Sudbury Green Party candidate Bill Crumplin is hopeful that the third time is a charm as he opened his campaign office on Elm Street on Oct. 10.
The Laurentian University professor is making his third foray into politics, completing the trifecta of running at the provincial, municipal and now federal level.
Crumplin ran for the provincial Greens in Nickel Belt in 2018, before jumping right back into politics as a mayoral candidate in the 2018 Sudbury municipal election.
A shorter election and a bigger team, coupled with two campaigns under his belt have Crumplin feeling more at ease as election day approaches.
"In the municipal election there were 11 of us (running for mayor) and it made debating crazy, complicated and I don't think any of us were really able to get our message out there," said Crumplin.
"It was a long campaign, one of the things I really appreciate about this one is it's relatively short. I also think that because this is my third foray into politics, I'm known to a certain extent now where provincially I wasn't, I think the mayoral campaign really helped with that."
Backing from his team and the community has been strong this election season, and Crumplin says that his party has already more than doubled the previous record of fundraising dollars for a federal Green Party candidate in Sudbury.
"I put that down to the fact that a lot of people are really committed, they're learning that to support a politician or a party you have to actually contribute a little bit of money," said Crumplin.
"What's also been encouraging is I've had people come to my part who are card-carrying Liberals and they've cut them up. They're doing this because they don't like the lack of action on the climate in particular."
The climate change movement has gained significant momentum of late, with numerous protests and marches across Canada and around the globe and a call from constituents for parties to have a clear plan for the climate in their platform.
Crumplin feels the time is now for a Green wave to hit Canada and he would like to see his party win 12 seats and have official party status.
"I really feel the time is right, and I was watching and listening during the Chamber of Commerce debate and I wished I had kept count of how many times the climate was brought up in a Chamber of Commerce debate," said Crumplin.
"Four years ago no one would've been talking about the climate. The other thing I've noticed is that people are marrying the climate urgency with economic change. We have to do them together, I like to refer to is as a three-legged stool, where one leg is the economy, one is the environment and one is social issues. A three-legged stool doesn't wobble, it's very sturdy, but if you remove one of those legs, over it goes."
