Full Comment - Cautionary tales from a refugee of NDP and Green party ecopolitics

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00:00:17.100 Politics is a passion for people like me,

00:00:19.980 people that like to listen to things like this podcast.

00:00:22.680 It can challenge you, it can uplift you, it can drive you,

00:00:26.100 it can envelop your entire life,

00:00:27.800 it can break your heart, and it can also make you laugh.

00:00:32.100 Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:00:34.240 My name is Brian Lilly, your host,

00:00:35.620 and this week we take a look at a book and speak to its author

00:00:38.620 who does all of that.

00:00:40.480 He'll make you laugh about politics.

00:00:41.960 He's got some funny lines in this book.

00:00:43.760 He will make you angry or upset, challenged,

00:00:47.940 make you scratch your head.

00:00:49.640 Mark Leran-Yon has been active in NDP and green politics for years,

00:00:53.340 and while he still believes in their ideals,

00:00:55.300 he's had a bit of a moment where he's backing away from both parties,

00:01:00.720 wondering where they go from here and if they can win.

00:01:04.800 We talk about that.

00:01:05.820 We talk about how Justin Trudeau co-opted so many of those issues

00:01:09.240 and really damaged both parties,

00:01:11.340 and we talked about where they can go forward and why it matters.

00:01:15.460 The book is called Greener Than Thou,

00:01:17.280 Surviving the Toxic Sludge of Canadian Eco-Politics.

00:01:20.660 It's part of Sutherland Quarterly, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

00:01:25.980 So, Mark, what is Greener Than Thou?

00:01:29.260 It sounds like you're making a religious statement with that.

00:01:34.460 Well, I sort of am.

00:01:38.880 You know, one of the things that I sort of realized as I was writing this

00:01:43.380 is that the NDP is a religion and the Green Party is a cult.

00:01:49.280 And I was floored how often, when I started fact-checking this,

00:01:54.760 you know, I started sort of subtly fact-checking with various people,

00:01:59.380 and the number of times the word cult came up in describing the Greens

00:02:03.280 was mind-blowing, and I've always felt the NDP was a religion.

00:02:06.380 The, but I mean, you still believe in the ideals

00:02:12.240 that these parties claim they stand for, right?

00:02:15.500 Yes, which means this is kind of...

00:02:18.880 It's a difficult moment for you.

00:02:21.240 Oh, it really is, because it was heartbreaking to write this,

00:02:25.100 and yet I still wanted it to be really funny.

00:02:27.020 So, I feel like this is the funniest, most heartbreaking thing I've ever written.

00:02:32.240 You survived in making it funny.

00:02:33.880 Look, you opened with a quote from Rosemary Barton at CBC saying,

00:02:42.280 it looked like the, I'll paraphrase it, but something to the effect of,

00:02:46.200 it looked like the Green Party had a moment.

00:02:49.020 Now it doesn't.

00:02:50.540 And so, as someone that's been covering politics a long time,

00:02:54.360 yeah, there was a period where it looked like the Greens were going somewhere.

00:02:57.600 Here in Ontario, mainly due to the cult of personality of Mike Schreiner,

00:03:02.680 I think they've gotten up to two seats, and that's not a slight against Mike,

00:03:08.800 but he's really embodies it.

00:03:11.040 But in many ways, the federal Green Party has become a cult of personality of Elizabeth May.

00:03:17.840 Is she leader or is she not?

00:03:19.540 I think it depends on the day and her mood.

00:03:21.780 And that's what it's feeling like right now and has for a while.

00:03:26.420 And even if you look at Jonathan Padno, if you look at how he came about,

00:03:34.200 Elizabeth finds somebody, runs with somebody, declares there's going to be a co-leadership situation. 0.80

00:03:39.340 It's never approved by the party.

00:03:41.060 And he comes third in the leadership race.

00:03:45.240 So, it was really interesting how that was then engineered to depart.

00:03:50.620 Yeah, he's the co-leader, just not officially.

00:03:53.340 He leaves, and then just before the election's supposed to start,

00:03:57.560 he's magically back and the party has somehow approved co-leadership.

00:04:00.960 I've got no idea what they were so busy with between, oh, the time that he was supposed to become co-leader

00:04:08.880 and the time that he left and the time that he came back, that they couldn't fix that if they really wanted to.

00:04:15.800 So, it really felt like Elizabeth just decided she wanted a co-leader and to tease somebody up to take over after she left.

00:04:24.580 My question during all of that is, if there's two leaders, who goes to the debate?

00:04:28.600 Because you're not getting two podiums on the stage when all the other parties have one leader.

00:04:33.400 Well, as we saw this time, the answer was no one.

00:04:36.720 I mean, it was said to be Petno, which would have been interesting.

00:04:42.600 You open the book calling her the unsinkable Elizabeth May.

00:04:48.580 Tell me your experience working with, I guess we would say, Canada's longest-serving party leader.

00:04:58.600 Absolutely.

00:05:00.160 I mean, she is tireless, right?

00:05:05.020 She is.

00:05:06.660 There was a moment during the campaign that I was working on where she was standing on, not a street corner,

00:05:16.280 I don't know what, not quite a call to sack, but basically like this big traffic circle in Nanaimo,

00:05:21.260 waving signs for Paul Manley in the by-election that really, I felt, had potentially changed the fate of the Greens for the better.

00:05:30.000 And I turned to her and I said, do you ever sleep?

00:05:33.940 And in a lot of ways, it was the most serious I'd ever seen her.

00:05:36.880 And she sort of looked, and for a moment, she kind of hesitated and went, I nap.

00:05:41.940 And I thought, I absolutely believe that, you know, because she is the face.

00:05:47.620 She's the brand. 0.87

00:05:48.660 She's the freaking A&W root bearer of the Green Party of Canada. 0.99

00:05:54.640 Almost 20 years as leader now. 0.96

00:05:56.740 Yeah, absolutely.

00:06:01.140 And that has its benefits and has its drawbacks.

00:06:06.900 So you talk about the idea that she has built all of this around her.

00:06:15.740 Having been involved in NDP and green politics over the years, I guess she has kept the brand going,

00:06:26.220 but shouldn't she have stepped aside at some point to allow for renewal, allow for people to take over?

00:06:33.080 I was really fascinated at how the last few leadership races have played out.

00:06:37.840 I really don't get and have been, you know, asking around and still don't understand how Mike Morris didn't take over the party when he was elected out of Ontario.

00:06:52.600 I really don't understand why the party didn't put everything they had into holding his seat in Ontario.

00:07:02.800 That baffled me.

00:07:04.880 Uh, you know, they're doing ads with Jonathan Pedno, who came fifth in his riding and a really good, and a really good finish in his riding would have been third.

00:07:15.680 So, you know, the whole Green Party leadership thing landed him fifth place.

00:07:21.540 But if they put Mike Morris and tagged him at the end of every ad, maybe he holds his seat in Ontario.

00:07:29.860 I don't know why that didn't happen.

00:07:32.100 Right.

00:07:32.620 It's like, it baffled me.

00:07:35.620 You describe early on how, um, there used to be a tradition until Elizabeth May won in, in, uh, on Vancouver Island.

00:07:44.620 There was a tradition that, uh, Green Party leaders would just find the most unwinnable riding and run there.

00:07:51.980 Now she famously ran against Peter McKay and you said her odds of winning were like winning the lotto 649.

00:07:58.260 Um, yeah, one in, I think that's one in 14 million, by the way.

00:08:03.020 Um, yeah, yeah, that'll work.

00:08:05.980 And now, uh, now that riding is held by a liberal who left to go spend more time with his family, came back and won again.

00:08:13.140 So it seems like if you're an incumbent in that riding in Central Nova, you're always going to win.

00:08:18.360 And Elizabeth May was never going to win, but she did it. 1.00

00:08:21.720 And a May Paul did it, uh, Pendal did it.

00:08:24.240 Like, so is it that they like losing more than winning?

00:08:27.980 Um, I don't for the life of me understand the strategy there because there are ridings that are winnable out there.

00:08:38.540 There are ridings where green issues are top of mind and to go, Hey, I think I'm going to run against the most popular politician in the province.

00:08:47.920 Seems like a pretty odd flex, you know?

00:08:51.040 And I mean, right now, Elizabeth's riding, which is where I live, is almost that safe for her.

00:08:58.660 Mike Schreiner has figured that out in Ontario.

00:09:00.440 He decided that he was going to run in Guelph, uh, university town.

00:09:05.200 Uh, the center of that riding is filled with, with students.

00:09:08.600 It is filled with, there's two Guelphs.

00:09:10.940 There's the area around the university and that is very green.

00:09:13.900 And then there's the areas outside and that is very conservative or blue liberal.

00:09:18.120 It depends, uh, Mike Schreiner figured out, okay, we can win there.

00:09:21.640 And he has been seriously trying to figure out the other ridings that he can win.

00:09:26.480 That seems like a, an attempt at a serious organization, even though he only has two, uh, and they seem to run things very professionally in your experience, working with the greens, working with Elizabeth May.

00:09:39.480 Was there any sense of professionalism in the organization?

00:09:45.240 Yeah, there was.

00:09:46.380 I mean, there was a sense of going after certain ridings and knowing, you know, what was plausible and what wasn't.

00:09:55.160 Uh, and there were a couple of ridings out here for the, for a while, really looked like they were going to turn green.

00:10:02.020 And it was a bit shocking that they didn't.

00:10:06.280 Elizabeth May is an odd duck in that she came out of, um, working with the progressive conservatives under Brian Mulroney.

00:10:14.820 And, I mean, Jean Charest was the first environment minister Canada ever had.

00:10:21.660 And I think Mulroney gave it to him because he's like, ah, you're young.

00:10:25.380 And back then he was.

00:10:26.740 Jean's not so young anymore.

00:10:28.940 You're a young guy.

00:10:29.880 The, the, the whippersnappers care about the environment.

00:10:32.900 You go look after this.

00:10:34.100 Uh, did, did, did Mulroney knowingly or unknowingly give birth to the, the eco politics movement in this country?

00:10:42.060 I mean, it had been, uh, bubbling and growing in, in Europe and places like Germany for years, but we didn't really have that, uh, until Brian Mulroney helped give birth to Elizabeth May.

00:10:54.160 I, I give him credit for a lot of things.

00:10:56.260 I'm not sure about this.

00:10:58.100 Well, what's fascinating is that there's always an assumption that the more right-wing governments tend to be terrible for the environment.

00:11:08.080 That is not always the case.

00:11:09.960 And you look at Mulroney going, I think we should have an environment minister, but you also look at Mulroney going, you know, acid rain, bad idea.

00:11:20.540 And I mean, one of the biggest wins you can point to environmentally is freaking, wasn't it Mulroney and Reagan?

00:11:28.300 Uh, you know.

00:11:30.260 Even Stephen Harper expanded national parks, made huge swaths of British Columbia protected territory.

00:11:37.160 You got no credit for it.

00:11:39.080 And, you know, so I'm not sure why he did it.

00:11:40.980 He, he was depicted as someone trying to pillage the land and the environment, but he, he actually expanded national parks tremendously.

00:11:51.160 Well, I mean, out here in BC, uh, it was Gordon Campbell who, you know, really in a lot of ways invented the green party out here by drafting Andrew Weaver to come up with a climate plan.

00:12:06.460 And introducing a carbon tax that became the model for carbon taxes around the world to the point where Sappora Berman, you know, environmentalist who actually wrote a book with her, uh, presented him with an award for his environmental work, which would have seemed unthinkable.

00:12:25.580 And just the photo op of that was just, I think, heads exploded on all ends of the political spectrum when that happened.

00:12:35.580 And even though for, for our folks that are not familiar with BC politics, Gordon Campbell may have been premier while he was leader of the liberal party.

00:12:44.160 Gordon Campbell, very much a conservative, uh, unlike Christy Clark, who replaced him, who was from the liberal side, the, the BC liberal party, which no longer exists, was just there to keep the NDP out of power.

00:12:56.580 Uh, and, and you're saying he gave birth to the, the BC greens.

00:12:59.840 He gave birth to BC greens by really bringing Andrew Weaver into the, you know, who became the leader of the BC greens, uh, into BC politics.

00:13:10.240 And what happened there is that Christy Clark, uh, then axed, you know, decided, declared she was getting rid of the carbon tax.

00:13:20.160 And Weaver decides to run for the greens and eventually becomes leader, but it was Christy Clark going, I'm getting rid of that tax.

00:13:28.000 Held the balance of power, which allowed John Oregon to become premier.

00:13:33.240 Yep.

00:13:34.900 So it is an odd relationship.

00:13:38.640 And so where should the greens be?

00:13:40.380 I'm trying to remember the name of the, um, the guy who was green party leader in Ontario years ago.

00:13:46.020 It was a fairly business oriented guy come out of the small, uh, business community.

00:13:51.900 Jim Harris.

00:13:52.720 Yes.

00:13:53.300 Jim Harris.

00:13:53.980 Yeah.

00:13:54.540 And, but he cared deeply about the environment and, and he saw the greens as, you know, not necessarily a left wing party.

00:14:03.660 And now I see an awful lot of people who think the green should mainly be the NDP, but with pumped up, um, environmental concerns.

00:14:14.400 Well, if you've already got an NDP, is it smart politics to go in there and try and replicate the NDP?

00:14:22.660 It really hasn't worked, but I mean, it's interesting because the greens branding goes in a different direction.

00:14:30.100 So in 2019, it was the, the slogan that came out was not left, not right forward.

00:14:38.040 And the greens were trying very hard to go, no, no, we're, we're not coming for the NDP on the left.

00:14:43.880 We're our own thing.

00:14:46.200 And, but that's not generally where it stays.

00:14:50.980 And so what is it is, is it the leadership or is it the membership that is drawn to the green party that drives that?

00:14:59.660 Or, you know, let's be blunt.

00:15:02.180 A real problem for the greens is that if you are a rabid anti-Semite, you've got a home in the green party.

00:15:09.380 You know, the only federal party recently to have, uh, a Jewish leader and she was viciously attacked within her own party.

00:15:19.240 Which she talked about quite a bit.

00:15:21.900 Uh, you know, that, that came up a fair bit when she left and the, you know.

00:15:28.020 We're talking anime Paul for those.

00:15:29.480 Anime Paul.

00:15:29.840 Who haven't followed along.

00:15:30.700 Uh, the black Jewish leader who basically would, and I think it's important for anybody who doesn't have this context though.

00:15:39.820 I can't imagine any of your listeners don't, this is long before, you know, what's going on now.

00:15:45.800 This is, this is long before October 7th.

00:15:47.840 Yeah.

00:15:48.240 That anime Paul was, was dealing with, uh, a level of antisemitism that she seemed to be quite shocked by from everything that I read.

00:15:58.660 Uh, but, yeah, it's, sorry, we moved away from where we were and I'm trying to make sure that I'm answering your question.

00:16:10.600 Well, so I'm, I, I'm asking what, uh, why does, is it the leadership or is it the membership that drives this push to some radical positions or an attempt to overtake the NDP, um, whether it is pushing the politics to the left or, you know, the problem of antisemitism?

00:16:31.140 Well, I think it's a bit of both.

00:16:33.040 I think what you end up with is that the Greens are essentially a party made up of people who feel disenfranchised from other parties, right?

00:16:41.100 So you've got a lot of contrarians and it's the amount of overlap that there seemed to be between Greens and the People's Party was a little shocking.

00:16:56.720 Uh, although not everybody I spoke to at the Greens.

00:17:00.080 So during the pandemic, uh, because I've got a podcast where I deal with science, I felt really uncomfortable having any COVID deniers on my Facebook page and on my social media.

00:17:13.200 I was like, I don't feel great about amplifying this.

00:17:16.320 So I started nuking anybody who was, you know, full on anti-vax conspiracy theory.

00:17:22.900 That was on my Facebook pages entirely from people who I had connected with through being green.

00:17:32.080 Uh, I remember telling folks that, um, um, the growth of the PPC that Maxime Bernier was taking as much from the green party as he was from the conservative party at times in certain places that it, it, it, these were crunchy cons going over to, uh, granola eating crunchy cons going over to the PPC.

00:17:54.200 Well, you've also got BC, you've got the phenomenon of traditionally, like, uh, I know that we baffled the rest of Canada in so many different ways, but one of them is like when the reform party came up, you would have reformers or Canadian Alliance members elected in the exact same writings.

00:18:16.820 Federally, the NDP rep, provincially.

00:18:20.240 And I kept trying to explain to people when I was living here and I was writing for various Toronto publications.

00:18:26.680 Uh, yeah, that's because the BC response to the federal government tends to be whatever party is going to give the, is going to give the middle finger.

00:18:34.980 Uh, that, that's kind of how people roll here.

00:18:38.060 So it was like, okay, who's, you know, who's going to hold people's feet to the fire?

00:18:42.660 Yeah, we think that's going to be Preston's team this election.

00:18:45.500 Who's going to hold people?

00:18:46.480 Yeah, we think it's going to be NDP this election.

00:18:48.520 It's very, you know, you do, you don't always see BC going, yes, let's vote for the party.

00:18:53.880 It's going to win.

00:18:54.840 It's going to be, we're going to vote for the party.

00:18:56.700 It's going to annoy people.

00:18:58.900 Well, look, even Elizabeth May's writing, uh, was previously held by Gary Lunn, who had been in Stephen Harper's cabinet and was first elected as a reformer.

00:19:08.880 But, and Gary Lunn's numbers were better when he was a reformer.

00:19:13.500 Right.

00:19:14.940 Right.

00:19:15.460 When he was, when he was the outlier, he actually had better numbers.

00:19:19.960 I mean, he still got elected under Harper, but he did really well when he was an outsider.

00:19:27.140 And I, I mean, when Elizabeth came into that riding, I had no doubt the rider was going to go, ha, you know, this is a, you know, proudly iconoclastic riding.

00:19:37.580 I had no doubt it was going to go, yeah, we think there should be a, you know, national party leader from here.

00:19:41.860 We'll go from, uh, uh, from conservative to, uh, to green.

00:19:46.960 Yeah.

00:19:47.600 I mean, there's certain areas where, uh, in Ontario where you will find, uh, blue, orange switchers, but nothing is quite like BC politics where it's blue, orange, green switchers.

00:20:00.900 And never read, never going to go for the liberals.

00:20:05.420 Just go as I like how you put it, the, the going for the party that's going to annoy folks.

00:20:11.760 Oh, that's why this election was so shocking.

00:20:14.000 Yeah.

00:20:14.160 When we come back, we'll take a quick break.

00:20:16.840 And I want to ask you about why the, uh, the NDP is the arch enemy of the NDP, because you do have experience with, with both parties and both of them are, are, are failing you.

00:20:28.120 I would say they're failing Canadian democracy at the moment because we need strong opposition.

00:20:32.900 And well, that's not coming from that side of the aisle at the moment.

00:20:36.880 Back in moments.

00:20:37.480 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada did what, where we unpack the biggest, weirdest, and wildest political moments in Canadian history.

00:20:45.280 You thought you knew and tell you what really happened.

00:20:48.720 Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes.

00:20:53.240 If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada did what everywhere you get podcasts.

00:20:59.680 So Mark, you say that the NDP is the greatest enemy of the NDP.

00:21:04.800 Oh, absolutely.

00:21:05.280 And before I get into why you described that in the book, I want to set it in terms of the politics that's happening right now in Ottawa.

00:21:14.080 So, um, the NDP is down to seven seats.

00:21:18.140 The liberals are four seats short once you count the speaker for passing their budget.

00:21:22.460 And there's a big thing about, will we have an election?

00:21:24.820 And the NDP, everyone looked to them and said, well, I guess they're helping pass the budget, but they really don't want to. 0.95

00:21:30.500 Because part of the reason they've been reduced to seven seats is, well, that damn coalition agreement that Jagmeet Singh signed them on to. 0.93

00:21:38.820 And people were like, well, why not just vote for the liberals? 0.94

00:21:42.940 So, uh, I mean, this is a really bad spot because if they go to an election, they have no leader and they have no money and they'll have zero credibility if they back the liberals.

00:21:54.600 So is this part of what you're talking about when you say that they're their own worst enemy?

00:22:00.560 Oh, that and so much more.

00:22:02.260 But I mean, you look at it and go, I think a more effective leader than Singh could have made that agreement work just fine for them.

00:22:11.380 I, I just think he was a dud as a politician from the get-go.

00:22:15.800 Uh, and you know, part of the thesis of the book is that the Greens had a window, that window existed because of Singh, right?

00:22:25.960 Like he, he teed that up.

00:22:27.880 He, he left, you know, he left the, he left everything open for the Greens to move through and take over as, you know, the perpetual third party.

00:22:36.760 But I mean, you, I look now and I'm listening to people say, well, Hey, how could things get worse for the NDP?

00:22:44.140 And I'm like, I don't know.

00:22:45.760 Ask Kim Campbell, ask, you know, ask Jenny Quinn, who's in your caucus and served in a two person caucus in British Columbia.

00:22:53.740 Cause I look and go, regardless of what Carney does with the budget, there's nothing that has changed about the way Pierre Polyev is resonating with the people who don't already dig him.

00:23:09.420 So I think if the NDP goes to an election, Heather McPherson is going to be leader by default because she's going to be the only one left standing.

00:23:18.980 Getting elected in Redmonton.

00:23:20.760 She pretty safe seat for her.

00:23:22.040 She's the only one who got elected by a reasonable margin.

00:23:26.400 I did the math.

00:23:28.180 It was like a few thousand, if you take that out of the equation, a few thousand votes separate the NDP from utter oblivion last election.

00:23:37.820 You talk about competent NDP leaders.

00:23:40.980 You talk about Rachel Notley and the miracle that she had in Alberta.

00:23:44.700 You also talk about Tom Mulcair and some people see Tom Mulcair as a failure with the NDP.

00:23:50.460 And in fact, Matthew Green, sadly, an MP from my hometown with, you know, a bad attitude.

00:23:58.380 You know, you cite that he said Tom Mulcair is not really a new Democrat.

00:24:03.700 He's a liberal.

00:24:04.240 But Mulcair is a major reason why Jack Layton had the orange wave in 2011 and doesn't get the credit for it because he was an effective campaigner.

00:24:16.840 And while Jack was working in Ottawa and crisscrossing the country prior to the 2011 election, Tom Mulcair was going around Quebec, the region he knew so well, having worked as a bureaucrat, as an elected official.

00:24:31.700 And recruiting candidates, serious candidates, setting up the infrastructure to win, they won 57 seats in Quebec.

00:24:40.340 That made them official opposition.

00:24:42.700 And when he took over from Jack, he gave the NDP their second best showing ever.

00:24:47.720 And they said, nah, you got to go.

00:24:50.600 Well, it was mind blowing, but this gets into why I said off the top, the NDP's religion, because it is the only party that excommunicates you.

00:25:02.440 And I mean, the Matthew Green also said, you know, Mulcair, really more of a liberal than an NDPer, not really an NDPer, a liberal.

00:25:13.080 And what's fascinating is same thing about former premiers.

00:25:17.320 So you'd think a party that wants to be diverse and representative and, you know, take your pick, wouldn't basically pretend Ujjal Dossange never happened after being premier of BC because he went to liberals.

00:25:33.100 And then Bob Ray was never really NDP because he went to federal liberals.

00:25:37.020 And instead of going, they were never really NDP, I think there's a better question in why did they leave?

00:25:42.980 Uh, what was it about the party that has cost them so many of the best and brightest, but instead it's like, oh, well, they were clearly never pure enough.

00:25:54.640 They clearly, and I'm waiting for the day.

00:25:57.960 And I think it's coming soon that we hear Jagmeet, he was never really NDP.

00:26:03.740 Like which other parties go, look, the number of times a year, they're really more liberal than NDP.

00:26:10.680 You know, so why do your members keep electing them as leader?

00:26:14.440 Well, look, I think the conservatives do that to a degree, not to the same degree, but there is constantly this, well, you know, down in the States, they'd be called rhinos, Republicans in name only.

00:26:26.680 And here they get called senos, conservatives in name only.

00:26:29.620 And, um, that's a, uh, something that the NDP and the conservatives have in common, you know, uh, is they've all got the shibboleth test for you, uh, to see, are you, are you one of us?

00:26:43.380 Are you pure?

00:26:44.420 Do you speak the language?

00:26:45.320 And, and there's a big faction of the conservative party that would rather be pure and right in their own way and sit off in the corner, never being in power.

00:26:55.700 That's a major part of the NDP is we'd rather, we'd rather be pure and never actually govern and get anything done, but at least we're right.

00:27:05.180 And we feel holier than now, you know, back to the title of your book.

00:27:08.720 Three years now, yeah.

00:27:09.880 One of those guys is Abby Lewis.

00:27:13.020 Now I've never met Abby.

00:27:14.400 I've got friends who've worked with him, who've been on a show.

00:27:18.400 Say he's a great guy, a smart guy, but, you know, he and his wife were part of the Leap Manifesto, which you do not appear to be a fan of.

00:27:28.380 I'll let you explain why.

00:27:29.720 Uh, but you had a line in, in the book that made me crack up where you talked about Avi Lewis and his Gretorick.

00:27:38.400 Thank you.

00:27:39.360 It's in Greta Thunberg.

00:27:41.000 And I actually burst out loud laughing.

00:27:43.160 I was like, yeah, that's it.

00:27:44.640 The Leap Manifesto, you know, I, I grew up in an NDP household.

00:27:48.740 That would have made my father and, uh, all of the, the, the blue collar guys in my East Hamilton, uh, neighborhood that had orange signs on their lawn, turned around and say, what the hell are you talking about?

00:28:04.500 Well, I mean, keep in mind, uh, I'm a West coast tree hunter, whale lover, right?

00:28:11.880 So I'm looking at the Leap Manifesto and I'm not objecting to it.

00:28:15.520 I'm thinking this is pretty cool, but when they took out Mulcair, right?

00:28:21.200 Like I'm two things that I wasn't a fan of.

00:28:23.940 One, they launched the Leap Manifesto in the middle of the campaign, which was odd because the people who were launching the Leap Manifesto know that the NDP is supposed to take their marching orders for membership, which means there was no world in which the NDP could go, this is our policy.

00:28:43.060 And I had a conversation with Finn Donnelly at one point where he felt the Leap Manifesto really took them off the game.

00:28:49.700 And I remember when the Leap Manifesto came out and the number of pieces that ran in media, uh, basically talking about how this was clearly the true NDP platform and the, the lengths Mulcair went to, to distance himself from it were astonishing.

00:29:10.920 So it became the focus of the campaign, but not in any positive way.

00:29:15.280 And it felt like the Leap Manifesto basically sabotaged the party most likely to implement the Leap Manifesto.

00:29:22.400 So that was problem.

00:29:24.060 One was politically how it was introduced.

00:29:26.080 My bigger one was that then the people from the Leap Manifesto basically have a coup, overthrow Tom Mulcair, and no one steps up.

00:29:39.380 You took, they took out the leader and then went, yes, mission accomplished.

00:29:44.640 I went, no, that will be part one.

00:29:47.180 If this is actually a plan.

00:29:49.020 You need to put someone in place that would implement this.

00:29:51.600 Uh-huh.

00:29:51.980 And at that time, that time would have been a brilliant time for Avi Lewis to step up and go, as one of the authors of Leap Manifesto, I'm going to run, or I'm going to, or better yet, his wife, Naomi Klein, who has such massive media presence, right?

00:30:10.560 And, you know, wonderful speaker, all of the things you could possibly want in a leader, uh, she could have stepped up. 1.00

00:30:17.900 Any of the 50 celebrities who backed the Leap Manifesto could have stepped up.

00:30:23.380 Uh, and nobody did.

00:30:25.480 And there, there was not a green, particularly green person running for the NDP.

00:30:29.620 And then Jagmeet shows up and I don't think he said a word about the environment until he ran in Burnaby and went, oh, wow, pipelines.

00:30:39.860 I better start talking about pipelines or I'm not winning this seat.

00:30:43.140 And suddenly you hear all of this stuff about pipelines from, which wasn't on his, you know, definitely wasn't on, you know, in the list of key talking points prior to moving to BC.

00:30:54.360 So give me your assessment, uh, of Jagmeet, you know, Tom Mulcair, uh, inherited, uh, a party, um, I think when the 2015 election started, they had 95 seats.

00:31:07.260 They went down to 44.

00:31:08.900 Yeah.

00:31:09.220 They lost a bunch of seats, but still second best showing ever for the federal NDP.

00:31:14.180 They shove them out.

00:31:15.380 As you say, Jagmeet wins, um, in part due to a broken leadership system that the NDP should really fix.

00:31:24.820 Uh, it's a bizarre leadership system and it could really bite them again.

00:31:31.020 You get, you can easily get single issue voters winning in the NDP in ways that you can't with the two parties that actually vie for party, uh, power in this country.

00:31:42.060 So, but Jagmeet takes them from 44 seats to 24 in 2019.

00:31:48.820 Then, you know, okay, you got one more in, in, in 2021, but then down to seven.

00:31:54.420 I mean, give me an assessment of him and, um, was it him?

00:32:00.580 Was it his work ethic?

00:32:01.900 Because I've often heard that criticized from new Democrats that he wasn't putting in the work to, to build the party.

00:32:08.400 Uh, was it that he didn't seem believable?

00:32:12.040 Was it racism?

00:32:13.280 I'm sure that's part of it in, in parts of the country.

00:32:16.620 Like, I'm sure it is, but they leaned into that.

00:32:21.540 Uh, you know, I found it fascinating that Mulcair basically said, you know, Quebec voters are racist.

00:32:30.340 Um, and then the NDP goes, yeah, okay, we can deal with that.

00:32:37.020 And sings our guy.

00:32:38.320 I'm like, okay, that's a choice.

00:32:41.120 But I look at singing go to me, what stood out as the two things being pushed is why he'd be the perfect leader.

00:32:50.420 Was it, he was going to revive the party in Ontario.

00:32:53.740 Cause he was, he had profile in Ontario and he was going to make it rain.

00:32:58.720 So he was going to bring in money and he was going to bring back the NDP to Ontario.

00:33:03.500 And so what does he do?

00:33:05.140 He can't get anybody to step down for him.

00:33:08.200 He, he not only runs in BC, which sure, you know, leaders do that.

00:33:12.500 You know, we're, we just saw that with the Tories.

00:33:15.240 You find a seat, you can win.

00:33:18.180 But he did something that I thought was just shocking.

00:33:20.920 And it was the moment I went, I think I'm going green now.

00:33:24.040 Uh, he announced he was going to stay in Burnaby and live in Burnaby.

00:33:27.980 And I went, oh my God, he's abandoned Ontario.

00:33:33.060 So I look at him and go, oh no, this was self-inflicted, right?

00:33:38.000 If he couldn't win a seat in Ontario, he had no business being leader of that party because that was his value proposition.

00:33:45.060 He was going to bring the NDP back in Ontario.

00:33:47.240 And if he could only, and instead he basically turned the NDP into a rival with the Greens in BC to win West Coast environmental votes, right?

00:33:59.840 Like the, the, the way he reduced the party was astonishing.

00:34:04.040 And you're right.

00:34:06.940 There are zero presence in Ontario.

00:34:09.220 Now they were below 5% in the last election, but how much of that is due to the winner of the 2025 Global Leader Award?

00:34:19.280 Justin Trudeau.

00:34:19.960 If you haven't seen, he got an award last night from some group in Chicago, calling them the 2025 Global Leader of the Year.

00:34:26.920 And I thought, he just resigned, but you know, Trudeau really leaned into the green politics.

00:34:31.780 So they clearly don't read the papers wherever they came to the award.

00:34:35.360 He resigned January 6th.

00:34:37.700 Oh, they wanted Katy Perry to show up at the awards ceremony.

00:34:40.920 Oh, that, yeah, that could have been it.

00:34:42.700 A good California girl.

00:34:44.060 So he, he, Trudeau, that is, really leaned into green politics.

00:34:50.220 He tried to eat away at the Greens lunch.

00:34:53.540 He tried to outflank the NDP on many policies, not everything, but he, not surprisingly, because of the people that surrounded him, a bunch of Kathleen Wynne, Ontario liberals, went to work for Justin Trudeau.

00:35:09.880 So he did what Kathleen Wynne did, which worked for a little while here, which was, hey, let's outflank the NDP and take away their seats in power. 0.98

00:35:19.780 So how much of the failure of both the Greens and the NDP is due to Justin Trudeau trying to outflank them and be like the greenest NDP-ist liberal leader in government ever?

00:35:32.720 Oh, he definitely deserves some credit for that, you know, because, but I mean, part of that again is just odd branding.

00:35:39.880 It, it, it's very hard to believe when Tom Mulcair goes, I'm going to run on a balanced budget.

00:35:46.340 I mean, that was, that was the winning moment for Trudeau going, and I'm going to help people.

00:35:52.520 I mean, it was like, politically, it was freaking awesome, you know?

00:35:56.960 So Mulcair says the NDP is going to balance the budget.

00:36:00.100 Nobody believes him.

00:36:01.040 But, but think about your party.

00:36:04.860 I mean, this is part of the problem with the NDP.

00:36:07.100 Yeah.

00:36:07.620 Is that it is a completely different party in every part of the country.

00:36:11.500 Yeah.

00:36:11.800 Because Prairie, Prairie New Democrats would have heard Tom Mulcair say, I'm going to balance the budget.

00:36:16.720 And a lot of them would have said, oh, good.

00:36:19.020 Just like Roy Romano used to.

00:36:20.840 Yes. 1.00

00:36:21.280 And out West and in Ontario, there would have been like, oh, why is the bastard going to do that? 0.99

00:36:29.840 Mm-hmm. 0.99

00:36:30.900 Well, this is one of the things that, that's fascinating to me.

00:36:33.940 I, I've listened to all of the different pundits, mostly from Ontario, talking about how, well, you know, the NDP is never going to go anywhere.

00:36:43.920 Cause just look at the presence they have in these other, in these provinces.

00:36:47.860 And I'm like, Wop Canoe is not running a particularly left, you know, party.

00:36:53.960 And in most of the places, the NDP is alive that are being cited as proof of life of the party, what you've essentially got is a two-party system where the NDP is essentially playing the part of the liberals.

00:37:08.680 Uh, you know, there, you've got a, you know, a party on the right ish and a party on the left ish, uh, in most provinces.

00:37:18.700 And, you know, there, there hasn't been a liberal party that was really aligned with the federal liberal party in BC, probably in my lifetime.

00:37:33.440 Uh, you know, that's just not the brand here.

00:37:36.560 You know, when Gordon Campbell took, like, there was a brief moment when a guy named Gordon Wilson ran the liberals where they believed in the same stuff as federal liberals.

00:37:44.600 Gordon Campbell just took it over cause that was the vehicle that was going to beat the NDP.

00:37:49.140 Like the PC party in Alberta for decades.

00:37:52.140 It was just the vehicle to power.

00:37:54.380 I remember the first time, first time I'm in Calgary talking to people, uh, I'm at the Petroleum Club of all places for an event.

00:38:02.400 And these people are describing how they're strong PCers and have been members for years and they donate money.

00:38:08.440 And then they're telling me their, their political views.

00:38:10.960 And I'm thinking, no, you're, you're very much a new Democrat, but it was a one party system.

00:38:16.020 Look, I know that the, uh, the focus of your book was not the Ontario NDP, but since you, you know, the party so well, you do know Ontario and you mentioned the two party system.

00:38:26.820 After the 2018 Ontario election, when the liberals were decimated and became known as the minivan party, because they could all fit in one vehicle.

00:38:37.420 I thought the NDP has a real chance here to turn Ontario into a two party state, the way things are in, uh, every province west of the Ontario Manitoba border.

00:38:51.820 I thought there was a real opportunity there and Andrea Horvath and now Merritt Stiles have utterly failed to take advantage of that.

00:39:00.880 And now there's a little bit of liberal life back and, you know, Doug Ford's playing with the, um, some of the election rules by extending the per vote subsidy.

00:39:10.560 And the only reason he's doing that is not because he likes it, but because it keeps the greens, the NDP and the liberals all alive so they can fight each other and he can win the next election and be premier forever.

00:39:20.740 Um, but you know, do they just, from what you would know of the Ontario NDP, did they just not have the killer instinct to say the liberals are gasping for air?

00:39:30.440 Let's step on their neck a little bit. 1.00

00:39:32.540 They really didn't.

00:39:34.240 And it really, it was like, yes, let's go even, you know, let's go more hardcore.

00:39:40.580 And I'm like, no, no, this, this is the time you can go for it.

00:39:45.260 And really, I always felt like Harper's end game.

00:39:48.360 And part of the affection that he seemed to have for Jack Layton was he was trying to get Canada down to a two party system.

00:39:55.260 Um, that's what it always looked like to me was that he was trying to go, yeah, if it's a binary between us and the NDP instead of us and liberals, we become the national governing party and they take over every four elections.

00:40:07.300 That felt like Harper's end game.

00:40:08.740 I was like, Harper's end game.

00:40:12.360 My, my most, uh, accurate, freaky political prediction was a jillion years ago.

00:40:18.180 I read a book called the little book of reform about Preston Manning back when the party had two seats.

00:40:23.360 Uh, that was on a political panel for TV Ontario on election night.

00:40:27.940 And I got the, it was all comedians.

00:40:30.040 And I got the biggest laugh of the night when all of the votes were in except for BC and Alberta.

00:40:35.560 And they said, well, it looks like block back, block back was the official opposition.

00:40:40.620 I said, you haven't seen the votes from BC and Alberta yet.

00:40:43.560 Stand tight.

00:40:44.320 Cause I think, you know, uh, I think that reform is going to take 50 seats and wow, biggest laugh of the night.

00:40:51.260 And when I wrote that book, people said, so do you think Preston Manning is going to be prime minister?

00:40:56.040 I said, hell no.

00:40:57.160 The guy to watch is this guy, Stephen Harper, who's done everything with him.

00:41:00.860 And I was so proud of that.

00:41:02.800 Like, and I kept telling people, no, no, the guy to watch is Stephen Harper.

00:41:06.580 Uh, because he seems to be planning everything right down to, I mean, really the genius self-destruct clause in the reform party that went, if we don't achieve this and this and this by such and such a date, we start a new party.

00:41:22.540 And the Canadian Alliance happened.

00:41:24.420 I went, wow.

00:41:26.140 I, I so wish progressive parties would take that approach and go, yeah, this didn't work.

00:41:30.260 We're going to start again.

00:41:31.680 Uh, we'll do something new.

00:41:33.080 So yeah, that would be exciting.

00:41:36.380 That'll be interesting.

00:41:37.080 And I thought, wow, he's figured out how to do that.

00:41:39.940 So let me ask you, um, you, you finished talking about bright green politics and going forward, where does the green movement go?

00:41:50.480 Is it part of the progressive movement?

00:41:52.780 Um, you know, Mark Carney is a different cat.

00:41:57.600 Of course he wrote values, which I think is on the shelf behind me here.

00:42:00.900 He wrote values, which was very much a green progressive manifesto of sorts.

00:42:06.820 Doesn't seem to be governing that way.

00:42:09.300 So it looks like, you know, these parties might be dead right now, but with the right leader, the right pitch, there's an opportunity for them.

00:42:19.160 So what do you see in the coming years?

00:42:22.340 Make your Stephen Harper like prediction for the green and the progressive side.

00:42:27.380 My Stephen Harper like prediction right now is that as long as Paul Yev's around, uh, I think Carney can do pretty much anything and he's going to keep the NDP and the greens off the map.

00:42:44.560 Because I think, you know, the, in some respects, the greens finally got the ultimate wish they had a, you know, Paul Yev was running on a campaign all about climate policy.

00:42:57.960 He was trying desperately to turn everything into climate policy.

00:43:01.560 I mean, the most hilarious slide was he, he's so, he seems to get so attached to certain phrasings that he was talking about carbon tax Clark when he was, you know, when she looked like she might run for liberals.

00:43:13.360 I'm like, oh, you mean the woman that got rid of the carbon tax?

00:43:15.920 That's who you're trying?

00:43:17.140 The woman who approved LNG pipelines?

00:43:19.860 That, that, that's who you're going to tag as, as the carbon tax candidate.

00:43:23.800 But I feel like he's creating a really untenable situation for pretty much anybody who isn't, like I said, isn't into him.

00:43:35.140 Uh, so we'll see, but I kind of wish that the Carney who's governing would meet the Carney who wrote values.

00:43:44.480 Uh, I wish those two guys would have a conversation.

00:43:51.200 You know, um, I did hear someone say recently, uh, that, um, they want to know which Mark Carney is going to govern.

00:44:01.200 Is it the fiscally conservative Mark Carney, who was the bank of Canada governor through the fiscal crisis in 08, 09?

00:44:07.540 Is it the, uh, values Mark Carney, uh, who clearly was on the progressive green side of things, uh, declaring that Greta is one of his people?

00:44:18.420 Uh, is it the centrist Mark Carney that, uh, wants you to believe he's something different than those previous two?

00:44:24.240 And the fact is we still don't know.

00:44:26.660 Uh, I keep, uh, citing an obscure movie called about last night where, uh, Rob Lowe keeps asking, um, uh, John Belushi or Jim Belushi.

00:44:35.760 Is she, is she a pro?

00:44:36.920 And the answer is at this point, we don't know.

00:44:39.660 And that's my answer to about everything with Mark Carney.

00:44:41.780 At this point, we don't know.

00:44:43.140 I get that.

00:44:43.720 Um, so Mark, uh, politics should be fun and funny and, uh, folks from different, um, uh, sides should talk.

00:44:52.880 So, uh, thanks for the book because it is fun.

00:44:55.300 And thanks for coming on the podcast and having a fun conversation.

00:44:58.940 Thank you so much for inviting me on.

00:45:01.160 Full comment is a post-media podcast.

00:45:03.520 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:45:04.900 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:45:09.040 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:45:10.980 Please hit subscribe, give us a like, share us on social media.

00:45:14.980 Thanks for listening.

00:45:15.920 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:45:20.540 Here's that clip from Canada Did What?

00:45:23.180 I promised you.

00:45:23.920 So, um, although, uh, although abortion was sort of accessible, it really wasn't.

00:45:35.140 But then 1988 rolls around.

00:45:37.280 And what's the law on abortion then?

00:45:40.060 Suddenly, there wasn't one.

00:45:42.740 Literally no restrictions existed in 1988.

00:45:45.540 Abortion went from heavily restricted to completely unrestricted almost overnight.

00:45:51.620 There was no referendum on this.

00:45:53.960 There wasn't even an act of parliament.

00:45:56.140 This whole thing is due to a somewhat surprised decision out of the Supreme Court of Canada.

00:46:00.780 And it came about in large part because of one man, a Canadian doctor who had been relentless about running illegal abortion clinics since the 1960s and was determined to overturn the laws prohibiting the practice.

00:46:13.080 Along the way, he endured multiple arrests, constant raids, a jail term, a firebombing of his clinic, an attack by a fanatic wielding garden shears, the approbation of virtually his entire profession, and frequent death threats.

00:46:29.080 If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What? everywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - November 03, 2025

Cautionary tales from a refugee of NDP and Green party ecopolitics

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