The list of Foothills candidates for the upcoming federal election continues to grow, with a fifth candidate having emerged to run under the NDP.

Okotoks business owner Michelle Traxel will be running under the orange banner.

The decision to run came when she realized that waiting for a candidate to appear wasn't going to change anything.

"It came to that point where I realized I should really just do it. I should stop sitting by and waiting and jump in. I felt like my voice wasn't heard, nor were the voices of a lot of my peers, and I thought, 'Why not? If anyone's going to step up, why not me?'"

Traxel says there was some hesitation at first, given Alberta's reputation for how progressive candidates are treated in the prairie provinces, but she says she just doesn't see that reputation represented in her community.

"It's a little bit of a misnomer. It's not something that's true to who we are as Albertans, and I think people out here really respect democracy. If anything, I've seen a huge outcry of support, and even people who don't agree with the political platform I'm representing are just proud that somebody is stepping up."

Michelle and her husband Jarod own and operate the restaurant Little Fast + Fresh in Okotoks, and she says it's allowed her to get to know members of the local farming community.

"When we decided to open a restaurant here in Okotoks, we had already lived here for quite a while, and we just really felt like there was a little bit of a gap. We have this incredible product that's being produced in the Foothills and no one was serving it. That was priority number one in the business plan, was to ensure that we served Alberta food, as much of it as we could get, as local as we could get."

She says it's also given her an idea of the kinds of support local farmers need and how they want to be represented.

Her experience as a local business owner is something Traxel sees as an asset for her candidacy.

"I'm not a person who's idyllic, I'm not frolicking through the fields with a really fanciful ideology. I really understand that there is an operative expense to just existing, that it costs money to start a farm, to start a business, to start a school. There are a lot of expenses within that, and there are ways to manage those expenses very effectively and very ineffectively. I feel like going through the pandemic as a small business owner really woke me up to how broken the system is."

She says the NDP's platform is a pragmatic one and isn't the tax-laden dystopia some make it out to be.

She also says that there's a difference between large corporations and your average taxpayer.

"These are very large multi-national corporations that have figured out how to set up shell companies in Canada to look like they're a Canadian company when really they're moving money through other companies and countries... This is not taxation that's going to raise my personal taxes, your personal taxes, or even necessary for the millionaires here in the Foothills. This is much bigger than that, and it's more of a top-down approach rather than a bottom-up approach."

The party's stance on social issues was also a big draw for Traxel, including LGBTQ+ rights, the justice system, and the recent conversations around residential schools.

Traxel has also found herself frustrated at federal conversations around climate change, wanting instead to face up to the problem and tackle it head-on.

"We know that we're in a climate crisis, and we really aren't seeing any approach on how to deal with that. I think specifically for the Foothills, this moment in climate change is so impactful, and we're seeing so many farms lose entire crops to drought. They're not getting access to be able to afford irrigation, and even the farms that did have a good turnout are struggling to get staff due to the pandemic. It's a perfect storm, and I think the financial fallout for our farmers is going to be astronomical."

Another highlight for Traxel is the NDP's stance on Canada's cellphone rates and coverage.

"I think for the average Canadian, we don't understand how impactful it would be to save 100 to 200 dollars a month on something we all use, like our cellphones, and how much of that money will funnel back right into our community. That's the money we use to go to dinner at our favourite local restaurant. That's the money we spend at the local farmers' market. That's the money we spend at local boutiques... It's so straightforward and so simple, but absolutely attainable."

Overall, Traxel is proud to represent a progressive voice.

"I have always felt like there was a progressive undercurrent here within Okotoks as well as the Foothills at large. I've heard it, I've seen it, and I really want to represent it. It was really important to me."

 

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