An Alvinston community activist is the latest candidate to jump into the race for a coming provincial byelection in a rural London-region riding, nominated by the New Democrats for the expected spring contest.
Kathryn Shailer will run for the opposition NDP when Premier Doug Ford calls the byelection in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex to replace longtime former MPP Monte McNaughton, a cabinet minister who resigned his seat last fall and took a job in the private sector.
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With Shailer’s nomination, three of the four political parties with seats in the legislature now have candidates for the byelection, which Ford must call by early April.
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The election would be held about five weeks later.
Active in community organizations in the Alvinston area, in Lambton County, Shailer is a former post-secondary administrator who worked at Mount Royal University in Calgary until 2016, as its provost and vice-president academic, and before that as a dean at both the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto and at the University of Winnipeg.
She also worked at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC
“With her experience, compassion and sincerity, Kathryn is the representative Lambton-Kent-Middlesex deserves,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said, adding she’s “thrilled” to have Shailer running.
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The Tories have nominated Steve Pinsonneault of Thamesville, a veteran Chatham-Kent councilor, and the Liberals another civic politician, Lucan Mayor Cathy Burghardt-Jesson.
The Green Party has not yet nominated a candidate.
Shailer, a mother of two and grandmother of three, has been involved with the Brooke-Alvinston Optimist Club, Friends of Campbell Park, the Lawrence House Center for the Arts, Alvinston Arts and Music Festival and Community Friendship Meals at Bothwell United Church.
“My priorities are to listen and give voice to the diverse interests of our sprawling riding and to work collaboratively at Queen’s Park to strengthen public health care, bring down the cost of housing and invest in our kids’ schools,” Shailer said.
Shailer ran unsuccessfully in the last civic election, in 2022, for a seat on the Lambton Kent District school board.
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A vast rural riding, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex covers an area roughly the same size as Prince Edward Island and has two major urban centers, Wallaceburg in the southwest and Strathroy-Caradoc in the northeast. Liberal-held for eight years, the riding was picked off by McNaughton, a former Newbury town councillor, for the PCs in 2011.
The byelection will include a candidate from at least one party with no seat at Queen’s Park. Keith Benn of Port Lambton is running for the New Blue Party in his second stable at a seat with the party. A former geology professor at the University of Ottawa, Benn ranks fourth in Sarnia-Lambton in the 2022 general election.
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