Green candidate Aislinn Clancy: ‘Life keeps getting harder’ for people

Aislinn Clancy never expected to land in politics.

Clancy has worked as a school social worker with the Waterloo District Catholic School Board for more than a decade, after she helped newcomers to Canada.

Now the 44-year-old is running as a Green party candidate in the Kitchener Centre byelection. Her priorities include the cost of living, housing, health care and child care.

“Other parties give their MPP a script,” said Clancy. “But for the Greens, we can really tailor our work at Queen’s Park to what the community’s needs are.”

Clancy grew up in the suburbs in Cambridge’s Galt. Her mother worked as a nurse and her father was a business owner who also worked with KW AccessAbility, a non-profit that supports people with physical disabilities.

When she was 18, Clancy followed a friend to Brazil, where she said her eyes were opened to the poverty and inequity in the world. “My bubble popped,” said Clancy. After earning an undergrad business degree, Clancy moved to El Salvador to work in a microloans

program, which gave out thousands of dollars for people to start businesses.

“I met so many people impacted by the war in El Salvador, and it really changed my life,” she said.

She wanted to help welcome people to Canada who were fleeing their country due to war. That led her to work with YMCA of Three Rivers for three years.

Working with young immigrants pushed her to pursue a career in social work, a field she has worked in for 11 years since 2011. She received her master’s in social work in 2007 and has since worked for the Toronto District School Board and Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

In October 2022, Clancy was elected as Kitchener’s Ward 10 councillor. The ward covers downtown Kitchener, north to Lancaster Street West and Union Street, and south to the Eastwood neighbourhood.

“I’ve been doing climate action for a long time as a volunteer and then I got involved with (Green MP) Mike Morrice’s campaigns (in 2019 and 2021), so I was pretty active,” said Clancy.

Clancy decided to run for the provincial seat after NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo resigned, which coincided with her sense that the provincial government was restricting local decision-making.

After Doug Ford was re-elected as premier in 2022, Clancy said she needed to get involved.

While she was happy Kitchener Centre had “progressive” leadership with an NDP MPP, when the Progressive Conservatives were reelected with a majority, she “felt like so much more harm was going to come to the province and Kitchener.”

As a city councillor, Clancy has spoken to many residents to understand their concerns, and says she would do the same as an MPP.

Clancy’s five key issues are finding solutions to the housing crisis, making affordable child care more accessible, fixing the health-care system, addressing issues in classrooms and advocating for better public transit.

“What we have heard in the last six months and what I’ve been hearing for decades is everything is not OK,” said Clancy.

“We hear so often how life keeps getting harder and harder for the people in Kitchener Centre.”

The Green candidate said she has heard from people who kept their children home from school because they did not have money for school lunch.

“The impact of inaction of this government is real. We have an affordability and housing crisis that is weighing people down and enough is enough,” she said.

Clancy said “deeply affordable” rental apartments are needed to address the housing crisis. Community centres, churches and notfor-profit spaces should be used for child care to address long wait-lists.

To address long wait times and understaffing in health care, Clancy said she will push for a strategy to attract more people to study medicine and work in Kitchener.

She also wants to help implement a provincewide nutrition program and wants to cap classroom sizes because “kids should know they can have the attention of their education workers every day.”

Another campaign priority is promoting better public transportation between Waterloo Region and major cities, which includes supporting two-way, all-day GO train service.

“I’m ready to be a champion for you so that everybody can expect to have a roof and food,” said Clancy.

The Kitchener Centre byelection is on Nov. 30.

Aislinn Clancy wants to help implement a provincewide nutrition program and wants to cap classroom sizes because ‘kids should know they can have the attention of their education workers every day’