Election 2025 Candidate Danielle Rae

Apr 16, 2025

By Jemma Dooreleyers

Danielle Rae, a 28-year-old legal assistant who resides in Pakenham ON, started her campaign as the New Democratic Party of Canada’s candidate almost three weeks ago when the NDP riding association approached her after no one else had stepped up to the plate.

Rae has political science degrees from the University of Ottawa and McGill.

Since she was old enough to vote, she became involved with politics, volunteering with several NDP campaigns.

Frontenac News caught up with her over the phone just before the All Candidates meeting in Verona on April 9th.

Background and why you wanted to run for NDP candidate for Lanark-Frontenac:

I am 28 years old, and right now I work as a legal assistant and I am running because I really think the community needs someone to listen to them and that is what I aim to do with this campaign. I am talking to people in community centres. Libraries, churches, their homes, craft fairs . Just really meeting people where they’re at to listen and discuss as fellow citizens, the future of Canada. We are at a very decisive point, the United States is retreating from the role of the superpower and I felt like the liberals and conservatives don’t really listen to people. They hand down the platforms , they tell them what to think and what to feel and I wanted offer a real alternative for that and to develop an alternative with my neighbours.

As a 28 year old woman, how does it feel to run against a candidate who has been the candidate for 25 years?

It’s a little bit daunting. The riding is solidly conservative at the moment but I aim to change that in the long term I am really planting the seeds of political organizing. Getting people interested in politics, getting people politicized, getting people active is my goal right now to build something that will be able to flip this riding. Personally, it’s by far the toughest thing I have done in my life. I came into the race only two and a half weeks ago so I’ve had to act extremely fast. But so far it feels good. Bringing a younger generation to what is an extremely established political landscape is a challenge.

How are you working to bridge the gap between the older generation and the younger generation in terms of political involvement?

Bridging the gap between seniors and young people, I am meeting them where they are at. I’ve gotten a really positive response because the older people who are interested in politics, I think are worried that young people are becoming more apathetic. I wouldn’t so much say apathetic, but hopeless. I’ve heard a lot of anger but no energy to channel that anger into anything productive. So I’ve gotten a really positive response for older people who are politically active. As for the younger people I did an “Ask Me Anything” on the Ottawa subreddit yesterday, we are trying to connect with people through Instagram. Also, my message really does speak to people who, like myself, have directly faced the impact of the housing crisis. Rent is increasingly unaffordable and home ownership seems increasingly out of reach for young people. I always ask people what they care about first but when they ask me what I care about the most, housing is my main concern because it so personal to me.

So affordable housing is your main concern, what are your ideas from bringing this to the House of Commons? Do you have any thoughts on policies?

We’ve seen from the Liberal Federal government and the Conservative provincial government that they have tried to address the housing crisis. The issue with how they look at it is that they don’t differentiate between types of housing and so ironically, what has been happening, especially in the neighbours I’ve been looking at, in the name of the Housing Crisis, they have given out enormous development contracts to large corporate landlords and developers who have what we call “renovicted” or “demo-victed” low-income tenants, so knocking down housing that is already there to build luxury condos. The NDP’s and my plan really want to address that. First of all, developing public housing contracts to move away from private developers and landlords, using general land to build affordable housing and second, working with the non-profit housing sector. The non-profit housing sector has done so much work but does not have enough money to really make a difference in the housing crisis, so investing in them to bring the cost of housing down and more accessible to the market. 

Rural residents often feel like their voices are not heard in the House of Commons, how are you going to ensure that you bring their issues to parliament?

By being really loud and really annoying. I’ve been getting out and speaking to ordinary people on their doorsteps and I’ve been encouraging them to participate, not just in the political process but connecting them to different advocacy groups. It’s really important to connect partisan and non-partisan advocacy. It’s really important to improve that relationship between local NDP and Parkinson’s and other disabilities advocacy group. By combining these voices, whether it be about Parkinson’s or  the mining developments in the Lanark Highlands, whether it’s on the Smith Falls hospital, it’s about combining the party voice and the citizen’s voice. That’s how you get the citizens’ voices to parliament.

Tell me about your background with rural living.

My family moved to Pakenham ten years ago. I’ve lived in Pakenham, Ottawa and Montreal. At one point I lived in downtown Ottawa for my graduate degree and I was eventually priced out of that due to the housing crisis. Right here, for the last ten years, my family and I have been working to improve the plot that we have out here. It was bit desolate when we got here. We’ve been planting trees, corn for the chickens, basil and all kinds of stuff. I think the fruit trees will start fruiting soon. That’s how I’ve seen this campaign, I’m planting seeds for something bigger.

This is your first time campaigning, what about this election specifically made you want to run?

What’s so important about this election specifically is that Canada is at such a crossroads because of US tariffs which is just a symptom of the growing instability in our Southern neighbour who for the last century and a bit have been our steadfast ally and the basis for Canada’s place in the world. Now we have to find a new path. What I see from the Conservatives is that they are just hoping to ignore it and it will go away on its own. The Liberals are rolling up their sleeves to fight but the last time they did that, we got a trade deal in 2018 and then they kind of went back to sleep and didn’t realize that this instability is here to stay whether Trump is in power or not. America is not what it used to be so Canada needs to find new allies and new trade partners, and a new place in the world order. That’s part of why I am running. I have been involved in every election one way or an other since I was old enough to vote and that is part of why I am running in this one in particular.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention to the residents of the riding?

I would encourage people to get involved at a local level whether that means with a political party or with community organizing because our trade relations are not going back to normal and it’s going to hurt for a long time, and we need each other more now than ever. We need people to step up, get involved, communally and politically. We’ve separated those things for too long and in times of political crisis, we really need them to come together. That’s what I’d like to leave people with. ■