With a high-pressure throne speech from Prime Minister Harper looming, political momentum in a pivotal Outremont riding and a possible federal election this fall, The Varsity caught up with NDP leader Jack Layton at his literal “green house” right off U of T campus.
The Varsity: You mentioned the Liberals in a slightly distasteful way during the last election. Do you really feel that they’re a worse option than the Conservative party, given the current administration?
Jack Layton: Well what we said was that the Conservatives were fundamentally wrong. And of course Mr. Harper is proving that these days with his policy on the war, on the environment and his policies are increasing what we call the prosperity gap in this country where there’s a growing rift between the very well to do and the rest. We felt that the Liberals after their 13 years in power had been telling people one thing and doing another for too long. And we offer people an alternative to those two parties. And that’s what we’re continuing to do today.
V: What’s more important to you – pushing the Liberals to form a more progressive administration, or cementing the NDP as a viable third option for Canada?
JL: Well what’s most important for me is that we have policies for our country that are being implemented that are right. That match with our values. And the two traditional parties have not been doing that. We saw our greenhouse gas emissions increase dramatically, worse than any other country in the developed world, under these two parties. We saw the gap between the rich and poor grow, under both of these parties’ administrations. And we saw ourselves taken into a war, essentially according to a George Bush style foreign policy by Martin and accelerated by Mr. Harper and supported by about a quarter of the Liberal caucus, including their deputy leader, Mr. Ignatieff. So these parties are on the wrong track and they’re taking the country on the wrong track. So what we’re trying to do across the country, and our now 30 members of parliament across the country, is show that there’s a team ready to do things differently.
V: Do you want to be Prime Minister?
JL: Of course. That would be an enormous privilege, but it would allow us then to, I think, establish a direction for the country that conforms to where most people want to see us go.
V: Given your momentum in the Outremont riding, which is a huge coup, do you want to call another election?
JL: Well I’d always rather see positive results than have another election. Positive results for me would mean that Mr. Harper would change direction on the fundamental policies that we’ve been talking about here. If he does that in the speech from the throne – terrific. Do I expect that he’s going to do it? I see no signs of it whatsoever. I mean, he doesn’t even understand what to do with a $14 billion dollar so-called “surprise” surplus…. We don’t need to be taking the entire surplus and putting it against the debt because actually it’s a false surplus, when you think about it. We’ve been underfunding our education system, the infrastructure of our universities and colleges is collapsing, people are crammed into classrooms – there needs to be an investment. And also education’s become unaffordable. Or our cities: we’re forced to have to look at closing transit lines, canceling bus routes. That is madness, to be doing that. And paying down a debt that is already the lowest, well one of the lowest, in the developed world when you compare it to the size of our economy. Mr. Harper is not being prudent.
So we’ll see what he does. I never say what we’re going to do, our caucus never says we’re going to vote against something that we’ve never even seen – I don’t think that makes any sense at all. And I would like Mr. Harper to change direction. But I’m not holding my breath.
V: Mulcair spoke out against the Bloc demands of Harper’s upcoming throne speech. Does the NDP have a more realistic set of expectations?
JL: Well the way I’d put it, is that we want to see a fundamental change of direction on the war, we want to see a fundamental change of direction on the environment, and we want to see some real action on the growing prosperity gap, the issues that your average working family is grappling with. We want to see those things in the budget, or in the speech to the throne, I should say. And if we don’t see this change, well it’s hard to see how the NDP could support Mr. Harper. We haven’t up to now; it’s been Mr. Duceppe that has kept Mr. Harper in power, in terms of the budgets that he has supported. And also, a group of Liberals who have chosen to support an extension of the mission in Afghanistan, giving Mr. Harper the four-vote majority he needed.
V: In terms of Afghanistan, given Karzai’s support of keeping troops in Afghanistan, how do you defend a complete, immediate withdrawal?
JL: Because we can’t really play the role that Canada should play, if we’re involved in a search-and-destroy, combat-orientated mission, which now involves aerial bombardment by the Americans in villages, and use of heavy weaponry and tanks and missiles. We can’t credibly play a role as a catalyst for a comprehensive peace process, for instance, which is what we think Canada should be doing in Afghanistan. We can’t do that as long as we are one of the four or five countries involved in the battle in the south. So to change Canada’s role and have it be really productive, in terms of the generation of ultimately a cease-fire, and real significant process on reconstruction and aid, you can’t continue on with the current combat mission. So we see these things as essential. And of course when we first suggested that there should be a comprehensive peace process, which would mean bringing the combatants to a table, we were ridiculed. But now it’s very interesting to hear Mr. Karzai today suggesting that this is essential as a way to move forward. Now this is something that we’ve been urging for over a year, and I think more and more Canadians are coming to the conclusion that really there’s no military end in sight here. So we can come up with the combat mission, but really we’ll be doing it 10 years from now. Maybe 20.
V: You’ve highlighted the environment as one of the most pressing issues, not in Canadian politics…
JL: Facing humanity.
V: How does one balance green behavior with an economy and unions, especially in Alberta and Calgary’s private industries?
JL: Well the only way to ensure a strong economy is to take very dramatic action to preserve the ecosystems of the planet. Otherwise we’re going to have very severe economic costs. And we’re likely facing severe economic costs already, because we’ve set in motion a series of transformations to the global ecosystems that will not be possible to reverse. It’s now a question of slowing it down to give the species, including ourselves, time to adapt. And hopefully limiting the damage compared to what’s otherwise predicted. So we’ve got to get moving, really moving fast. And you know, one of the great myths is that the unions would be opposed to this. Our candidate in Fort McMurray, which is where the oil sands are, is one of the guys who drive one of those humongous trucks that you always see, that’s about 10 stories high. He’s been doing it for 25 years. He believes there should be a moratorium on any new projects up there, because he says we’re doing it all too fast. And we’re using too much of our fresh water, we don’t have enough workers to do the work so they’re flying in workers from all over the world. To scrape the surface of the earth up there and get access to this sticky sand. And then they’re using heat, which means burning fossil fuels, to make it viscous enough that can then be put in pipelines, and shipped down to the States where it can then be refined into gasoline. Well why don’t we refine it here, first of all? It’s gonna stay there sometime until we need it in the future, why try to take it out so fast right now? We’re in a way giving up our birthright. And finally, you’ve got to have a plan for the development of a project like this. And housing prices there are through the roof. We can’t get enough workers there to do the service jobs for that huge economy. There’s not enough infrastructure even for transportation. And to make matters worse, Stephen Harper, and Paul Martin before him, were subsidizing the big oil companies with our tax dollars, to do this. Well that makes no sense.
V: Cities weren’t highlighted in the provincial platforms. How do you envision Toronto’s economic and environmental future? How do you feel about the Canadian cities campaign initiative for one per cent of the GST?
JL: Well I used to be the president of the Canadian Federation for Municipalities, which is running that campaign. So I’m a big advocate of federal dollars going to our cities. For instance, that’s where I suggested the surplus just announced last week, should go, at least in very significant measure, towards that infrastructure. Which to me includes educational infrastructure as well, which is by and large found in cities. I’m impressed with Howard Hampton. He’s been talking about transit, he’s been talking about freezing TTC fares and taking over 50 per cent of the cost of running a transit system. Now that’s a really good urban program. And he’s talked about housing… So he’s I think on the right track. No surprise there because he and I talk a lot about the kinds of policies that are needed. To our way of thinking, the cities are where the solutions are going to be implemented. And they’re where the problems are confronted, day-to-day, on the ground. And Ottawa’s become far too remote and ideological when it comes to this sort of thing. They don’t seem to get it.
…So I always think of the tax dollar as five or 10 minutes of someone’s time working behind a counter at a fast food joint. You know, they work for an hour, they get a minimum wage, and two bucks is taken off that minimum wage for taxes and what have you. And that’s 15 minutes of their time. So when we spend a tax dollar we think of it as the time of Canadians that we’re investing.
V: Can you envision a time when the NDP is the head of the federal administration?
JL: Of course. And that’s what we’re working towards. We’ve been the government in quite a few provinces and we have a record of managing the public’s money very well. There was a tough time when Bob Rae was premier but look where he is now – he’s with the Liberals.
