The Liberal Party has chosen Jennifer McLachlan as its candidate in the next federal election with the pending retirement of Newmarket-Aurora Liberal MP Tony Van Bynen.
McLachlan has been acclaimed to the role of Liberal candidate in Newmarket-Aurora after Van Bynen announced in March that he would be stepping down at the end of his term.
McLachlan, a business owner and entrepreneur, said she feels honoured to have been selected to run for the role that she sees as a way to serve the community she has been involved in for decades.
“Really, it’s a perfect evolution now to get into public service with more of a full-time position as opposed to being something I’ve done on the side,” McLachlan said, adding that it will be in "the community I’ve grown up alongside.”
The Newmarket-Aurora Liberal Party riding association has been working toward finding a new candidate since Van Bynen stepped down. The local party emailed supporters Oct. 19 about the search committee looking for candidates before McLachlan was acclaimed to the role just a few days later Oct. 22.
McLachlan confirmed she was acclaimed and said it was a lengthy process.
NewmarketToday did not receive a reply to a request for comment from the Newmarket-Aurora Liberal Association before publication deadline.
McLachlan currently operates a delivery service, delivereh, that she started during the pandemic. Before that, she ran Cachet resident at the bottom of Main Street in Newmarket for several years until 2022. She was known for hosting a popular volunteer Thanksgiving dinner at her restaurant, which was revived at the St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church this year.
As a potential MP, McLachlan said social equality is her passion and is something she would want to work on in office.
“There’s many facets to social equality,” she said. “Economic equality, women equality, race equality, human rights equality … I’m kind of coming to the table in protection mode. Protecting that progress, but I also want to move equality further in the community. I want to listen to the constituents.”
McLachlan will be running against Conservative candidate Sandra Cobena. No other party has named a candidate for the Newmarket-Aurora riding yet.
The Liberal Party of Canada is facing challenges, with the Conservatives well ahead in recent federal polls and the NDP backing out of a formal supply-and-confidence deal with the Liberals in September.
McLachlan said every political party has its challenges and her concern is more with focusing on her constituency.
“I totally support the Liberal Party. I support the programs the party’s made and I want to protect them going forward,” she said. “My real focus though will be Newmarket-Aurora, with the community, with the constituency … Just making sure there’s an appropriate representative that understands the community. That proves they can perform and better the community."
In 2022, McLachlan told NewmarketToday she wants to be prime minister, and said as much to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a visit here.
“I said it this way: ‘I’m not saying you’re doing a bad job, and I’m not that gal. But I would like someone to mentor me because I’d like to take over when you’re done,’” McLachlan recounted at the time.
Asked to reflect on that, McLachlan said she has not spoken to Trudeau since but has worked very hard to look toward becoming an MP.
“I look forward to the day I will interact with Trudeau again. But for me, it’s taken a lot of work, time, effort to prove myself and back those words up,” she said. “With any organization, of course, I’d like to challenge myself and move up the ladder, per se. How I get there, I don’t know. This is the first step, to make sure I just focus on the needs of Newmarket-Aurora.”
