Your Oshawa candidates for the 2021 federal election
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called a snap election with voters heading to the polls on Sept. 20.
This gives local candidates just over a month to run their campaigns.
Conservative Party incumbent Colin Carrie will be looking for a re-election.
He was elected for the first time to represent Oshawa in June 2004, winning a “hard-fought battle in Canada’s most competitive and exciting three-way race,” and was re-nominated as Oshawa’s Conservative candidate in Dec. 2020.
Carrie is the son of a career Royal Canadian Navy officer. His family settled in Oshawa when he was 15.
A R.S. McLaughlin graduate, Carrie earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Waterloo and graduated from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College as a Doctor of Chiropractic in 1989.
Following graduation, Carrie returned to Oshawa where he established his practice and raised his family of three children with wife, Elizabeth.
Growing up in Oshawa, Carrie spent his summers working in Oshawa’s General Motors plants. This experience, coupled with his dedication to his community, lead him to create the Conservative Automotive Caucus shortly after being elected.
During the former Conservative government’s minority (2006-08) and majority (2011-15) governments, Carrie served as a Parliamentary Secretary in Industry, Health and Environment. He was also a pivotal part of the process that lead to the creation of the Rouge National Urban Park – the first National Park to be established within a local Canadian municipality.
Over the past year, Carrie has served as the Conservative Party’s Shadow Minister for Canada-U.S. Relations and the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
In the 42nd Parliament, Carrie worked with several Oshawa-based survivors of human trafficking to advocate for new measures to stop its scourge in the Oshawa and Durham areas by introducing Bill C-461, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (trafficking in persons).
C-461, which was re-introduced in the new session of Canada’s 43rd Parliament, will again propose to amend the Criminal Code to clarify what constitutes exploitation for the purpose of establishing whether a person has committed an offence of trafficking in persons.
Further, C-461 would see Canada align its laws with the United Nations-adopted Palermo protocols (2000) on the prevention, suppression and punishment of those trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
Carries’ bill proposes to remove any requirement for a Crown Attorney to prove that a victim of human trafficking fears the accused in order to obtain a conviction.
Oshawa’s NDP candidate for the upcoming election is Shailene Panylo.
Panylo is a community activist, organizer and lifelong resident of Oshawa who knows from personal experience that people in Canada benefit when barriers to accessibility are removed and communities are invested in.
As an equity, diversity and inclusion advisor, Panylo works in partnership with organizations across the GTA to develop and deliver diversity, mental health, and anti-oppression workshops.
Panylo says her unique experiences as an adopted Black woman and survivor of an attempted suicide, with a commitment to community, accountability and grassroots advocacy, ensures she will be a strong voice for her constituents in Ottawa.
She is a director of the community for not-for-profit Durham Black Students Network, which works to support marginalized youth in the region, and was also the organizer of Oshawa’s Black Lives Matter Memorial, Rally and Protest, which took place in June 2020.
Afroza Hossain is representing the Liberals in Oshawa.
Hossain and her husband left Bangladesh and moved to Canada 32 years ago and says settling down as immigrants “didn’t come easy.” She worked in the retail and food industries and says she faced racism, sexism and bigotry along the way.
After going back to school in her 40s to complete a diploma in Business Administration at Durham College, Hossain then went on to earn her Bachelor of Commerce in 2017 from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, now called Ontario Tech University.
She says she has overcome many adversities in her life, from losing her home after the 2008 financial crisis to taking care of her husband who was fighting cancer. She used her struggles to connect with others, including refugees, immigrants, and other women facing similar obstacles.
Her experience inspired Hossain to give back to the community and wants to represent Oshawa in the federal election because she “understands how hard it can be to join the middle class.”
Darryl Mackie is the Oshawa candidate for the People’s Party of Canada.
He lives in Oshawa with his wife Hailie and five children.
Mackie believes in “defending and celebrating Western values, including: democracy, personal responsibility, equality of opportunity and equality under the law and individual rights and freedoms.”
An Oshawa candidate for The Green Party has not be confirmed at this time.