Tracey Lapham found the necessary political middle ground on the 2025 Ontario election campaign trail.
It’s as the New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate in the Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte (BSOM) riding for the Feb. 27 vote.
“I find Conservatives tend to be kind of about the money, Liberals tend to be about the services and the people, and I always kind of scratched my head and said there could be a middle ground here,” Lapham said.
“We could be providing these services, we could be giving people what they need and paying attention to the budget.”
Lapham says everything on the NDP platform is close to her heart.
“I really am passionate about housing, and grocery prices and education and health care,” said the north-end Barrie resident. “Everything just lines up with who I am and what I want to advocate for in our community.”
In the past, Lapham had never been particularly politically inclined and probably would have been labelled a liberal up until a few years ago.
“But I find that in the past few years the more I work in the community, the more people I meet, the more I realize that what we need to be focusing on is empowering people to have control for their own resources,” Lapham said.
“When the NDP party approached me … it had already been sort of dancing around in my head as a maybe-someday thing. I think that a great way to lean into advocacy is to get into the political sphere," she added.
Lapham has varied employment experience — working in the fields of non-profit child care, running a home daycare for almost a decade, got a business diploma at Georgian College, opening a cleaning company, then getting an Indigenous community and social development diploma at Georgian.
“It’s basically social services, but with an Indigenous focus. I myself am Ojibwe, so I had an opportunity to start learning the language,” Lapham said. “I wanted to take that course to kind of balance the business with Indigenous courses about community, holistic learning, lifting each other up. I’ve always had that entrepreneurial drive, but with a people-first approach.”
Lapham currently sits on the volunteer board for the Human Factor Community Organization, which does consulting, business strategic planning and networking for non-profits and other social enterprises.
With the Feb. 27 election now on the horizon, Lapham said there is not one issue that’s most important.
“I have a personal interest in housing. I have been homeless, I am developing a tiny homes organization. That’s my personal passion,” Lapham said. “But it’s impossible and unwise to be choosing one issue to focus on.
“We are whole people, we are communities with holistic needs and when you are funding or planning or advocating for one aspect of our society, it affects everything else. So I think every issue that’s going to come forward is important and requires a lot of energy and attention from everybody involved.”
But is an Ontario election necessary?
Lapham has never met Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford and cannot speak to his motivations.
“Those $200 cheques came out right before the election and I think you kind of have to wonder if it is relevant or not,” Lapham said. “You kind of have to wonder whether or not the (PCs') goal was to just get more votes, to have a majority and have a little bit more of decision-making power.
“But here we are, the election is coming,” Lapham said, “and what I’m really hoping is what we can do is mobilize people to exercise their democratic rights and to make sure that they are having a hand in the decisions that are being made.”
Lapham is up against Alex Della Ventura (New Blue), Doug Downey (Progressive Conservative), Tim Grant (Green), Erin Patterson (Libertarian), and Rose Zacharias (Liberal).