Mike Schreiner
Biography:
MIKE SCHREINER is a Canadian politician who has served as the leader of the Green Party of Ontario since 2009, and the member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Guelph since 2018. He is the first Green Party member ever elected to the Ontario Legislature. His election marked the first time since 1951 that four different parties were elected to the Legislature. Prior to politics Schreiner was a small business advocate, entrepreneur, and food policy expert.
Born in WaKeeney, Kansas, Schreiner is an American-born Canadian. It was through helping his parents on their grain farm that his interest in food, agriculture and the environment began. Schreiner earned bachelor's degrees in business administration and history from the University of Kansas in 1992, and he earned his master's degree in history from Indiana University Bloomington in 1994.
While at Indiana University, he met his future wife, Sandy Welsh, later a sociology professor and vice provost at the University of Toronto. After graduating from Indiana University, Schreiner and his wife moved to Toronto in 1994. He became a Canadian citizen in 2007. He and his wife Sandy are the parents of two daughters.
Schreiner has been an entrepreneur and small business owner whose ventures have focused on sustainable food production and the local food movement. His first business was Toronto Organics that specialized in delivering food to consumers.
After moving to the Guelph area, Schreiner continued operating food distribution businesses. One company – WOW Foods – was awarded the Citizens Bank of Canada Ethics in Action Award for socially responsible business and the Toronto Food Policy Council's Local Food Hero Award. He also co-founded Earthdance Organics, a Guelph-based food production business that supplied area health food stores and farmers' markets in the early 2000s.
In 2005 Schreiner co-founded Local Food Plus, which brought "farmers and consumers together to promote financially, socially and environmentally sustainable local food systems". He has also served as a volunteer with many other organizations including: FarmStart, the Brewer's Plate, the Toronto Food Policy Council and the Green Enterprise Ontario Steering Committee, the Canadian International Peace Project, and Toronto's Campus Community Co-op Day Care Centre.
Schreiner has been actively involved in the Green Party of Ontario (GPO) since 2004. He co-chaired the 2007 election platform committee and served as policy coordinator from 2008 to 2009. On 14 November 2009, Schreiner was acclaimed leader of the Ontario Green Party.
The same year he became GPO leader, Schreiner made the first of his three unsuccessful bids to win a seat: the Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock by-election in March 2009; the 2011 general election as a candidate for Simcoe—Grey; and in the 2014 general election as a candidate for Guelph.
Success for Schreiner arrived in the 2018 Ontario general election, his forth attempt. Increasing his share of the votes cast from 19% in 2014 to 45%, he became the MPP for Guelph, and the first Green ever elected in Ontario. He was re-elected in the 2022 Ontario general election.
As a Green Party candidate and leader, Schreiner has declared that he is fighting “for a liveable future” for his children, and "to tackle climate change and address income inequality, social justice issues and improving our democracy".
Specifically, Schreiner has advocated for:
- Basic income programs
- Universal dental, pharma and mental health coverage
- A health system that prioritizes illness prevention
- Balancing small business payroll tax cuts with tax increases for larger businesses
- Moving Ontario to 100 per cent renewable energy
- Closing the Pickering nuclear power plant
- Programs to help homeowners with green retrofits to save energy
- Phasing out internal combustion engines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Carbon pricing to discourage use of greenhouse gas-producing goods and services, and the return of revenues to Ontarians as dividends
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Schreiner