an effort to remind voters that the Green Party of Ontario is the true political home for Ontario's fiscal conservatives I sent this letter to the Lindsay Post:

John Tory's Claim to Fiscal Responsibility

With Ontario slipping back into deficit and the current economic downturn fiscal responsibility will no doubt be a key issue during this by-election campaign.

Since it is the Liberal party who is returning us to deficit it wont be long before John Tory starts talking about how he would manage our tax dollars.