Six questions with Danielle Rae, federal NDP candidate for Lanark—Frontenac
Editorial note: As Canadians head to the polls for the Monday, Apr. 28, 2025, federal election, we want to be your one-stop home base for everything you need to know in Lanark—Frontenac. As part of this coverage, we’ve created profiles for each member of parliament (MP) candidate (pending candidate availability) in the riding. For these profiles, each candidate was asked the same list of questions, the responses to which we’ve compiled into an easy-to-read Q&A format. To view all of the profiles (published as response is collected) and additional election coverage, visit Lanarkist’s Federal Election 2025 page.
Danielle Rae is the NDP candidate for Lanark—Frontenac in the upcoming federal election. She and her family moved to Pakenham 10 years ago, and Rae says she’s grown to love the big blue sky of Mississippi Mills.
Rae says she is running to amplify the voices of those like her who’ve felt the squeeze of the housing crisis and the rising cost of living, as well as to offer a bold alternative to the Liberal-Conservative status quo. She believes in the strength of on-the-ground community organizing, and said she is going out to listen to ordinary people and connect with them face-to-face in order to bring politics to the people and the people to politics.
At 28 years old, Rae has worked as a legal assistant, as kitchen staff, as a teacher’s aide, and in a number of positions in the federal government. She is a graduate of political science from the University of Ottawa and McGill, where she specialized in Middle Eastern politics. Her hobbies include painting models, tabletop gaming, fencing, morning runs, and working on her novel.
Why are you running for public office?
I am running for office because I want to plant the seeds of a better future. I want to get into our communities and speak to real people about their hopes and concerns for Canada’s place in the world, and about the issues that affect them day-to-day. I believe we are strongest when we come together, and when we work collaboratively to make our voices heard, rather than picking one side of the political establishment to fear and another side to treat as saviours. I am running because there need to be more voices than the “nice” side of the political establishment and the “mean” side.
Homelessness and housing affordability have become increasing issues in Lanark—Frontenac, as with much of Ontario and the country. What steps would you take as MP to improve housing for residents?
I have personally felt the effects of the housing crisis, having been priced out of housing in 2022. I saw firsthand how much good a politician – in that case, a city councillor – could do in amplifying the voices of tenants facing “demoviction,” a process which the plans to address the housing crisis from the federal Liberals and the provincial Conservatives have made even more common.
By working through corporate landlords and not putting any requirements on what kind of housing they built, Liberal-Conservative housing strategies resulted in low-income tenants getting their homes demolished to make way for luxury condos.
I will work with local tenants’ organizations to fight back against those practices. I will work with the federal NDP to implement our platform of working with nonprofits to build affordable housing, and to build rent-controlled public housing on federal land. I also believe in a community-based, “housing first” homelessness strategy, which will get people off the streets and into homes.
Health care — including access to family physicians and increasing wait times at clinics and emergency rooms, as well as for surgeries — is a major concern for many in the area. What will you do as MP to help the situation?
The Smiths Falls hospital needs major improvements, and I will bring that issue to Ottawa. I strongly support the NDP’s plan to offer 1,000 new residency programs for doctors trained in other countries living in Canada to get back to practising medicine. We have a great untapped pool of talent in Canada, and I will use my constituency office to help these doctors navigate that system so they can get into residency as soon as possible.
I will also visit retirement homes, long-term care centres, and community centres around the riding, hosting free information clinics to help people navigate our health-care system and get the support they deserve. To do this, I will work with patient and disability advocacy groups, like Parkinson’s advocate Pat Evans and others who are already doing amazing work throughout the riding.
As the threat of tariffs looms from the U.S., what are the most important things the federal government can do to advocate for its citizens and lessen the blow of any consequences?
The NDP’s plan will distribute revenues from counter-tariffs to the workers from industries hit hardest by U.S. tariffs. We will combine those emergency measures with permanent housing and affordability policies, to take the squeeze off ordinary Canadians, and with long-term negotiations with markets like the EU (European Union) to find new trade partners to fill the gap left by an increasingly unstable United States.
What are you hearing with regard to post-secondary education and what will you do to advocate for those institutions within your riding?
The NDP has always supported post-secondary education, including apprenticeships and the trades. With Algonquin closing its Smiths Falls campus in 2022 and looking to close its Perth campus next year, I will work with trade schools and other educational institutions to fill that gap. I will also offer my constituency office’s services to students to navigate Ontario’s complex college and universities admissions process, and to help them apply for scholarships and bursaries.
If you could share one message with voters in Lanark—Frontenac, what would it be?
It’s time to come together and demand a better Canada. A Canada with a government beholden to ordinary people, not to corporations and oligarchs. A Canada which forges a new place for itself in the post-American world. And it’s time for us to engage with politics, not as voters and taxpayers who choose a champion every four years, but as neighbours who work to improve our communities and build consensus among ourselves every day.
A government of the people needs strong and robust communities to work with it, to direct it, and to hold it accountable. I look forward to working hand-in-hand with these community organizers, and I encourage everyone to take part, to use their voice to send a message to Ottawa: it’s all of us or it’s none of us.
To learn more about Danielle, visit her campaign Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lfkndp, or contact info@lfkndp.ca.