THUNDER BAY – Ontario Liberal leadership candidate Kate Graham was in Thunder Bay this weekend, touring the city with Mayor Bill Mauro, connecting with local residents and party members – and, yes, trying persians and Finn pancakes for the first time.
Graham, 35, is new to provincial politics – she lost as a first-time candidate in London North Centre in the 2018 election – but she’s no political neophyte. She spent a decade as a civil servant with the City of London, most recently as Director of Community & Economic Innovation, earned a PhD focused on local government, and currently teaches Political Science at Western University.
She believes her unconventional resume can be an asset, saying people are looking for a break from the status quo. As a young, female candidate from outside the GTA who was not part of the previous Liberal government, she says she offers just that.
“I’m not a career politician,” she says. “I have experience working at a level of government where there aren’t political parties, and people who have different ideas actually have to listen to each other and work together – what a concept!”
That approach is evident in Graham’s platform for leader, which includes implementing the NDP’s ‘Pharmacare for Everyone’ plan, among other ideas from opposing parties.
Graham helped lead the Listening Project, a post-mortem evaluation of the Liberals’ 2018 defeat, which left the party reduced to seven seats and without official party status. She believes many of the policies they campaigned on are popular with Ontarians, but says many felt the party had lost touch and stopped listening. She says the last-minute rollout of some major policies didn’t help.
“After that last budget before the election, people felt we were just throwing everything at them,” she explains. “We’d hear the phrase ‘buying our vote’ with some frequency. I think it was the feeling some decisions were more politically-motivated, rather than motivated by making people’s lives better.”
Her platform emphasizes fighting climate change, building affordable housing, and arming municipalities with more autonomy and resources.
She also wants to follow the example of places like New Zealand and Iceland in adopting a “well-being” policy framework that would use quality-of-life metrics to inform decision-making, rather than “measures of how affluent we are overall” like the GDP.
As well as her tour with Mayor Mauro, Graham met with local MPP Michael Gravelle, the CEO of the Community Economic Development Corporation, teachers, and a recipient of the cancelled Basic Income Pilot, which she says she would revive if elected.
Graham will return to the north for the party’s next leadership debate in Sudbury on Jan. 12. Delegates will select the next Liberal leader at the party’s convention on Mar. 7.
