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Smith squeezed just under 3 per cent of the local vote.

Still, said local Green Party president and former Green Party representative Kevin Shaw, every election is a chance to win voters for future elections as well.

“Certainly we have an uphill battle,” Shaw said. “But every time we put forward a good candidate who is well spoken, who knows all the issues, it adds a lot of credibility to the party.

“The more we can put ourselves out there the more people are going to consider it,” he added.

There is also the hope by fielding a Green Party candidate the local branch can push the perpetually stalled health initiative, one Environment, Conservation and Parks Minister Rod Phillips said the Ontario government would continue to pursue.

Gladu doubled down on Phillips’s statement during an environmental panel for U.S. journalists earlier this year, in Sarnia.

“It’s been spinning its wheels,” Shaw said. “The more we can raise the issue, and have it in the media, and have people talking about it, hopefully that can push the study to happen sooner rather than later.”

The Green Party could fare better in the region next year. While Gladu has committed to running again in 2019 though other Conservative stalwarts in Southwestern Ontario, namely Chatham-Kent MP Dave Van Kesteren and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MP Bev Shipley, have announced they will not seek reelection.

Another point on which to keep an eye heading into the upcoming election, one already touted as a possible mud-slinging contest by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: early voting.

In the extended 2015 election campaign nearly 10,000 people voted early in Sarnia-Lambton, and the recent municipal election — one during which nearly one in every two Sarnia residents came out to vote — saw similar trends, possibly due to an electronic-only voting setup.

Whether high turnout continues in 2019 is yet to be seen.

“We just want to get started as early as we can,” Smith said. “Really some of these issues, I think we need to start talking about them a bit earlier (than the campaign).”

lpin@postmedia.com