THUNDER BAY – Tracey MacKinnon knows what it’s like to suffer from financial hardship.
As someone who’s spent time as part of the homeless population, and even today is forced at times between paying a utility bill or buying food to feed her household, eliminating poverty and making sure people have enough money to live on top her list of priorities as she heads into her first federal election campaign as the Thunder Bay-Rainy River candidate for the Green Party.
MacKinnon, who has called Thunder Bay home for the past decade or so, said everyone deserves to be able to afford the basics in life – food and shelter heading those priorities.
Government has a role to play in ensuring it’s a reality for all Canadians, but under the current reality, she believes elected officials are failing the electorate.
“The Green Party has had a guaranteed livable income in their platform for many, many years,” she said.
It’s proven to work.
She pointed to Ontario’s now-halted basic income pilot project, instituted by the Liberals under Kathleen Wynne and discontinued by the current Conservative government under direction of Premier Doug Ford.
The Canada Emergency Relief Program, put in place by the Liberals, with a push from the NDP, to combat the effects of the pandemic has largely been a success.
“We have the data. We know that this kind of program works, whether it be a guaranteed livable income, whether it be a basic income, whether it be a targeted income – whatever label you want to put on it, it’s long overdue,” MacKinnon said.
“The people are suffering. I’m suffering and I’m not alone. There are hundreds and thousands of people in Thunder Bay who could use a hand up. It’s not a handout. Don’t think of it like that. It’s a hand up to get us out of poverty, to get the economy restarted.”
MacKinnon is no stranger to running for office, having sought an at-large seat three years ago in the Thunder Bay municipal election.
She believes her lived experience would be a valuable asset in the House of Commons.
MacKinnon, who considers herself an ally of Canada’s Indigenous People’s, says the country also has to do better when it comes to reconciliation.
The discovery of hundreds of bodies at former residential school sites was an eye opener, one that should not be forgotten anytime soon.
“As a mother and grandmother myself, I can’t imagine (my grandson) not coming home to his mother one day. I feel this pain as a parent and a mother, having lost her children to agencies who have that power to take your children,” MacKinnon said.
She added if elected she’d work to help eliminate the Indian Act and return more power to Canada’s Indigenous peoples and their communities.
