TORONTO — The Green Party has come up one short in its bid to field candidates in all 103 Ontario ridings for the 2003 provincial election.

The so-called fringe party that stands for stronger environmental protections and more funding for preventive health care managed to get candidates for every riding except Oakville by Thursday's 2 p.m. deadline for nominations imposed by Elections Ontario.

But deputy party leader Peter Elgie refused to see it as a setback.

"We're totally thrilled," he said. "We set a standard for every Green Party across Canada and North America."

"If we run 102 out of 103, are we now not credible across the province?"

Elgie said it wasn't immediately clear why the Oakville candidate didn't meet Thursday's deadline.

"We're investigating what happened," he said. "All we know is that the papers weren't filed, so we're checking with Elections Ontario and with our candidate to see what's going on."

Party Leader Frank de Jong had insisted that the Greens would have candidates in every electoral district for the Oct. 2 vote for the first time in the fledgling party's history.

The Tories, Liberals and NDP all had a full slate of candidates by the deadline.

According to Elections Ontario, to qualify as a candidate a person must be of voting age, a Canadian citizen, and a resident of Ontario for six months preceding polling day.

Meeting those requirements and submitting the completed nomination papers to the local returning office with a $200 deposit by the deadline is all it takes.

The Green Party has used its ability to attract so many candidates to argue it should have its first opportunity to participate in the campaign's critical leaders' television debate.

The party has threatened legal action over its exclusion from the event to be broadcast live on Sept. 23.

Peter Rehak, producer of the debate and a spokesman for the Consortium of Broadcasters, has said the Greens were turned down "on editorial grounds."

The party wrote to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to complain about being excluded.

The CRTC subsequently sent letters to the media outlets in the consortium asking for responses to the Green Party's complaint by Thursday.

The Green Party had until 1 p.m. Friday to file a reply to the CRTC, which was expected to then make a ruling on the matter.

Elgie said he was still hopeful that the Greens would be included in the debate.

"Absolutely. It's still not over," he said. "They still have a chance to reconsider and do what Ontarians are telling them they want them to do and include us. It's not just us anymore -- it's the people of Ontario clearly saying, 'Look, we want to hear about the Green Party, you're not talking about the issues that matter to us."'