- Savannah DeWolfe Was An Early Backer Of Liberal MP-Elect Shannon Miedema
By Andrew Macdonald
A Sean Fraser electioneer warrior was an early backer of political upstart Shannon Miedema.
In fact, the March nomination campaign manager for Miedema is a Liberal with a long streak of running and managing political campaigns: the one and only Savannah DeWolfe.
Dewolfe has served as a four-time winning campaign manager to MP Sean Fraser and also served as his top political aide while Fraser was a Trudeau cabinet minister.
Former Trudeau cabinet minister Sean Fraser’s top political aide is now working for the new Housing minister – a post Fraser resigned from when he said he would not run in the next election. He reversed his decision and won again in Central Nova – largely thanks for the get out the vote at the advanced polls, as throughout the election night, Fraser was trailing the Tory candidate.
Savannah DeWolfe, who managed Fraser’s four election wins in Central Nova and who played an important part in Fraser’s duties as a minister, is now working for the new Housing minister, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who is also the MP for the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York.
She managed the nomination campaign win for Miedema as the new Grit contender for Halifax.
DeWolfe is a former McInnes Cooper litigator who has held a variety of roles in federal politics as both a civil servant and political staffer.
Speaking in 2022 at the Allan J. MacEachen Institute, part of Dalhousie University, DeWolfe explained the role of a political staffer to a politician.
“We’re the ones responsible for making sure that the promises made to the electorate are carried out to the fullest,” said DeWolfe.
That means, unlike civil servants, political staffers often have significant amounts of direct contact with the party’s constituents, which DeWolfe said offers them unusual insight into the thoughts and desires of the average person.
“We’re the ones that have the benefit of the stakeholder conversations, the conversations that happen on the doorstep — of the things that you can’t read in a briefing note,” she said.
A former Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada administrator and a member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, DeWolfe in her time as a lawyer, she co-authored a Chronicle Herald column in which she and two of her colleagues urged the federal government to enact criminal justice reform to reduce the number of Indigenous women in Canadian jails.
Savannah DeWolfe is a former political aide to Liberal federal minister Sean Fraser. She’s a former litigation lawyer at Halifax law firm McInnes Cooper, an Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada administrator and a member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. In her time as a lawyer, she co-authored a Chronicle Herald column in which she and two of her colleagues urged the federal government to enact criminal justice reform to reduce the number of Indigenous women in Canadian jails. (The Notebook)
Halifax Liberal campaign manager, Kelsey Lane, in a chat with The Macdonald Notebook, describes DeWolfe “as a mentor of mine.”
The politically smart DeWolfe helped on a number of Liberal candidates’ campaigns, in addition to advising Fraser.
The up-and-coming Liberal strategist first got involved in politics in 2015.
“I think she is someone who is extremely capable and knowledgeable of the world of politics. But, more importantly, she is someone who uplifts a lot of young people who might want to get into this world but might not know how. I think the sign of a true leader is someone that is willing to bring in other people and take them under their wings and not really have an ego but do things to bring other people along and support them,” adds Lane.
“I think Halifax is lucky to have her apart of our campaign. Any campaign that she helps is lucky to have her as a part of their campaigns,” Lane tells The Macdonald Notebook.
“In terms of having one of the brightest political minds in Nova Scotia, she is definitely one of them”, Lane says of DeWolfe.
