Mike Schreiner was never so happy to be so wrong.
The Green leader predicted last week’s byelection in the NDP riding of Kitchener Centre would “go down to the wire," but his candidate won by a whopping 5,022 votes in a stunning blow to the New Democrats soon after dumping Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama from their caucus for insubordination.
"We were confident that we would win, but we did not think it would be a landslide," Schreiner told the Star, admitting he was still hustling voters to the polls five minutes before they closed Thursday night.
As a result, the Greens will soon have two MPPs at Queen's Park.
"It's a big momentum boost for our party," Schreiner, who represents Guelph in the legislature, said Monday at a news conference with MPP-elect Aislinn Clancy, a school social worker and Kitchener city councillor.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles, who has now lost two MPPs since being acclaimed to the job early this year, tried to downplay the setback after Government House Leader Paul Calandra taunted her in the legislature.
"I do think that was a very sound rejection of the Doug Ford Conservatives and the direction they're taking this province," she told reporters later.
"Obviously it's disappointing for us to lose the seat," she added. "We're going to look at the result and what we learned from it."
The NDP, which now has 28 MPPs, went into the byelection in turmoil over the ouster of Jama.
Two members of its Kitchener Centre riding association executive publicly called on Stiles to resign, and former New Democrat MPP Laura Mae Lindo — who quit in July to take another job — took to social media to criticize Stiles for the decision, along with Toronto St. Paul's MPP Jill Andrew, among others in the party who dissented.
At the NDP's provincial council meeting on the weekend before the byelection, members voted by a two-to-one margin to back Stiles on Jama's removal.
"Those things were big distractions for the NDP," said Erin Morrison, formerly a top communications adviser to previous New Democrat leader Andrea Horwath.
"I think the Greens took advantage of that and good on them. They campaigned really hard and had a decisive victory there."
Green MP Mike Morrice represents the riding federally, giving his provincial cousins a head start on support and an army of volunteers.
New Democrat candidate Debbie Chapman, also a city councillor, said Lindo did not campaign with her. Chapman won 27 per cent of the vote compared to 48 per cent for her Green rival.
In the legislature Monday, Calandra congratulated the Greens — who are less of a threat to Ford's Progressive Conservatives — and taunted the NDP.
"It's never easy turning a seat that has been historically Liberal and NDP," he said in an exchange with Stiles, who was criticizing the government over the rising cost of living and the $8.3-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal that is the subject of an RCMP criminal investigation.
"She might want to take a look at the results of the byelection. Yet another safe NDP seat has been lost … and she says we're not connected with people."
Ford's Progressive Conservatives placed third with out-of-town candidate Rob Elliott, from Keswick north of Toronto, winning 13 per cent of the vote. The Liberals, who held the seat for years until Lindo won it in 2018, were a distant fourth with eight per cent support for municipal civil servant Kelly Steiss.
"It shows the Liberals have a long way to come back there," said Morrison.
Liberal MPP John Fraser, who served as interim leader until Saturday's election of Bonnie Crombie as leader, noted his party won two summer byelections — including the longtime Progressive Conservative stronghold of Kanata-Carleton — but acknowledged the timing of the Kitchener byelection was difficult on the eve of the Liberal leadership convention.
"When you have the NDP riding association challenging the leader, that doesn't bode well for trying to build a team," said Fraser. "It didn't help them at all."
Clancy said she found knocking on doors during the campaign that voters were "tired of the old party-line politics" and liked the Green positions on building more affordable housing and improving public transit in Waterloo Region, where it is "ridiculously difficult" to get from one city to another without a car.
"I've worked with low-income folks my whole career," said the married mother of two who will be sworn in as an MPP sometime after Dec. 15, after the legislature rises for its winter break.
"What we heard from the people in Kitchener Centre is that they're feeling the squeeze."
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