Trinity - Spadina
Rachel Barney
Rachel Barney is a University teacher with a lifelong devotion to Toronto and a deep concern about urban and environmental problems. Born and raised in downtown Toronto, she went to high school in Trinity-Spadina and was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. As a student activist and member of Governing Council, she sponsored the motion which forced the University to divest from apartheid South Africa. She was also an active youth member of a certain other political party, which led to a deep disillusionment with our political system. Since then she has been mostly focused on her academic career, only recently becoming politically active again as a Green.
Rachel went on to graduate school at Princeton and received a PhD in philosophy. Returning to Canada whenever possible, she taught briefly at McGill and the University of Ottawa, then at Harvard and the University of Chicago. She jumped at the chance to come home in 2003, when offered a position at the University of Toronto as Canada Research Chair in Classical Philosophy. Her academic writing is mostly about Plato; but she regards his ideal of the ‘philosopher-king’ with grave suspicion. The greatest relevance of philosophy to politics, in her view, is that it sharpens your ability to detect bad arguments.
Rachel has lived in Christie Pits since 2003. She cycles to campus and loves exploring the diverse neighbourhoods of Trinity-Spadina. She worries that Toronto is endangered by forces beyond its control: smog from sprawl, congestion due to inadequate public transit, poverty exacerbated by the lack of affordable housing. Globally, she is especially concerned about climate change, pollution, and the horrifying destruction of our oceans. So her first step into community involvement was to attend a Green Party meeting in March 2010. She joined the executive of the Trinity-Spadina riding association a month later, became its Chair in October, and its federal candidate in March 2011.
Rachel Barney is the nominated candidate for the Green Party of Canada in the riding of Trinity - Spadina.
