He may not have won the York-Simcoe riding, but Green Party candidate Jonathan Arnold says he is happy with the Green Party’s showing.
"We doubled our voter turnout, that's incredible," he said.
The Green Party had 4,615 votes in the York-Simcoe riding.
“We almost doubled our support and we were 200 votes shy of having the highest voter turnout for Green in York-Simcoe,” he said Tuesday morning after the election. “That was our goal to have the best showing ever and we came very very close to it, within striking distance.”
He feels happy knowing there are now almost 5,000 ‘Greens’ in York-Simcoe and feels “it’s our duty to keep that movement going forward.”
While he will be busy back with his full time job running his business Shady Lane Expert Tree Care, he plans to remain engaged in the riding while continuing to represent York-Simcoe with environmental policies.
"I don't want to go away, I want to try and keep a constant rapport for York-Simcoe and the residents here because that's the key to success," he said.
“We will continue to grow upon our foundation that we’ve created and hope for progress in York-Simcoe for strong Greens and more support,” he said.
After the results of a Liberal minority government were announced late last night, Arnold says he has hopes the government will work together with the three seats the Green Party has.
“If you don’t have a climate plan that makes sense, you are not going to be a contender in Canadian politics anymore, and I think that’s the silver lining of this election,” he said.
“If they take the three seats that the Green Party has and they embrace them and work towards real climate action then I feel Canadians will approve of this minority government.”
He plans to run again in the future and continue growing support for the Green Party.
“Can we double it every time? I don’t know, but that’s a goal to work towards.”
He credits his strong campaign to the doubling of votes as well as his team of volunteers.
“We put out a really passionate campaign video, we represented on social media and stayed true to our values. We ran a positive campaign with positive message that reflects the values of York-Simcoe resident... and that’s we aspired to do,” he said.
