Heather Wright/The Independent

Lo-Anne Chan says her experiences as an immigrant, a student of criminology and psychology, an
entrepreneur and a mom have shaped her to meet people with compassion.

And she thinks that may just be the thing voters in Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong may be looking for
April 28 when they vote for their MP.

Chan became the candidate for the New Democrats after her run for municipal council in 2022. She’s been out meeting people for nearly a year, and then, the campaign kicked into high
gear March 24 with the election call.

Chan was born in Malaysia. A year later, her family immigrated to Canada, settling in Etobicoke and then
Mississauga. Chan grew up watching her father build up several businesses and her
mother encouraging others as a “door-opener and connector.”

Chan left the GTA to attend Western University where she studied criminology and psychology and met
her husband.

During her university years, Chan worked at a mall and applied some of the psychology she was learning to boost her sales.

She learned to draw information out of people – “Are you buying this for some underlying cause that you might not even know about when you’re coming in?”– and then listened to what they had to say.

It’s how Chan approaches meeting voters now. She knows not everyone wants to answer their doors but
she assures them she really wants to hear their concerns.

“When we’re having one-on-one conversations, it’s a lot easier to really see the root of it all, and sometimes a lot of the anger that we see is actually fear.”

For some, the fear is of the tariff threat coming from the US. For others, Chan says, it’s the fear of not being able to put food on the table. And for seniors, she says, it’s the fear of losing their pensions in a turbulent time in our nation’s history.

“One of the big ones right now is obviously the tariffs and Trump’s decisions about how that’s going to affect people’s jobs. Also just the fear of that type of mentality coming over to Canada, or having people in Canada with similar values being in charge. So a lot of that fear is relevant at the doors.”

For others, like the three First Nations in the riding, the fear is different. It is for the survival of their nation.

When Chan met the Bjekwanong during the water crisis sparked by an oil spill in Sarnia, she realized how surprising it was to the people there that a politician would be knocking on their doors. They’d tell her they were just trying to survive and that this was the first time a politician stopped to listen to what they need.

“That’s a little heartbreaking, too.

“This is how you’ve lived your whole life, where you’re like, we’re just going to take care of ourselves be-
cause time and time again, we’ve been disappointed, and no one’s actually asked us what matters to us.”

Chan feels the lessons she learned in psychology class, the skills she learned in retail and her life experience as a immigrant help her deal with those fears in a unique way.

“Just being an immigrant in Canada is an opportunity that has opened doors for me to speak to other
communities…When you sit with someone who you’re like…there’s just that one less thing you need to explain to get a baseline in the conversation before you can get into the conversation.”

Even when those conversations are hard and come from dark places, Chan, whose daughter died days
after she was born, can connect.

“To really be at like the lowest, you can be more empathetic to other situations, like for mine, it was
the loss of a child. But in community right now, we’re talking about literally, like the First Nations always
trying to make sure they have their what they need for survival… We’re talking about trans communities who get attacked just for trying to exist or go to a washroom. We’re talking about immigrants coming over and just trying to get money to send back to their families overseas, but then being discriminated against because they look different or have accents when they speak English and like they’re all different things that they’re not necessarily losing a person, but at the same time, you can relate to
the fact that life is hard.”

As the election battle rages on, Chan feels her ability to connect with people could convince people to choose her for MP. “We have to remember who’s going to be the one representing us here, and if their main fear is making sure that the people in power aren’t going to lean towards Trump style governing, then we need to make sure that our votes here don’t put someone in a seat with those similar values there,” Chan says.

She recognizes the NDP has a slim chance of holding onto the seats it has, let alone forming government, but that shouldn’t stop people from voting for her.

“We do have to work within the system, but part of that is also if we’re willing to put the hope towards
putting someone who’s so different from what we normally see that maybe we can get into that system and change from the inside.”