Shannon Horner-Shepherd’s journey to federal politics didn’t begin in an Ottawa boardroom—it started in the fields of rural Ontario.
As the New Democratic Party candidate for Haldimand-Norfolk, Horner she says she is bringing a working-class voice to the political stage, rooted in decades of experience in agriculture, industry, and advocacy.
Her early years were shaped by life on local farms, where she earned money picking strawberries and priming tobacco—jobs that shaped her understanding of the hard work and sacrifice that define rural life.
Now, as a mother and a steelworker of nearly three decades, Horner is aiming to represent the riding with the same hands-on, community-grounded approach that has marked her career and her activism.
Horner-Shepherd’s candidacy stands out in a traditionally Conservative-leaning riding, not just because of her NDP affiliation, but because of the values she champions-equity, accessibility, and community-driven policy.
She sees the NDP as the party best positioned to advocate for the most vulnerable, to build a Canada where healthcare and housing are rights, not privileges, and where every worker can retire with dignity.
Horner-Shepherd’s core message is one of authenticity and relatability.
She emphasizes that residents in Haldimand-Norfolk deserve a representative who has lived the same experiences they have-from waking up at dawn to run priming machines, to balancing a family budget when paycheques stretch thin.
In a region marked by rapid demographic changes, Horner believes her background-blue-collar, community-rooted, and deeply engaged-offers a unique opportunity for voters to elect someone who understands both the past and the future of Haldimand-Norfolk and someone who is available to discuss the issues at hand.
As someone who has spent her adult life in the riding, Horner sees the local struggles—housing affordability, lack of public transit, limited access to high-speed internet—not as distant policy problems but as daily realities that demand action.
Horner-Shepherd is especially vocal about the importance of protecting farmland in the face of urban sprawl.
While acknowledging the appeal of Haldimand-Norfolk as a retirement destination and a refuge from city life, she is adamant that new development must not come at the expense of the agricultural land that sustains local and national food systems.
With that, a central pillar of Horner’s campaign is the housing crisis.
In a region where home prices are increasingly out of reach for working families, she argues that government must play a more active role in ensuring access to affordable housing—without sacrificing environmental sustainability or agricultural productivity.
To Horner-Shepherd, the idea that a $1.2 million home could be considered “affordable” is not only unrealistic—it’s insulting to the people who build and sustain the local economy.