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The Alberta NDP and LEAP—from the LEAP perspective
575 Plays6 days ago
We're back! Jim rouses himself from his sick bed to deliver part two of our look into the conflict between the Alberta NDP establishment and the eco-socialist wing of the party that has been simmering ever since the LEAP manifesto arrived at convention in 2016. This time we chat with a someone from the pro-LEAP side—Breach Media managing editor & Avi Lewis advisor Martin Lukacs.
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Transcript
Introduction and Alberta Political Climate
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to another episode of the pod. I'm Jim Storey, hosting today from Amiskwichiwa Skygan, otherwise known as Edmonton in Treaty 6 territory, here in Alberta, Canada.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's Thursday, November 27th, and it has been a minute. I've been off on sick leave for a big chunk of the month. And Alberta sure did not stop Alberta-ing while I was away.
00:00:35
Speaker
We've got the provincial government firing the notwithstanding claws off in every direction. Alberta's teachers securing a historic strike mandate and then backing down. Gil McGowan threatening a general strike that he couldn't deliver, and promising an unprecedented response from Labour that has turned out to be a very precedented bunch of town halls and advertisements.
00:00:54
Speaker
We've got recall campaigns underway against over a dozen MLAs. UCP taking an axe to AISH and to TransRights. Mark Carney this week jumping in to give Danielle Smith a hand by offering her a pipeline that may or may not actually get built.
00:01:09
Speaker
The UCP Annual General Meeting is coming up this weekend, and that's sure to be heavily protested. I can't chew through all of this in a single episode. I think probably the best way to proceed is to just get back to it where we left off last time.
00:01:23
Speaker
the last episode, we spoke with Shannon Phillips about the conflict between the Alberta NDP and the eco-socialist organizers of the Leap Manifesto all the way back in 2016, and I promised you then that we'd do a follow-up with someone on the Leap side.
Leap Manifesto and Its Origins
00:01:38
Speaker
That's what we'll be talking about today. My guest is Martin Lukacs, Managing Editor with The Breach, who was involved with Leap back then and is serving as a policy advisor on Abby Lewis' federal NDP leadership race today.
00:01:51
Speaker
We recorded an interview earlier this month. ah Before I cut to that, I've been remiss lately in not shutting out our friends at the Harbinger Media Network. Harbinger is a collection of podcasts across the country who have a left-wing perspective.
00:02:07
Speaker
If you're looking for more good pod content to consume, head over to their website at harbingermedianetwork.com, and you'll find a collection of great stuff from all over Canada, including upwritten material like the Progress Report or our friends over at the Alberta Advantage.
00:02:22
Speaker
Harbinger's got a similar thing going for written articles, too, at unrigged.ca. That's my browser homepage, and it could be yours, too. Okay, well, I'd like to welcome our guest for today, Martin Lukacs from The Breach. Martin, how are you doing today?
00:02:38
Speaker
Doing great. Thanks so much. The Breach, if you're unfamiliar with it, folks, is a media platform from out east doing mission journalism, very similar to the work we do at The Progress Report.
00:02:51
Speaker
An old friend of the show, Desmond Cole, along with many other luminaries, are on Masthead over there. So I would recommend go check them out. But the topic of the day, of course, is not the breach. But a follow-up to our last episode where we talked to Shannon Phillips about the lingering resentment over the introduction of the Leap Manifesto at the NDP convention years ago, and why that seems to be coloring the present-day federal NDP race, which looks at the moment to be a race between avi lewis and Heather McPherson.
00:03:29
Speaker
ah So Martin, you were closely involved with LEAP when it came to convention. Can you wind us back to maybe a little bit before the manifesto arrives at convention and tell us that story from the beginning
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So the Leap was born the leaf Manifesto was born out of a ah process back in spring 2015 when um Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, myself, and a few others invited activists from social movements around the country to a gathering in Toronto.
00:04:09
Speaker
There were about 60 people from indigenous communities, labor unions, environmental groups, migrant justice organizations. And the thinking was to articulate a joint position about how to combat climate change in a way that would make our society more just, caring, and equal.
00:04:32
Speaker
Part of the motivation was that we felt that social movements in this country were extremely siloed um and divided. And it was a you know a modest effort to try to generate some common ground and between these different organizations and groups and movements.
00:04:48
Speaker
um And one of the other big motivating factors was ah the climate crisis. um Back in 2015, there was an oil a price crash.
00:05:00
Speaker
And you know part of the thinking at the time was that this was as good a moment as any other to seize, to kickstart a transition off of off of oil.
00:05:18
Speaker
um So for instance, you know no less than ah a radical left-wing rag like The Economist and at the time had suggested that the oil price collapse was a quote, one once in a lifetime opportunity to transform what was a dysfunctional energy system.
Impact of Leap Manifesto on Politics
00:05:36
Speaker
And so, you know, we put out um we put out this statement um that in some ways was, you know, in keeping with the mainstream of social democratic policy that the and NDP had put out over many years um with a bit of extra touch of of poetry in a way that might connect to to people.
00:05:56
Speaker
And you know it It involved calling for things like a more caregiving oriented economy, deeper investments in green energy, um universal childcare, a guaranteed debate about a guaranteed annual income,
00:06:12
Speaker
And it also included the demand that became the most contentious, which was no more pipelines, no new fossil fuel infrastructure. um And it's kind of funny that in the fracas over that, that eventually ensued, the the media and a lot of commentators actually missed some of the more radical proposals that were in there. For instance, there was a call for you know an alternative to the price gouging, profit gouging of of private companies in Canada, um and that we should start developing public alternatives that were democratically run that paid a living wage. um
00:06:49
Speaker
And we argued in the document too, that the the energy transition itself should be run through the democratic participation of workers, impacted workers themselves. um And I think when the the document was eventually released in the fall of 2015, during the federal election, when Thomas Mulcair was elected,
00:07:12
Speaker
racing to the right um of the political spectrum and allowing at the NDP to be outflanked by Justin Trudeau, who we of course know um carried the day and and won a majority government. um And in the aftermath of that um you know disastrous result for the NDP in that election, a lot of grassroots NDP activists gravitated towards the leap because I think it's it spoke to them about that political moment. not Not just, I think, the politics that it was proposing around the climate crisis, and but it spoke to you know the battle over the soul of the NDP that um you know was kicking up again in the wake of Thomas Mulcair's
00:08:01
Speaker
kind of very conservative leadership of the party. um And it, I think, spoke to a lot of people in the way that you know gave them, it was a kind of a it was a a signal of a potential left-wing, more grassroots turn in the way that Bernie Sanders at the time um was doing politics in the States and Jeremy Corbyn was doing politics and in the UK.
00:08:27
Speaker
and That kind of un ah unapologetically, unabashedly progressive outlook attracted people. and And outside of our control or even our intention, um NDP activists basically brought it to the federal convention, which at the time was was to take place in Alberta.
00:08:49
Speaker
um And then of course, fireworks ensued. Yeah. Did you anticipate conflict with the Alberta NDP over this?
00:09:03
Speaker
I wouldn't say we anticipated it. we It was clear that there were political differences between the the vision that the Leap Manifesto articulated and what the Alberta NDP, and certainly even the federal and NDP up until that point, ah was doing politically.
00:09:19
Speaker
i do think that you know one of the stories being told about Avi Lewis in in all of this is that the you know the Leap Manifesto was you know emblematic of an immature, politically unskilled, uncompromising, uncooperative political operator.
00:09:37
Speaker
um and I think it's actually worth describing in a bit more detail some of the record around that because it it doesn't really bear out that that story. so you know The leap itself emerged out of collaboration and compromise. so you know There were dozens of of labor unions involved in the drafting, including the president of CUPE at the time, the head of the Canadian Labor Congress. And Unifor actually was in there too, which represented oil sands workers in Fort McMurray.
00:10:08
Speaker
um And in the aftermath of that convening in the spring of 2015 that I described, um you know Jerry Diaz, then the president of Unifor and Naomi Klein and others, um you know shared a political stage. um a high-ranking Unifor advisor actually was in the draft of the document until it was locked, making significant changes. so um you know As an example of the kind of compromise and collaboration that the LEAP represented, Unifor
00:10:40
Speaker
didn't want the phrase, keep the oil on the ground included, um which was it was in the original manifesto. um And Unifor was considering signing on and they that that was a red line for them. And so a compromise was a reach that instead the language would be no new fossil fuel infrastructure.
00:10:58
Speaker
um And Jerry Diaz, the president, stood behind Avi Lewis at the mic in Alberta at that convention. and There was also, you know in in the very process leading up to that convention, um there were other instances of you know collaboration and compromise that Avi Lewis and the people around the LEAP Manifesto engaged in. so there There had actually been a resolution that was supported by to almost two dozen riding associations that had actually first been
00:11:32
Speaker
ah written by members of the Socialist Caucus of the party. And if people if people are familiar with the Socialist Caucus, um it's um the one formation in the party that um unites both right and left in um unanimous distaste and hatred um because they are like a they're like a sketch out of a Monty Python, um A Life of Brian film.
00:12:00
Speaker
um And that that resolution was so maximally phrased that it would have basically been a non-starter. And so actually, Avi Lewis worked with you know luminaries in the party like Libby Davies, Megan Leslie, Craig Scott to to draft an alternative resolution that was more measured in language and and could actually be debated on the floor of the convention. And they kept Mulcair's office at the time up to date on every step.
00:12:27
Speaker
And Mulcair's office we understood, was passing everything along to Rachel Notley's office. all with full transparency, all with full party brass support.
00:12:38
Speaker
So you know even one of the party's most notorious enforcers um actually ran the floor game on behalf of the LEAP manifesto at the convention.
00:12:49
Speaker
um So you know an important faction of the you know party functionaries were actually involved in the process. um And so what what to my mind happened in terms of that the kind of conflagration that happened at convention was a bit ironic because what the what what Rachel Notley's office had indicated to MallCare is that they were going to allow...
00:13:21
Speaker
the resolution to make it to the floor and they were going to be okay with the fact that it would get supported. mean, they didn't like it. We were made to understand that they didn't like it, but they weren't going to make a big fuss about it.
00:13:35
Speaker
I think both Mulcair and Notley's offices thought that, okay, if we allow the party to go ahead, the membership to vote for it, maybe we'll just ignore it. Maybe it won't get more than a few media stories and it will blow over within a week or two.
00:13:51
Speaker
um That, of course, is not what happened. And it was ah a bit of a comic sequence of events that led to that. So um in the days before the convention, Thomas Mulcair sat down for an interview with Peter Mansbridge.
00:14:06
Speaker
um And it was a very funny, awkward thing. They were like sitting knee to knee. And my sense is is that neither Mulcair nor Mansbridge had actually read the Leap Manifesto because Mansbridge proceeded to ask Mulcair,
00:14:22
Speaker
Will you support and leaving oil in the ground, which is in the manifesto? And of course it wasn't in the manifesto, as I described earlier, it had specifically been taken out to appease Unifor's involvement in the process. um But Mansbridge put that question to Mulcair. Mulcair kind of tried to be shifty and evasive, but then he eventually came around and said,
00:14:48
Speaker
Party's democratic. If the party membership goes for it, I will back it as well. The next morning, a day before the convention, the Alberta NDP clearly caught wind of this. It was a top story on CBC that morning, and they basically unleashed their top guns.
00:15:05
Speaker
um Shannon Phillips um spoke to the federal caucus, and then it was reported in the mainstream media that she believed that the Leap Manifesto was a knife in the back of the Alberta NDP.
00:15:18
Speaker
And um from there, of course, things just ah spiraled. um Of course, the party membership in the end in the end did vote ah in favor of the Leap Manifesto, a majority of of of delegates supported it, Thomas Mulcair, I think, who had basically tried to
Media and Public Reactions
00:15:40
Speaker
pass himself off as a you know a converted democratic socialist who was he was basically brandishing the Leap Manifesto to save his skin, is my sense. And I think the party membership didn't buy it. And so
00:15:54
Speaker
they you know rejected his leadership by an even larger majority than than than that which they supported the Leap Manifesto by. That is something that seemed to unite both the pro and the anti-Leap set at that convention, just universal dislike of Mulcair. Exactly. And you know I remember that right after the convention,
00:16:15
Speaker
um I remember Avi Lewis getting a call from from Brian Topp, who at that time I believe was a the very senior advisor to Premier Notley. I was a few meters away, but I could hear him shouting over the phone.
00:16:30
Speaker
and um You know, I recall Avi at that point um suggesting that, look, if Notley's office wanted to describe us as the crazies, then by all means they should. um And, you know, we understood the position that they were in.
00:16:51
Speaker
And you know we could have a strategic relationship with them. um And that's you know that's the the standard that that Shannon, in your previous interview, described as their ideal.
00:17:04
Speaker
um And the truth is, that's what we were very willing and prepared to have. um I remember Avi suggesting, look, Brian, um you know the Leap team would be happy to connect you to the experts in Germany, for instance, who had just helped design an energy transition in Germany where 30% of that country's electricity now came through renewables. They had created 400,000 good jobs in clean energy, much of it you know community controlled or or run by energy co-ops. um And we felt that Alberta, if they were interested, could could embark on that same kind of um transition.
00:17:42
Speaker
And and Of course, that that is not the direction that the party chose. And from the tone that Brian took in that phone conversation in the immediate aftermath of the convention, my sense then was that they would not. um you know We were essentially proposing a relationship to them um that I think is a much healthier relationship between a social democratic left and the democrat and a you know ah democratic socialist left.
00:18:11
Speaker
i think it's like The kind of relationship that actually I think the right knows how to have in a healthy way. So as we know, like you know the more mainstream right in this country will often use the right their right flank as stalking horses to push the the range of permissible debate and to popularize more radical ideas. um Whereas I think on the social democratic left in this country, we we parties tend to try to throttle those people who are to their left flank.
00:18:41
Speaker
um Yeah, they they don't just stalk the horse, they shoot it. Exactly. um and you know Shannon complains, I think, in in that last interview that Avi didn't give her a phone call, which is fair enough, but I think Avi thought that it was more proper that the whole process was being handled between the provincial leader's office and the federal leader's office. um and you know It's regrettable that that much of the discussion has regressed into ad hominem attacks, not just then, but even more more recently. you know um
00:19:18
Speaker
a revival of those charges about latte-sipping dilettantes in Toronto. um Purity tests. Purity tests yeah pure test is the new version. i mean I think the thing to remember too is that it just so happened that it was a federal convention taking place in Alberta.
00:19:36
Speaker
But the Defefe feels like a sense that that that it was all about Alberta when in fact it was, you know, the federal party is a different beast and and its base has different politics than the Alberta NDP membership.
00:19:49
Speaker
um And it seems like an unwillingness to... except that um it was an unfortunate perfect storm of of of of events. and like well is it the base Is it the federal base that has a different opinion or is it the is it the people to the east of Manitoba who have a different opinion? It seems like there is a very different flavor of NDP that you get once you get out to the to the prairies in BC, where things are more comfortable with resource extraction more comfortable with reactionary policies you see ebi out west going hard on
00:20:31
Speaker
imprisoning drug users for example.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. and i think there are undoubtedly differences and there are you know the political economy ah speaks to those differences and the the history of two party systems or increasingly systems that look like two parties like in Alberta.
00:20:52
Speaker
um But I also think that um that people sell the membership in these provinces short. um Then they sell the the the the whole population population short as well. um I know that you know Shannon described how those politics that were articulated in the leap were not sellable then and are and aren't sellable now. But it was funny how when when the fracas over the leap went down in 2016, there was only one pollster who actually did a poll, and that was Frank Grace from ECOS. And he found that 50% of Canadians were already in support of
00:21:34
Speaker
and the Leap Manifesto. And and those numbers have actually- Do you recall what the what the regional breakdown of those numbers looked like? Because I imagine was much less popular around Alberta, Saskatchewan. think even in Alberta, it was quite high.
00:21:47
Speaker
um And I think those numbers have only
Economic and Environmental Perspectives
00:21:50
Speaker
grown since then. if I mean, if you look at the Green New Deal, which was in many ways inspired by the Leap Manifesto and and took off in in the US thanks to the advocacy of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. um you know The last polls done about a Green New Deal in Canada were you know in the range of 70% upward. And he even in Alberta, um you know there's a recent poll from Jared what jared Wesley, is it, um who found that
00:22:22
Speaker
and Albertans, 44% of Albertans support, quote, transitioning Alberta's economy away from oil and gas. But when they were asked how other Albertans view that proposition, only they thought only 28% of Albertans want to transition off oil and gas. So there's a way in which I think Albertans living in a, you know, elite media echo chamber actually undersell how much they embrace those kinds of politics.
00:22:54
Speaker
I'm not too surprised to hear that the numbers are getting better, though, ah because the jobs are all leaking out of that industry, right? the When the prices crashed in 2015, it put an incredible amount of pressure on the industry to trim the fat, tighten things up. In the boom years out here, it used to be you know circa, say, 2006 through to about 2014, and especially around the the boom right before the crash.
00:23:23
Speaker
You can get very, very well compensated work, even just adjacent to the to the industry, even just doing you know like an admin for a supply company or something.
00:23:35
Speaker
um Very, very high pay. Some people did have to to work pretty hard in bursts, but overall, people were getting compensated very, very well for the work that they were putting in.
00:23:46
Speaker
People have very fond memories of those times. But then when the numbers got worse they automated a lot of those jobs away where they they found efficiencies so they they didn't have to but they never had to but but so that they were able to get rid of all those guys around you know the the Calgary office who just went to meetings. Those guys got all laid off.
00:24:08
Speaker
So ah far fewer people in Alberta are paying for their their home, their truck, their their kids' schooling or so on with oil and gas money at this point.
00:24:19
Speaker
There's a lot less of it going to the workers, even though production continues to go up and up. A hundred percent. And i mean... I mean, we that was always my impression that that ah an Alberta NDP party as well as government um who you know was was interested in laying the groundwork ah for a medium to long term transition could start laying the public education making the public education
00:24:51
Speaker
for that case um you know um There are far, far more jobs and to be gained in you know renewable clean energy projects um than there were in um in in oil. i mean And of course, you know as as time goes by, i think the number was something like you know seven to eight times more work ah per per dollar in the clean energy sector.
00:25:19
Speaker
um and you know As we've gone on, the industry is just automating relentlessly, throwing thousands and thousands of workers ah out of jobs um while still making off with billions of dollars in in profits. um And so you know our are thinking then was and are thinking I think now is that the and NDP in Alberta could still put forward a plan to create hundreds of thousands of green jobs over the next several years in building out the systems that Albertans desperately need, whether it's accessible public transit or energy saving housing retrofits or cleaning up the mess that oil companies have left. um
00:26:05
Speaker
You know, nature didn't make Alberta, an oil province. um It's as much solar, wind, and geothermal country. and That's how the it's how the oil got here, if you think about it long term.
00:26:18
Speaker
Exactly. um and um you know so it's not and You talk to oil sands workers, as I have as a journalist, and they know exactly what they are doing to the climate and to the earth. and Most of them would be just as happy um doing jobs that are um not earth destroying. um So instead of laying pipe for pipelines, why not lay pipe for for for wind wind turbines? um
00:26:49
Speaker
And I do think that, you know, my sense is is that that the NDP at the time that they launched those attacks on on on the Leap Manifesto, we're already marching towards the right.
00:27:03
Speaker
And it's a little... the harshness of the criticisms seems a bit too convenient um and an attempt to distract, I think, from you know the failings of that um of that government. um you know they They abandoned any changes to royalty rates after a review. They um started advocating for pipelines to the point of encouraging the federal government to buy one. um you know They even adopted the language of of the right in terms of spending restraint and balanced budgets and you know showed no interest in in increasing personal income taxes and only ah only modest corporate taxes. So you know um my sense is that that the kind of retroactive blame that they put at the feet of the LEAP manifesto is not is not well placed. I mean, I did at one point- That's an interesting take on it.
00:27:56
Speaker
Well, I mean, i remember at one point actually looking up how how often the UCP actually criticized the the Albert NDP using the Leap Manifesto. Because the story, of course, was that we have hung a millstone over their neck and um you know absolutely damaged their governing prospects.
00:28:19
Speaker
But there really was, you know between 2016 and 2017, after the Leap Manifesto um you know passed at that convention, there were just two dozen mentions in the legislature. And then in the year subsequent years, maybe a dozen every year.
00:28:32
Speaker
there were you know There were a few media stories, but it it never dominated the you know the news cycles at the time. suppose what the um the Alberta NDP supporters, or or Phillips, if she was here with us at the moment, would say to that is that you don't have the counterfactual.
00:28:47
Speaker
You don't know how it would have played out if the Alberta NDP hadn't come out swinging against it. Maybe they would have been attacked over it quite a lot more. But I think we do know, i think, um you know, it's not like the UCP needed the leap to brand the Alberta NDP government, you know, a bunch of radical oil-hating pinkos. What was Kenny's line? They're left-wing ideologues who want to turn Alberta into some kind of socialist lab experiment. So, you know, they were they were already um departing from reality to bash the Alberta NDP in every which way.
00:29:24
Speaker
And i think the issue is, and this is an important lesson from the states and from so many other places, you can't really appease the extreme right. If you alter your message, you know we we see where that ends. you You lose your principles and your political compass, but the right keeps attacking you.
00:29:42
Speaker
And to me, it makes you think if they're going to call you you know oil-hating communists, you might as well not cower from being progressive.
00:29:54
Speaker
Well, sounds like, so the the general story that you get out here about the convention and leap and that whole incident was that the Alberta New Democrats were trying to engage in this strategy of, on the one hand, um obviously kind of uselessly trying to mollify the corporate media and lobbying organizations and the oil and gas industry and that sort of thing, but also trying to appeal more to oil and gas workers or people in Alberta who perceived themselves as being um somewhat aligned with oil and gas workers. And that by showing up with LEAP, you destabilized their strategy. You you caused a problem for them.
00:30:45
Speaker
But what you're describing, it sounds more like they saw Leap as a target of opportunity
Future of Progressive Movements
00:30:52
Speaker
in order to buttress their strategy that they thought that by doing some some lateral violence against you guys, that they could burnish this campaign that they were working on. So they you were not so much a a problem as an opportunity.
00:31:07
Speaker
Well, that's a i haven't I hadn't actually thought of it that way, but now that you put it that way, I think that that seems quite insightful. that ah well Maybe perhaps one other way to put it is that we offer them yet another opportunity to perhaps pivot away from the strategy that they had chosen.
00:31:25
Speaker
But I think you're right that by that point, it seemed like they were too committed to it. um But as you were saying, you kind of offered them an opportunity to spark
00:31:38
Speaker
in order for but both sides of this thing to see some advantage over debating and having discourse of it and instead they just you know they started to run real punches. and It wasn't a sparring match.
00:31:51
Speaker
Well, i mean i think what I think the opportunity that we provided them was to point to um you know activists that were perhaps you know too radical beyond the pale, but were still committed fundamentally to the same principles. um I think the case that the leap made is that the transition um needed to happen urgently. In fact, yesterday, um if we were to avert the kind of um climate chaos that all of us now 10 years on are seeing on a more regular basis. um
00:32:29
Speaker
the The climate change exacerbated forest fires and wildfires that have um you know ravaged our country, the floods and droughts, and which are really only a sign of even more chaos to come.
00:32:46
Speaker
And that's to say nothing of the things happening outside our borders, too. and this's I mean, it's the rest of the world who who we're really hurting with this stuff, it it seems like. ah People around here will will say, oh, it's it's a little warmer. during the air they'll try and ignore the forest fires. But when you consider massive amounts of people down you know on the subcontinent dying of of heat exposure, because it's 45 degrees out in the summer, and things are getting pretty extreme.
00:33:19
Speaker
Undoubtedly. and and And I think it was a missed opportunity and for um the sort of longer term far reaching vision that I think will ultimately ensure the security, both economic and ecological of of the people of Alberta, as well as the rest of the people in this country. And if you'll indulge me, um I am a fan of Shannon, um and i actually have a book a book that she wrote the introduction to many years ago um when she was a member of Funk, Fighting Unaccountable Naughty Corporations. It was a book been written by a Greenpeace activist named Mike Udima called An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away. And and in that, Shannon wrote, if if I can quote this, she
00:34:12
Speaker
This book is aimed at people who are at least a little curious about ways of taking steps, however small, towards making this world a better place for future generations. Indeed, making sure there is a world for future generations.
00:34:26
Speaker
And it's for people who want to have a certain amount of fun and some immediate satisfaction in working towards that lofty, seemingly distant goal.
00:34:39
Speaker
Well said. i wish she said things like that still today. Although, you know, I still like Shannon quite a bit. And the climate leadership plan, while failing on some files in in big ways, there is, for example, a big methane shaped hole in that policy, was still a big step forward. So, I mean, this is not Shannon hate episode any means.
00:35:05
Speaker
No, though i though I do think it's it's useful to be like a bit clear-eyed about about that um that NDP climate plan, which we probably should have talked earlier in the in the episode, and maybe you can you can cut it into there.
00:35:18
Speaker
um But Shannon described that that plan 20... Oh God, was it 2015 2016? It was 2015, right? It was 2015?
00:35:27
Speaker
it was twenty fifteen it was right it was twenty fifteen
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, the the the alberta the Alberta NDP climate plan in 2015, Shannon described it as the most ambitious public policy response to climate change from a province in the history of the country, which which was true, relatively speaking, but it was damning with faint praise because um you know it it's set it set a hard cap on emissions, um but it was such a a high cap as to allow ah staggering 40% increase of emissions over the next 15 years. In other words, um it was a loophole big enough to drive a heavy hauler through. no no No tar sands project ever needed to be reined in. No development was slowed, which was a far cry from the Alberta NDP's position back in 2005, which was a moratorium on oil sands development, which ironically is the same thing that the that the LEAP manifesto put forward just 10 years later.
00:36:30
Speaker
um And I think it's true, most other climate plans in the country at the time had been entirely written by the oil industry. And in this case, the loopholes were attractive enough to big oil that they were happy to stand on the same stage as um as Rachel Notley to cheer it along.
00:36:49
Speaker
So I do think that you know at the time, the ANDP had been elected with a ah mandate for for more bold change. um Albertans were tired then, and I think they are tired now of oil-soaked politicians who let companies vacuum up billions in profit, um all the while inequality soars and public services degrade further and further.
00:37:13
Speaker
um And you know there there was a political opportunity there to seize by the ANDP in tandem with you know social movements around the country.
00:37:26
Speaker
um And i think they I think they missed the boat on it. and It's not too late, I think, to pivot, um but I think it's ah it's a period in history that I think if we want to understand what happened, the opportunities that were missed and what we may yet still do to chart a different course, we have ultimately to be honest about what happened.
Eco-Socialism and Avi Lewis's Role
00:37:51
Speaker
In interview with Shannon an episode or two ago, I described the LEAP project as part of what I saw as a ah decade or so of the eco-socialist project struggling to be born.
00:38:09
Speaker
Do you think that that that's an accurate description of of what was going on? That a um a movement that actually combined being a climate champion with being correct on labor and social issues was was trying to find a home in Canada. i I know there were similar kind of parallel attempts by Dimitri Laskaris over in the Greens to try and shift the Greens towards that sort of policy program. And you mentioned earlier things like Sanders, Corbyn, AOC. green new deal
00:38:45
Speaker
all in line with that. ah Was that more or less the project of LEAP? and I guess the the follow-up there too would be, do you think that Lewis today is the the standard bearer for pursuing more of ah an eco-socialist program through the NDP?
00:39:04
Speaker
I think that's an insightful way to to frame it, that that in 2015 with the Leap Manifesto and its initial you know endorsement by the majority of of the party's membership. It was, yeah, i the the early rumblings of a eco-democratic socialist politics in Canada.
00:39:30
Speaker
And um you know it went through some kind of faltering steps. It didn't ultimately, while it was passed by the party, the party's establishment such as it is, um was not interested in um seizing the reins of that kind of politics. And so we saw over the next few years, um extra parliamentary social movements, the environmental movement, um kind of trying to keep that vision alive.
00:39:59
Speaker
And, you know, now I think you're right to say that Avi Lewis's campaign is is bringing forward that kind of politics once again. And I think it's a politics that is immensely popular with Canadians um who have gotten so used to and so tired of politicians and trying to drive a wedge ah between those issues.
00:40:26
Speaker
um you know we've been told countlessly that If we want to tackle the climate crisis, it's going to cost jobs. It's going to tank our economy. um And I think that's the furthest thing from the truth. and you know Just purely viewed from a an economic economic perspective, the kind of um Damages and costs that are coming, that are hurling our way from climate chaos are in the billions, if not trillions of dollars.
00:40:57
Speaker
And even besides that, I think people, um as we've seen certainly in the States, people have an appetite for a politics that explains that actually the climate crisis supercharges our bread and butter economic and social and racial justice progressive agenda.
00:41:19
Speaker
That there are ways of tackling the climate crisis. um that can simultaneously improve our material standard of living in so many ways, whether it's better housing, ah free functional public transit, um whether it's meaningful jobs created in the millions and millions and that are good and unionized um to transition our economy from 19th century model to a 21st century one.
00:41:50
Speaker
And my sense is is that um that appeals not just to and NDP members on the east coast of this country or on the far west, but I think it will have an appeal in the prairies as well.
00:42:05
Speaker
And um I think it represents the future of politics in this country. It's a hell of a pitch. And I think you're right that conditions are getting better and better for it, that it's becoming more and more attractive to people, for sure.
00:42:21
Speaker
Martin, you are somewhat affiliated with the Lewis campaign. My understanding is that you are providing some policy advice to Avi. Yeah, i mean mean I've known Avi for more than 10 years now. We worked together on the Leap Manifesto.
00:42:36
Speaker
and work together on This Changes Everything, the the movie version of Naomi Klein's book. Actually, another irony is that none other than um Shannon Phillips also actually lent a hand with that with that documentary. um i think when Avi was, ah was a script writer on that documentary, when Avi was headed to Alberta and Air Canada had ah lost their tripod, ah Shannon ah helped out in a pinch. And I think she got her sister to to to get a rental tripod and deliver it to the airport so that
00:43:14
Speaker
the film shoot, which focused on the community of Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, would go off without a hitch. um So yeah, we're actually, um think ah the left is smaller than um than most of us would like it to be. And um all of us have histories of you know meaningful political collaboration on on on the left that I think ah will hopefully be a model for future work yet to come.
00:43:45
Speaker
For sure. Well, as someone affiliated with the campaign, as we close the episode here, can you recommend to our listeners any way that they could get involved if they are interested in what Avi's pitching?
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah, people should um check out Avi's website at lewisforleader.ca and you can check out his initial launch video, which sketches out some of his vision for the party.
00:44:14
Speaker
And if you sign up ah on that website, you'll be getting lots more information about um the campaign. Okay. Well, Martin, thanks for coming on to give us the other side of this story.
00:44:28
Speaker
sorry for pouring a bit of salt on old wounds, but I think this is important lore for people to understand the current federal NDP race. So I really appreciate you joining us today. Folks, if you would like to follow up with more work from Martin and from his colleagues like Desmond Cole at The Breach, you can find them online at breachmedia.com.
00:44:52
Speaker
of course, you can find us online at theprogressreport.ca. If you enjoyed this episode, i wish to remind you that we don't run any ads. We don't really get a lot of foundation or union money or anything like that. So it's all it's it's almost all small donors. If you would like me to produce more of these podcasts, please browse over theprogressreport.ca slash patrons where you're welcome to chip in anything you like.
00:45:18
Speaker
Once again, thanks for your time, Martin. Great to chat with you. Hope we have you on again soon. Thanks so much for having me.